Preci Manufacturing retains an edge

Keeping a business all in the family allows for continuity and consistency, but it can also present challenges. Consider the case of Preci Manufacturing, run for all 32 of its years by Marcel Grunvald and, in recent years, by his sons as well. Lloyd Grunvald serves as general manager while Jeff Grunvald handles sales and office operations.

“Thank God the Grunvald family doesn’t hold grudges,” Jeff said recently in a conference room at Preci’s plant in Winooski’s Highland Industrial Park. ”We can be the worst enemies in the morning, have lunch together, and be the best of friends by the afternoon.”

Father and sons may not always agree on a day-to-day basis, but they have figured out a formula for long-term success. Preci employs about 95 workers in a 38,000-square-foot facility that makes precision components for jet engines and armored vehicles. The company is adding 15,000 square feet to a manufacturing space crammed full of machinery, and it may take on as many as 25 new employees to handle the orders it gets from defense contractors such as Pratt & Whitney and from manufacturing firms such as Husky Injection Molding Systems.

Producing parts for tanks and for F-16 and F-18 fighter planes has proved to be a dependable line of work. “We’re in a business that isn’t moving overseas,” says Jeff Grunvald. National security considerations make it unlikely that military-related precision manufacturing will be outsourced to China or any other country, he notes.

Preci takes a nimble and resourceful approach to competing in a field where “it’s either grow or die,” Grunvald continues. He cites a new manufacturing process that the company introduced a few years ago in response to the soaring costs of chrome and nickel. The switch enabled Preci to make the same products with less material, he says.

The company moved to Winooski from Montreal in 1978 because Marcel Grunvald, now 79, was worried about the effects of Quebec’s separatist movement on the province’s business climate. Marcel, who still spends 60 hours a week overseeing the company’s manufacturing operations, had considered relocating the firm to Ottawa or Plattsburgh, Jeff recounts. Winooski was chosen because Mark Tigan, the city’s development director at the time, “was doing all he could to attract businesses,” Jeff says.

He points to Vermont’s quality of life as another key factor. The local workforce is also seen as a major asset that has been strengthened in recent years by the addition of Laotian, Bosnian, Chinese and Sudanese immigrants, Grunvald notes. “Their attitude is great,” he says.

State government has been helpful as well, Grunvald adds. The $640,000 million loan Preci secured last year for its $1.7 million expansion was the fifth financing package it has received from the Vermont Economic Development Authority, he says. Efficiency Vermont, the state’s energy-saving utility, has enabled Preci to reduce its electricity bills, Grunvald notes.

In other respects, however, Vermont does little to assist companies like Preci, Grunvald suggests. “This has never been a pro-business state,” he says. “Vermont doesn’t have any incentives for businesses besides the low-interest loans that VEDA provides.”

Apparently attractive initiatives on the part of the state can turn out to be laden with complicated conditions, Grunvald says. “In Canada, getting an R&D grant from the government takes no effort whatsoever,” he says. “Here, it’s never simple.”