(upbeat music)
- Hello again, Maria.
- Hello.
- How are you?
- Good, good, good.
- Great.
So we're continuing on the discussion
of the Grow Salinas Fund,
which has been a very successful program that you manage.
And you work with many businesses in our community.
So we did talk to Central Coast Sign and Design.
- Yes.
- And do you now want to introduce our other guest?
- Yes, I'm happy to do so, I'm happy to introduce
Lorenzo Lopez, who is the general manager
of North County Industrial Machine.
And he is here with us today
and will talk a little bit about his business
and how we were able to assist him
with a Grow Salinas Loan.
- Thank you very much for having me here.
- [Ray] Yeah, well welcome, Lorenzo,
it's great to have you on the program.
- Thank you.
- [Ray] And we're gonna hear a lot more about your business
and what you do, and the impact here locally.
- Yes.
- [Ray] So how did you first meet up with the business and--
- Well, I had started working with the Grow Salinas Fund
and let staff know, especially in our permit center,
in case they came across any business owner
who was looking to expand their business
and perhaps would be in need of some financial assistance.
And I get a call rom Lorenzo,
who was actually at the permit center,
and inquiring about different, maybe perhaps,
grants or loan programs that are available through the city.
So they gave him my business card,
I always make sure that they have
my business card downstairs,
so he made the call, placed the call,
and I was able to explain to him,
what the Grow Salinas Fund was,
made an appointment and visited with him on site.
And that's how the relationship started
and how they started with the loan application process.
- Right.
How long ago was that, Maria?
- I think it's been about, again, maybe two to three years
since they started the process,
and have successfully gone through the process
and actually are looking.
One of the nice things about Grow America Fund
is that they also allow those existing loans
that they first approved to reapply
if any of those business need some additional funding.
And so North County was able to do that.
And they're in that second phase right now.
So, it's great to see that happen.
- Well, Lorenzo, tell us
a little bit more about your company
and what product or services you provide.
- I'm the manager there.
This is actually Jose Torres' company.
It's North County Industrial Machine shop.
We have been in the industry for 14 years.
We provide repair services and manufacture of parts
to the agricultural industry,
for conveyors, some equipment that comes from overseas
that it's hard to get,
so we try to make the part or repair the part.
- [Ray] So it's very customized?
- Yes.
We make prototypes of certain items,
and if the customer agrees to it and likes it,
or wants to make adjustments, we do so.
But, mainly repairs, repairs.
- So how many clients,
businesses do you work with in the area?
Is it just in Monterey, or South County,
or are you up and down the central coast?
- We cover all Monterey County,
down from King City all the way up to San Juan Bautista.
We have certain customers out in Fremont and San Jose.
But 95% of our business is here in the Central Coast.
- And most of those are
agriculturally based kinds of business?
- Not necessarily.
We have wineries, wineries.
We have wineries, big companies
like Robert Mann Packing, cardboard.
So we have a variety.
There's some walk-in customers
that need help with their restaurants,
some items that need to be made.
So anything to do with metal, we take care of.
- So they started out at a certain location, right?
- Yes.
When I first visited their office on Brunken Avenue,
there are several small warehouses
that house small, light industrial business.
So I came into the office,
and there must have been five
or six individuals in this small office,
and that was where they operated,
that was where they had their reception area,
their accounts payable, and then of course,
Lorenzo's office, and Jose's office.
So, very small.
Quickly I had a tour of the facility,
and Lorenzo showed me some welding equipment that they had,
but were not able to use because of the space.
They had the certain equipment,
but because they were limited to the space,
they were not able to use this equipment.
So they were looking at expanding,
they were looking at moving,
and they were also looking at purchasing,
again, specialized equipment.
And so, part of their fund was for that use,
to help them purchase the equipment,
and also to help them relocate to a much bigger facility.
Yes, and so when I went out again to see their new site,
much bigger facility, and more employees
that they were able to hire.
And it was the equipment,
definitely was being used by the employees.
So to see them from a small location
to expand into a much larger location, was really great.
- Lorenzo, how large a location is it?
Do you know, approximately, square footage?
- We were about 20 people in the old location, splitted in--
- [Ray] That sounds crowded.
(laughing)
- And I was splitted in about
four different locations in the same complex.
So we weren't together, but we were in the same location.
The new place is one and half acres.
- [Ray] Good size.
Huge.
- With two 10,000 square feet buildings.
The equipment, that Maria was saying,
we had a bunch of equipment tat was unused,
now since we moved, we were able to
make these machines to work and we're using them.
We went from 20 employees to now 50 employees.
- [Ray] Wow, that's quite a jump.
- Quite a jump.
- Quite a jump. - Yes.
- That's almost two and a half times.
- Yes.
- It was quite scary at the beginning.
I remember--
- You remember all those employees names.
- It's so hard to hire one or two employees,
and when we had one of the conditions
and requirements from the loan
was to hire at least eight people and retain them,
I kinda got scared, 'cause I said,
it's so hard to hire people
when not only we hired eight,
but we hired almost 30 more.
And with the peace of mind of having created positions
that were never available to us,
such as now a human resources department,
an accounting department, inventory department,
designing department, we even have
an engineer that works on site for us.
It's much easier for everyone else,
gives us a peace of mind.
We're finally running a business.
- You really scaled up from 20 to 50,
are you looking to even add more?
- Well that's one of the purposes
of acquiring the new piece of land.
We want to build and we want to expand.
We do not wanna move, we want to grow.
- Well we're happy to hear about that, right?
- Yes, we are.
That's why it's called the Grow Salinas Fund.
(laughs)
- We want you here in Salinas.
(laughs)
- Yes.
- So when would that next step happen?
So you're at 50, two buildings at 10,000 square feet,
you wanna add more.
- Yes, it's happening.
It's happening starting this year.
- Okay, great.
- So, once we have the property,
we will start beginning the process of
getting the right personnel in there,
and hopefully succeed as we are now.
- So you're scaling up, you have a business plan,
sounds like you're doing well overall
in how your business operates,
it must do well in the market.
You must have lots of clients now, too.
- Yes, it's one of the things that unfortunately
we don't advertise and were tied up.
We're so busy, we can't.
- Busy. - A lot of word of mouth.
- A lot, yes.
And we have a saying, we get surrounded by good people,
then we will be doing good.
And we have good people surrounding us.
We have Maria that helps us when I have a financial need.
And not only that, but when we're hiring,
we look for agencies in the community
that can provide us the people that we may be looking at.
Some of these people need second opportunities,
and we are there to provide them
if they are qualified to perform the job.
Some success histories that we have in the company
is that we have maintenance personnel come in,
and in one or two years,
this person who started cleaning, maintaining the property
has become a welder.
- Wow.
So do you train them, Lorenzo,
or do you send them to class?
- If they are interested in learning,
we take the time to put him with someone else
who's experienced to teach him.
- Great.
So many of your jobs are probably skilled kinds of jobs
because they require customized equipment,
and customized orders for these different businesses, right?
- Right.
Yes, that's very important to say.
Yes, this equipment is heavy equipment,
it's very delicate equipment.
You can't just have anybody turn on a machine,
you need to have the knowledge, the experience.
But that's why we have the right personnel who,
if someone wants to learn,
we give him the right person to show him.
Now this is done after hours, not during work,
'cause it becomes a liability if there's an issue.
- [Ray] Sure.
- But we successfully have been open
seven days a week for the last five years.
- That amazing.
So, are most of your workers local as well?
- Yes.
When we're interviewing, where you're from
doesn't rally make a difference.
We just wanna make sure everybody can make it to work.
But very important is, again,
my leads start in the city, here.
If an agency says, I have these young kids
that are coming out of Central Employment Training,
which is CET, or Turning Point,
or Cal Jobs, that's where I start.
That's where I start.
And I start interviewing,
and if I fulfill the positions from there, then it's great.
I don't have to do more.
(laughs)
- The businesses that you have,
you said they're not all agriculture.
So there are companies in the area
that have specialized equipment that need repair,
or in some kind of maintenance
or something like that as well.
What kinds of business, I guess,
are those that might need that kind of service?
- Well in the agriculture, we have Taylor Farms,
and Dole, and we have--
- Big companies. - Big companies.
- Big companies.
And we have A Oceguera,
they have a lot of farm workers,
and a lot of equipment of there own
that we manufacture for them as well, or we repair.
Then we deal with wineries.
We deal with a lot of small shops
that give service to the farming industry.
Not only we fabricate, we also sell materials.
A lot of people come in to just buy material.
And they find out we do other things,
so they subcontract us for work that they can't do.
'Cause they don't have all the equipment that we have.
One of the great things that happened
with our loan here, was that we were able to
bring in equipment that cut our labor time in half.
It's equipment before it was so hard
to put together a layout,
and cut and customize it the way the customer wanted it.
Now, we input everything through a designer
and auto CAD on the computer.
We transfer it to where the water jet is
and it does all the magic.
Everything gets cut.
- It's really amazing to be able to see that, I've--
- So you've been through there.
- I have been to the shop and I've learned quite a few,
just by conversations with Lorenzo
and by seeing how this process works.
And as we know, we are surrounded by ag,
and we're the ag community.
- That our bread and butter.
- And unlike, if a machine breaks down
and the part breaks off,
oh, they can't just ship it off
and wait for two weeks, or a week.
They need it repaired now.
And I think that's one of the things
that Lorenzo would work with,
just different types of machinery,
and the detailed work that's involved,
and the quickness, because that's what they're looking for
is that quick turnaround time to get equipment fixed.
- We have a 3D printer.
- Oh yeah, that amazing what you can do now.
- This printer would make a five by five feet dryer
into a eight by eight inches size
for the customers to look at it
and prevent loss of money, and prevent problems.
They look at it, and if they wanna make changes
before invest all this amount of money, they can do that.
So we offer that for the customer
so that way they can see it before it's even made.
We do that.
Jose's knowledge in this industry is so big
that he, most of the times,
shares his knowledge with customers,
and sometimes when they share this information
they're able to come down with better decisions.
- That's wonderful. Economical decisions, as well.
- Right.
So you mentioned that the owner's from
one of our sister cities.
- Yes, the owner is from our sister city of Guanajuato,
and again, Jose started as a welder,
and through, I believe it was through CET
or through some trade program,
and then eventually went off to
wanna start his own business.
So his story is really incredible to hear
how you went from a one person or a two person operation,
to where he is now.
- [Ray] Yeah, 50 plus people.
- Yes.
- Oh, he's got his own little story, yes.
Like Maria said, he started with CET,
got hired as an apprentice at a local small machine shop,
he learned his way up to a foreman.
While he was doing that, went to Hartnell
to learn English and machinist,
and once he was ready to move on,
other people give out two week notice,
he gave out a two year notice.
(laughing)
And he moved on and got into--
- Yeah, sounds like a very successful person.
- Got into this venture.
Success is not easy.
He had a couple of failures.
Who doesn't?
But you learn from those mistakes and those failures,
and it just makes you better.
- Right.
I think that, too.
I think that a good way to learn lessons in life.
It's not perfect, a lot of challenges, right?
Especially when you're running a business
And you're responsible for so many people,
not just your employees, but for customers, right?
They're counting on you, as Maria said,
to get that fixed, or that new part as soon as possible.
- [Lorenzo] Yes.
- And it's just really amazing to see with technology
what they've been able to do.
They actually, and you can highlight on the robot welder.
- [Ray] Oh yeah, it's robotics now.
- Yes, robotics.
It's very interesting to see that.
- Jose has always tried to be ahead of the game.
We have a robotic welder now,
I think we're the only one
in Salinas to have a robotic welder.
So, we're ready for the next challenge.
So if anybody wants to throw out some production this way,
we will gladly have the capacity of doing it.
- So there's always this question in technology
whether or not the robotic part
or machine would replace workers.
And some of the answers I've given is,
well, somebody has to understand how the robotics work
and program the robotics, or make the app
or the parts for the robotic,
and that's where it's important to
train our own people locally to have that capacity.
- The robotic machine, when we brought it,
people that that that's what we were doing,
trying to replace welders.
(chuckles)
But no, actually, that robotic welder
opened up four positions.
We brought in a couple of mechanics
and a couple of maintenance people,
and we hired a person that would teach them
how to use the robotic welder.
And now we have four people
that are capable of running this machine.
- [Ray] There you go, right?
- So, we created opportunity for four people
who never thought they were going to learn
how to handle a robotic welder.
Robotic welder is never gonna go pick up the material,
cut it, go get it together.
- Or talk to the customer. - Or talk to the customer.
(laughs)
- Or program by itself.
So you need that.
What the robotic welder's purpose is
to do all the hard work.
And you're not
- The repetitive work.
- Hurting your back, yeah, it's just there.
So it's something that hopefully if it works
and our new goal works out this year,
we're probably gonna bring in more robotic welders
and we're gonna get people to work on them and grow.
- Well, that's good news.
You have a 3D printer, a machine,
and then you have the robotics,
you're really embracing technology,
but at the same time, you're increasing your business,
increasing the number of workers that help you.
- Yeah, we bought one water jet,
when we started with the loan,
now we have three water jets.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- That's interesting, how does the water jet
help with the fabrication.
- This is the water jet table right here.
So you just place raw material on top,
and the jet's gonna come and cut the design you want it.
It can cut up to two inches thick in material.
We couldn't do that by hand. - No.
- So we have machine do it.
- Very precise.
- Very precise and clean.
So when it comes out, we just do the easy work,
which is just to bend a put it together.
- So it doesn't require extra milling,
or any other finishing.
- Nothing.
- Wow, that's amazing.
- Yes.
That's why, now that we are at three,
and all three are running,
we opened up, not only that one position,
now it's two more positions for the other two water jets.
- Sounds like the loan has been really wonderful
in helping you realize some additional opportunities.
And you seized those opportunities.
- Yes.
Investing was very smart.
And one thing I do wanna say,
I do wanna thank all the people that work for North County.
I enjoy working with them,
and I know they enjoy coming to work.
Behind them, we always see a family.
So it not just that one person, it's the family behind him.
And the peace of mind that
where we're at now, has given us the opportunity
to create a benefit package for them, employee manual,
and care more for the employee and their family.
They're happy at work and happy at home.
- Yeah, they make better workers.
- Yes. - Make better workers.
(laughing)
Yeah, so I'm really happy to
be able to be part of that progress,
to see them where they were before
the Grow Salinas loan was able to assist,
and where they are now and where they're headed.
Because I think we've sort of established that relationship,
especially now, going through the whole permitting process
for the new project that they're undertaking.
And you sort of develop these relationships
and these bonds with our customers, with out clients.
I think that's kind of what we've been able to do
with all of our Grow Salinas Fund clients.
- Well, that's wonderful.
How many loans do you have out now
with the Grow Salinas Fund?
- We are at the end of our program, of our funding,
and we were able to do, I believe right now,
there'll be about six that we've bee able to finalize.
- And those loan payments will be recycled back in
and then you'll have enough...
- We'll have hopefully some additional funding.
But it's been a great program, a great experience,
not only for me, but I think for the business owners
to be able to go through this process.
- Right.
- Yes, there's some paperwork there,
but at the end, the end result is just great
to see how they've been able to develop and to grow.
- Right.
So was it difficult in the beginning, Lorenzo,
with getting into the program,
thinking about all those forms, and documents,
and information you had to put together?
- You know, it's weird because
it was very simple, to be honest with you.
Because before I was able to stop by the city,
which I happened to go update a license,
I was looking at local banks.
I went through local banks
and got their condition list, I couldn't qualify.
It was so hard, it made it a little harder.
So when I saw the GAF flyer,
and they told me who was responsible,
they gave me her card of Maria's,
I said, okay, I'm gonna call her
and see how hard is it to get money from the city.
So we made an appointment,
and I already had sort of a checklist of what we needed.
So we provided it, and less than 30 days
we had a pre-approval with certain conditions,
which we met as well.
Pretty soon, I think it was the week we were moving,
we had the signing.
- Oh, wow, you got it that quickly.
- Yes.
- It was very helpful, again,
Lorenzo being familiar with some of the loan terminology,
and knew exactly what paperwork to get.
And that process always, in some cases,
takes a little bit longer for some,
but that was great to be able to
work directly with Lorenzo on this and move it forward.
- So how big would your business be?
You're acquiring this other piece of land,
and then you're doing that now,
you have 50 workers now.
What will be your new capacity
as you progress down this expansion path?
- I think that at 50 we're maxed out where we're at,
I think we're good.
Where we're moving is 2.3 acres.
So we're not moving, I'm worry,
we're expanding, is 2.3 acres.
So our plan is to build 10,000 square feet buildings
or a project that can take us up to 30,000 square feet,
and grow, maybe within the next
five years to a hundred people.
- That's quite a jump.
- [Maria] It really is.
- Originally 20, 50, and then in a few years a hundred.
- [Lorenzo] Who knows?
- And three facilities.
- [Maria] And three facilities.
- And who knows? - And who knows?
Yeah, and I think especially with all the new
type of equipment that may be needed,
the new industry, as we all know,
the cannabis industry is a totally different industry.
- Exactly.
- So there may be some additional opportunities there
for some additional type of equipment
that is yet to be tapped into.
- Now that's an Excellent point.
Agriculture itself is a huge industry,
it's our biggest industry here in Salinas and the Valley,
and worldwide it's known.
So you have a good base now,
and then if the cannabis business really takes off,
they're gonna need repairs, and specialty equipment,
and more fabrication, et cetera.
So yeah, the future appears to be bright Lorenzo.
- Yes that's what we're looking forward to.
About four years ago, I remember having a meeting
with some of the Taylor people, on their offices,
and I can't forget what Jose said,
he said, while you guys are sleeping,
we're repairing the machines,
making sure they're ready for the next morning.
(laughs)
And it's true, 'cause if they call us
at 10, 12, one in the morning,
we will make sure we have a crew out there that repairs.
- Wow, that's amazing.
So that's how it works.
- Yes.
- 'Cause you said before, they don't wanna wait three weeks,
and they don't wanna send out for the part,
they want it tomorrow.
(laughs)
- Right. - Yes.
- For the beginning of the business day.
They want it fixed and ready to go.
- Yes, 'cause they can't afford to have 30 people
standing right there by the machine waiting.
- Right.
Yeah, if that production line stops,
then not only will people not work,
the profit goes down overall
and the business might lose more, obviously, revenue.
- [Lorenzo] There's the butterfly effect.
- The butterfly effect.
And we've seen the change throughout the years
from our agricultural industry, too.
I remember talking in my other capacity
for the housing program,
when we did the first time home buyer program,
I would have applicants who would come in,
oh, well I enjoy my job because
it's just the harvest season is only six months.
Well that harvest season is now year round.
- [Ray] It's year round.
- So we've seen the change since that's taken place,
even within our agricultural industry,
because now these businesses are open,
as Lorenzo mentioned, 24 hours.
The shops are working, shifts are coming in,
some are going, it's now lettuce in a bag, salad in a bowl.
It's that production is also changed,
and the type of production that's taking place.
So yes, ag jobs are now basically year round ag jobs.
- Yeah.
Well that's good for, I think, our community.
- Yes yes it is.
- And businesses like yours,
which help employ our local residents
and the investment you're making, helps the overall economy.
So it's really great news to hear your story, Lorenzo.
- [Lorenzo] Thank you very much.
- Yeah, we look forward to hearing more in the future
about your expansion and how well that will be going.
And I'm sure you'll see more clients
as the fund keeps revolving,
and more assets are accumulated over time
then you can loan out more dollars.
- Additional dollars.
- Alright, thank you both for being here today,
and we look forward to hearing more success
from the Grow Salinas Fund and from North County Machinery.
- Thank you very much.
- Thank you.
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