• Captivity Pays Off (Online)

Ask almost any small businessman about having all his eggs in one basket, and he’ll say, “Bad idea! We’re working hard to diversify our customer base.” 

But ask John Bouwman, president of Vacaville, CA’s Bouwman Engineering Inc., and you’ll get an entirely different answer.

• Competing Against Offshore (Online)

In one way, Livermore, CA’s machining job shop, Alloy Metal Products—a dba of Fred Matter, Inc.—might be compared to the proverbial salmon, best known for swimming upstream against the current. 

• Creativity Makes the Difference (Online)

One test of whether or not a company has lived right is to check its age and its attitudes. Companies, like people, go through various phases in their lives. In the beginning their owners struggle mightily to stay alive. 

• From Trieste to Turning (Online)

The small car pulled up behind a line of vehicles waiting to cross into Trieste, Italy from Communist Yugoslavia. Inside the car, tool and die maker Garo Savadjan, an ethnic Armenian with Bulgarian citizenship sat nervously behind the wheel. 

• Adversity Leads to Efficiency (Online)

The human race seems to be psychologically designed to believe in inertia. When times are bad, they tend to believe those bad times will go on forever.