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CAM-DO APPROACH FUELS SMALL SHOP’S 5-AXIS SUCCESS
   NDK Paragon Chief Technical Officer Nick Katrov programming with hyperMILL® and running machine simulation.
Nick Katrov got his start in machining nearly 30 years ago by sweeping floors and cutting off materials in a Massachusetts shop after
immigrating to the USA from Bulgaria at 19 years old. Eager to learn more about machine tools and the industry, he wasted no time demonstrating his willingness to apply what he felt was an innate ability to machine parts. Indeed, his chance came one day when the shop was flat out with work and shorthanded on machinists that were tied up on other projects. While waiting around near an idle machine, he took the bold initiative of writing a program to machine a part that was urgently needed by a customer. When the foreman returned to the shop he was as delighted as he was stunned to learn that the young Katrov had successfully written the program for the part all on his own, untutored. This experience would come to serve Mr. Katrov well throughout his impressive career, and especially so today, where at NDK Paragon he is the
chief technical officer and sole machinist at a two-person shop in Oceanside, CA that manufactures complex 5-Axis parts for aerospace, semiconductor and medical industries.
GOOD THINGS IN A SMALL PACKAGE
It wasn’t only a desire to be a one-man operation in a machine shop that drove Mr. Katrov to start his own show. In addition to acquiring the machinist experience early on in his career, he also grew into management roles at well known machine tool manufacturers and distributors over the years where he interfaced with major industry players such as General Electric, Pratt & Whitney, Rolls-Royce and Bombardier, to mention a few. “It was a great run but I had enough of the corporate world, and I didn’t want the easy way out, so I decided to get back to my passion of cutting metal again,” said Mr. Katrov. So, he and his wife Tina Torabi, who is CEO and co-owner of NDK, moved to
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CNC WEST April/May 2022
Article provided by Open Mind Technologies - Photos by NDK Paragon

























































































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