Forging a New Mindset | North Topeka Fabrication
It’s been one year since Scott Lee, Ryan Juhnke, Travis Gould and Joshua Barbery made the shift from employees to owners of North Topeka Fabrication.
Rather than rush in with sweeping changes, the four partners have been focused on maintaining the metal fabrication company’s foundation built by founder and former owner Jim Lee — Scott’s uncle and a long-time colleague of the other partners.
“I think all of us really believe in the culture Jim built around this place,” Ryan said. “He built a good framework and focused on doing business right and we saw a lot of potential in keeping the growth going.”
Scott said he and the other partners decided to step in and keep the business running when Jim was approaching retirement.
“Jim had been in the business for 50 years and was getting to that point when he was ready to consider stepping away,” said Scott. “The four of us figured out a plan to make it work. Jim was all about keeping the business in touch with the people he knew and trusted, so he could eventually pass it on.”
The fact that people who already understood the business were taking over was something that appealed to Jim, Scott added, allowing him to step away feeling happy with the arrangements.
“In a lot of ways, Jim really deserves to be recognized the most,” Scott said. “He deserves so much credit in the services he’s provided to companies and employees.”
Scott, who has a combined 24 years of experience in outside sales, purchasing and customer service, worked with a metal wholesaler before getting into the fabrication side of the business.
Travis brings to the team more than a decade of experience as an equipment operator for brakes, punches and lasers, and Josh has run programming, equipment and shop management for 25 years.
Ryan has been in the industry for 18 years and originally joined North Topeka Fabrication to handle inside sales and other financial and administrative duties.
He said the partners’ diverse backgrounds and the fact that they work so well together, helped them feel confident when taking over the reigns.
“We were all involved in North Topeka Fabrication from an early stage. We watched it grow from a very small shop with a few employees and pieces of equipment to what it is today, with million-dollar machines serving industries close to home and far away,” Ryan said. “I think the company took off faster than any of us would have guessed and we, as well as Jim, wanted to see it continue in the right direction.”
With a year of “sprucing up” under their belt, the partners are forging ahead with an innovative mindset that will lead the shop into a new, stronger-than-steel era.
BRACING FOR CHANGE
From food to auto, North Topeka Fabrication’s work spans some pretty diverse industries.
Their bread and butter? Welding metal parts for manufacturers.
While the shop’s clients are local, their clients’ own work spans the globe. Handiwork from North Topeka Fabrication has appeared in places as distant as Hollywood, Manhattan’s One World Trade Center and an art show in Italy.
Some of their work is so top secret, they can’t discuss it.
“They’re just steel parts, but to know what they’re doing and where they’re going is pretty cool,” Scott said.
Since taking over as owners, Scott, Joshua, Travis and Ryan have been navigating an increased demand for bigger pieces.
“We make a lot of obscure parts, but also parts that people see on a day-to-day basis,” Scott said.
“We make body panels and brackets for construction equipment and trailer manufacturers that you see driving down the road every day. We also make panels and parts that end up in food packaging equipment, decorative pieces in hotel rooms, medical equipment, mailboxes and sports equipment.
”Recently, North Topeka Fabrication has expanded their welding capabilitiesand capacity for assembly and paint, with the goal of producing a more finished product.
Although the shop formerly made its living selling small brackets, it has seen a spike in the number of complete units that manufacturers order.
Such a shift requires adjustments, from the type of machinery they use to the number of staff they need on the floor.
But filling every position on the shop floor has proved to be one of their biggest challenges. They posted job advertisements and turned to temp agencies, eventually building up their crew, but the next challenge was training them — an undertaking they say can take up to six months.
“For what we do, there’s no vocational training around here,” Joshua said. “We have to take people in with basically no experience and teach them how to run multimillion-dollar machines.”
Fortunately, training new employees is a practice their former boss Jim taught them to embrace.
“Jim always gave people a chance. He could tell when somebody wanted the skills and he would teach it,” Scott said. “If someone wants a job, we want them here.”
PIECE-BY-PIECE IMPROVEMENTS
With a strong crew in place, Scott, Joshua, Travis and Ryan got to work making improvements. Turning to longtime staff, they committed to enhancing the shop setup and culture to make day-to-day work smoother.
“The guys who have been in the shop for a long time can see what the stresses are on the floor,” Ryan said. “We’ve made investments to make things easier and save staff from the stress of the day-to-day repetitive movements.”
The partners also doubled down on promoting a positive company culture. Committed to squashing problems before they start, they gave employees space to vent or simply walk away when they need a break.
“We’ve worked really hard on making a good environment where people want to work,” Ryan said. “Everybody’s had one of those jobs where they walk on eggshells around people. We stress a positive attitude here.”
CONTINUING THE CRAFT
While the partners have a vision for a more forward-thinking future, they skipped any mention of target sales numbers. Instead, their goal is simply to take care of clients and employees.
“We have numbers we know we need to hit to be able to take care of the building and the employees here,” Ryan said. “That’s always been the main focus.”
But that doesn’t mean North Topeka Fabrication is done growing. The partners foresee expanding in another few years. In fact, they already have the land.
“Growth has never been a problem. It’s managing that growth properly,” Ryan said. “Our challenge is changing our outlook from what do we need to do today to what do we need to do in two, five and 10 years from now.”
Scott, Joshua, Travis and Ryan believe the investments they made over the past year will set the tone for the future and continue the legacy Jim passed to them.
“Our successes aren’t glamorous, but we spruced up some things,” Scott said. “Jim laid the foundation of what we were going to be best at. There are always things that evolve and things that we have to do better, but that foundation never left.”
