Profile: Jeff Metts, Dowding Machining

Manufacturing parts for the rapidly growing U.S. wind turbine industry

Jeff Metts is expanding Dowding Machining with the intent of putting unemployed workers back on the job making parts for wind turbines in one of the states worst-hit by the current economic crisis.

"I know most businesses are pulling back and hunkering down, but we see more opportunity as a manufacturing company than we've ever seen," said Metts.

Dowding Machining, a spin-off of the company that's been in the Dowding family for 44 years, began manufacturing parts for the rapidly growing U.S. wind turbine industry three years ago. He quickly realized his company needed to improve the decades-old technology used to make next-generation wind turbines.

"We started thinking about a different way we could make the thousands and thousands of parts needed for a wind turbine," said Metts. "We realized that we needed to stop thinking like a job shop, and instead start thinking like an auto production facility to make these parts to get huge savings."

In September 2008, with assistance from the state of Michigan, Metts' company invested $9 million in a new 38,000-square foot facility and bought three massive, multimillion dollar pieces of U.S. -made equipment to machine large components for wind turbines.

But Metts had a problem: None of his workers could operate the massive new machines. "The heaviest thing we'd ever machined was 100 pounds," he said. "These windmill parts weigh more than 40,000 pounds." He said it is difficult to maintain the levels of precision — thousandths of an inch — needed to produce the parts. "Imagine cutting a hair in half; then cutting it again, and again, and again once more," he said. "The best place — really the only place to find those guys — was the auto industry."

Metts plans to hire 200-300 new workers as he implements new technologies. "We're very optimistic. I don't think you're going to stop this now. We're talking about millions of jobs for the U.S.

"I don't think there's anywhere in the world better to do this than Michigan," Metts added. "We have the people with the know-how to run these machines. Here they were in an industry that was the heart and soul of America, and it just closed out underneath them. But now a whole new industry is stirring to life that needs exactly what they can do."
 

Posted: 26-Feb-2009; Updated: 17-Feb-2009