By now it has become a cliche. You know, the one about coming to America and achieving the American dream. But cliche or not, it is still possible to come to this country with nothing in your pockets but your hands and still succeed beyond your wildest dreams. Which, in fact, is the way it happened for Herman Bloss, founder-president of Canoga Park, CA’s Promatic Industries, Inc., a 30-year-old turning-milling job shop serving the aerospace industry.

“I was 16 when I came over from Germany,” Bloss recalls. “At that time my sister was married and lived with her husband in New Jersey. She was homesick to see someone from our family, so she invited me to live with her. For me, at 16, just out of high school, the whole idea of coming to America was nothing more than an exciting adventure. Never once did I dream of owning my own business and several buildings and apartment houses in a place called Canoga Park, California.”

Bloss’s first job was at a shoe factory in New Jersey, but he didn’t stay there long.
“I didn’t like the climate in New Jersey,” he says, “so I moved to Chicago with a bunch of other German guys. In Chicago I found a good job in the machine shop at a manufacturing company. I quickly learned to run a manual Hardinge lathe. I stayed there for a while, then moved to another company that had automatic CAM screw machines, which really interested me. Those were Brown & Sharpe machines. I liked them because, once you set them up, they ran by themselves.”

Bloss remained in Chicago for four years, then moved to California.

“I guess you could say I found my life’s work in the turning business in Chicago,” he says. “I also found Erica, my wife, there. Her family lived in California, so we visited them on vacation once, and we loved it so much we moved. By then I was 21.”

Bloss went to work as a machinist at a screw machine job shop in Gardena, California.

“I stayed there about eight years,” he says. “It was a good job and I learned a lot. I worked on Brown & Sharpes again and eventually became their setup man.”

After that, Bloss moved around for a while, then took a job at a shop in Canoga Park, California.

“The owner was an older German guy who didn’t start his business until he was 50 years old,” Bloss says, “and he was still cranking at 75. His name was Henry Leo, and I guess you could say he became my mentor. He was making parts for the aerospace industry. He had two automatic camless Index turning machines with live tooling that I ran for him. I learned a lot from him, and especially how to quote jobs for the turning machines. It was there that the bug bit me to start my own business.”

Sweetheart Deal

In 1978, at 36, Bloss approached his boss with a proposition.

“I said, ‘Henry, I’m 36 now and I want to start my own business. Can I buy a machine and put it in your shop and help you run your business? You need guys to run your machines, so I can keep helping you.’ He said, ‘Let me think about it.’”

Four months later, Bloss’s boss came back to him and said, “Tell you what, Herman, I’ll sell you the two Index machines and you can make parts for me as a subcontractor. You can keep them here until you’re ready to move out.”

“It really was a sweetheart deal,” Bloss says. “It was a good safe way to get started, but even so I was scared to death. I had no experience in business, but I had the bug, and I had to give it a try. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.”

“I called my company Promatic Industries, because previously I had run some camless screw machines,” he says. “They called the machines program controlled automatics, so I combined program and automatic to get Promatic. It’s just a name, but it has worked out okay.”

Bloss need not have been frightened, because he made money from day one.

“My first customer was Henry Leo,” he says, “and for the first six months or so, I made parts exclusively for him. Then I got hooked up with ITT Cannon in Santa Ana, California and that changed everything. They said, ‘Herman, come on down. We have some work for you. So I had to rent a flat bed truck and drive down and pick up material I needed. A couple of tons of aluminum. Things have gone well ever since.”

Turning Specialist

Since its founding in 1978 Promatic has specialized in turning parts for the aerospace industry. Today the company has 10 employees, many with more than 10 years seniority. The company operates 12 machines, including 9 turning machines and 3 CNC mills.

“We have mills here, mainly to back up our lathes and turning systems,” Bloss says. “Ever since I saw that first Brown & Sharpe machine in Chicago, I’ve been fascinated by turning. I have three mills, a Kia, a Fadal and a Mitsubishi, but turning stainless and inconnel parts for the aerospace industry has always been our bread and butter business. I love it. We serve some really big companies in the industry.”

Although in the beginning Bloss tried to stick with German-made equipment, he found it tough to do so.

“The German companies back then didn’t seem to understand the need for local support in California,” he says. “They made good machines, but the support wasn’t there. On the other hand the Japanese did undertstand, so in 1986 I finally bought a Nakamura-Tome Slant Jr. CNC lathe, and I’ve been buying Nakamura-Tomes ever since. I have six of them in my shop now.”
Bloss’s most recent machine buys were from Selway Machine Tool—a Kia 52P VMC, a Nakamura-Tome WT-150 CNC lathe with two 12-station turrets and a Nakamura-Tome SC300 CNC lathe with 2-3/4” bar capacity.”

“I can’t remember why I bought my first Nakamura-Tome,” Bloss says, “maybe because I liked the sales guy, but it was a very precise and reliable machine, so I kept buying them. I still have those two old Index machines and they’re still good, too, but the Nakamura’s are our workhorses. Another reason for staying with them is that Selway gives us excellent service when we need it, though the machines have been so reliable, we haven’t needed much.”

Converting the Promise

Although Bloss came to the U.S. looking for adventure, he found instead the opportunity to build his own business and become master of his own fate.

“This is an amazing country,” he says. “In Germany, I went to a high-school reunion and was shocked to learn that only two people had tried to have their own businesses. Over there you have to be a meister and get a license to start a business. Here, with all our freedom, all you need is a dream, the courage to start and a willingness to work hard. This is the most wonderful country in the world.”

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