Page 19 - MetalForming April 2020

PMA’s districts to award $1000 schol- arships to individuals seeking a career in the metalforming industry. Each award, for one year, will be granted based on academic merit. Post-sec- ondary students may re-apply for con- sideration the following year, but no applicant may receive more than two scholarship awards; trade-job-training
and certificate-program applicants are limited to one award. Details are avail- able at www.pma.org/foundation/micro- grants.asp.
Advocacy Remains at the Forefront
Turnbull became actively involved in PMA in 2012, and attended the One
Voice Washington, D.C., fly-in program that year to meet with congress mem- bers and promote a pro-manufacturing legislative agenda. “One Voice, a col- laborative effort between PMA and the National Tooling & Machining Associ- ation (NTMA),” explains Turnbull, “pro- vides lobbying and strategic commu- nications to ensure that our industry's
Manufacturing Company
Troy-Turnbull-PMA-Chairman
PMA’s 2020 board chairman Troy Turnbull comes from a family with a rich history in manu- facturing and entrepreneurship. His father was a master mechanic and owned his own busi- ness; his great grandfather owned an automobile and truck repair shop, built from the ground up in 1926 and which still exists; and his mother operates her own hair salon that she started 45 years ago.
“My family encouraged me to learn a trade,” Turnbull recalls. That directive took many twists and turns through his youth, including participating in a diesel-mechanic program at Ferris State University; in a tool and die apprenticeship program at a Grand Rapids, MI, metal- stamping company; stints as a machine operator at a mold shop and a screw-
machine company; and, eventually, as a CNC machine operator, in 1992, at Nelson Metal Products, a local die casting company.
“As an apprentice, I often worked long, hard hours, and developed a solid work ethic and an appreciation for manufacturing,” Turnbull says. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do out of high school, but lucky for me the school offered wood shop, metal shop and auto mechanics classes, along with mechanical drafting. Without those classes, I wouldn’t be where I am today, and that education certainly pre- pared me well for working at Nelson Metal Products, which was growing rapidly at the time and created opportunities for me to work my way up.”
Turnbull eventually became a junior process engineer at the company, overseeing a new-product launch for one of the company’s major customers. “I worked side-by-side with quality engineers, company executives and even the company president,” he recalls, “and learned a lot. Most of all, I learned to respect everyone in the workforce, in the office and on the floor.”
Turnbull spent several years at Nelson (over two stints) and then fur-
thered his learning journey by spending time working in another, smaller die casting shop, and then in a press shop.
“While I found the trade that my family had asked of me—tooling, hydraulics and mechanics—working on the process side taught me so much more,” he says. “I gained experience with the casting process and machines, die design, robotics, scheduling and managing projects, and that got me on my way. I learned to listen to and respect people, and to stand up for what I believe in.
“I’ve always been willing to take risks, too,” Turnbull continues, “which led me to Industrial Innovations and Spra-Rite, two sep- arate companies combined into one. In 1995, while working on a project at Nelson Metal to replace a central lubrication system, I came to understand the Industrial Innovations product line. I liked it so much that in 2001, I decided to acquire a percentage of the company (based just outside of Memphis, TN), along with two other partners.”
Turnbull and his partners eventually moved the company to Wyoming, MI, “and I started my first manufacturing facility,” he says. “We literally started with a few hand tools, a DOS-based computer and a dot-matrix printer. Luckily for me, the founding owner of the company moved to Michigan to help set up shop, teach me the business, and teach me how to be a businessman— things you just don’t learn in school.”
In 2008-2009, the company hit hard times and the partnership dissolved. “Through pure determination, a lot of luck and the support of my family, I kept the company open,” Turnbull continues, “and I became sole owner in 2010. Without my parents and especially my wife Robyn, I would never have made it where I am today. My employees, of which many are family and close friends, all have supported me through the good times and bad.”
Since that time, the company has grown considerably, selling lubrication systems to stamping and casting facilities. In 2014, Turnbull acquired Advance Products Corporation’s Automation Division, a casting-industry supplier, and combined it with Industrial Innovations. More recently, Turnbull has sought to expand the company’s core competencies into job-shop fabrication and machining—CNC plasma cutting, drilling, forming, sawing, welding and more—as well as robotic-system integration, for numerous manufacturing applications. It operates out of a 23,000-sq.-ft. shop with 15 employees.
“Today, Industrial Innovations is about 80-percent lubrication systems and robot integration, 20-percent fabrication and machining services,” Turnbull shares. “The goal is to get to 50-50.”
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