Around 1967 my father and mother started what would become Another Screw Machine Products in the basement of the Columbus, New Jersey house where I was born and raised. At the time, my father worked during the day at a screw machine shop in Bucks County, Pennsylvania while moonlighting on two or three Brown & Sharpe screw machines at home. He borrowed the money to buy the machines from my grandfather. He was introduced to the industry by his uncle, Harrison Goodall (aka Uncle Goody.) Dad learned quickly and was very proficient as a B&S set-up man. He excelled through the ranks and found himself supervising the Pennsylvania shop. Always personable and confident, he soon acquired enough of his own customers to keep his little basement shop busy and make a go at it full-time.
He hired Uncle Goody, bought a few more machines and worked under the name Accurate Screw Machine Products. One of his first customers was a Davenport shop that produced injection molded inserts and Dad ran their lower quantity jobs and specials. Although it has been through a couple of sales and name changes, we still work for that company today.
By the mid-70s our basement was getting a little cramped and an opportunity presented itself in the form of an available uptown corner building. It consisted of a gas station, hair salon, and general store. It also had enough space behind those businesses to expand his screw machine shop to a respectable size. My mother kept the books and they had ten to twelve employees. Around the summer of 1980, I started working for my parents after school. At first, I was pulling handles on a drill press and working in the shipping department doing second operations and getting parts out the door.
That summer my father decided to dip his toes in the CNC Swiss screw machine market. We drove to the Star CNC Machine Tool headquarters in NY and looked at a new Star VNC-20 Swiss machine. I remember thinking – wow, this sure looks complicated! Dad knew it would open us to different markets that we currently couldn’t serve. It would also eliminate some of the second operations on parts we already produced. I was nervous about the cost because he had never spent so much on a machine! The machine was delivered in the late summer, and I was given a crash course on how to set up and run it. It took a while to learn but eventually I got proficient enough to make it profitable.
My parents’ always had a dream to move west, and I knew since grade school someday I'd live somewhere in Montana, Wyoming, or Idaho. I graduated high school in 1983 and headed to the University of Montana as a business major. When I returned to the shop for summer break, I realized how much I enjoyed working with my family. Although I did well in school, I started questioning whether college was the right path. I left school after my sophomore year, went back to NJ and started working full time in the shop.
In the summer of 1987, my parents decided it was time to start making their dream come true. New Jersey was changing and it seemed the right time. One of my father's customers was interested in buying the company as well as the real estate where the shop sat. We decided to keep three machines, a few customers, and start “Another” Screw Machine Products Company. I credit my mother with the name.
In the fall of '87 my parents visited my sister and her family in Spokane, Washington. While there, they took a drive to the Sandpoint, Idaho area and decided this was the place they wanted to live the rest of their lives. They bought a home and a piece of industrial property then hired a contractor to build the shop. The shop was completed in mid-summer of '88 and most of my family made the exodus from New Jersey. Meanwhile, I rented space in our former shop and ran the CNC Swiss. At the time I had a serious girlfriend and was unsure what our future looked like. Fortunately, Lisa decided to move 2500 miles away and start a life in Idaho with me and we married a couple years later.
Our shop in Ponderay, Idaho opened in September of 1988. We had two Brown & Sharpe screw machines and our Star CNC Swiss machine. For a couple months it was just my father and me doing everything from running machines to shipping parts. Looking back, it was one of the best times of my life. We weren’t crushing it, but we were doing well. Within a couple of years my father had to repossess the equipment that was sold with his business. We also regained access to prior customers because the purchaser broke the contract when they tried to auction off his equipment. We added his Brown & Sharpe machines to our floor and started looking for help. Business was growing and we had customers from across the country. In the late '90s, we started adding more personnel and CNC Swiss machines. We were making parts for all sorts of different industries: aerospace, dental, medical, firearm and many others. My mother kept our books with my wife picking up some of that responsibility when Mom needed time off. Unfortunately, my mother passed suddenly in 2002. It was a very difficult time for our family; especially my father.
My wife Lisa and I had our son Dakota in May of '93. He enjoyed his youth living in Sandpoint playing sports, fishing, hunting, skiing, and boating. He did well in school and we always expected he'd further his education. After graduating from Montana State University with a mathematics degree, we gave him the option of working in the shop to earn money for his master’s degree. He quickly picked up the CNC Swiss machines and decided living in his hometown was a pretty good place to set his roots. I never thought he'd become involved in our business.
For five years, between 2015 and 2020, I had the privilege of working with both my father and son. My father was in his late eighties when he decided to give up his spot at his desk. It wasn’t an easy transition to full retirement, and he wasn’t exactly happy about it. His knowledge of the Brown & Sharpe machines was invaluable and he still helped our set up guys when they got in a pickle. My father passed shortly before he turned ninety. He worked in a screw machine shop about seventy years, around fifty of those years with me and five with his grandson. We were all very close. I think of him every day along with the legacy he built.
We currently have a dozen CNC Swiss screw machines and seven B&S machines. Although most of our work is done on the Swiss machines, we still run jobs the Brown & Sharpe machines; they were what started our business and I don’t have the heart to get rid of them. I thank my parents every now and then for bringing me to this special part of our country and giving me the opportunity to thrive in it. My family has been very blessed.