Ex-Moog workers' business thrives

WEST VALLEY CITY — Ron McReynolds and partner Hector Renderos know it sounds cliché telling how new doors of opportunity opened for them four years ago when impending layoffs were closing others.

But it was largely opportunity of their own making as the pair successfully turned pink slips from Moog Aircraft Group into H&R Precision, a small, thriving, west-side manufacturing business.

But here's the kicker to their interim happy ending: McReynolds and Renderos are achieving this performing mostly the same close tolerance machining work that they cut their teeth on and became familiar with during a combined 50 years working at Moog. The difference is that instead of being employed by the multinational aerospace giant, McReynolds and Renderos now toil for themselves as Moog subcontractor vendors.

"I've turned into the wrong parking lot five times," jokes McReynolds. "But we've been fortunate. I don't know how else to say it. As Moog kept cutting back, we knew what to do — how to make it work."

Along the way, H&R Precision has turned into something of a safe house for former Moog employees who have subsequently been let go as the company continues downsizing its West Valley City operation. H&R currently has 17 employees. Most are either ex-Moog workers or their children. One was coaxed out of retirement. Another is a 64-year-old who wants to keep working until he turns 70.

The money is good. McReynolds said most were hired at market value, near or approaching what they were earning at Moog. The low end of the pay scale for machinists is $19-$20 an hour. The high end reaches $30 per hour. Overtime is sometimes available, too. At the start, benefits ranged from skimpy to nonexistent, although H&R recently launched its own smaller benefits package. "We're trying not to take all the cream off the top," McReynolds says of himself and his partner.

The fact that there is an H&R at all is the result of the partners taking a major leap of faith back in early 2006 when they learned that Moog would be shutting down its Utah machining operation. Both were told they'd be without jobs inside of six months.

That prompted McReynolds and Renderos to put their heads together to come up with a two-pronged business strategy. First they would bid to buy Moog's soon-to-be surplus machining equipment. If successful on that front, their next move would be to bid to secure the machining contract.

They won both bids and were soon setting up shop in adjacent manufacturing space located just 400 feet from Moog's main plant. Their initial startup investment of $100,000, mostly equipment purchasing costs, now generates yearly business between $1.8 million and $2 million.