Sniffing Out Opportunities in Rail Car Building : Industry: Nearly 200 executives from aerospace and manufacturing industries meet to find out if there is a future for their firms in civilian transit.

They came bearing the expertise and technology that has built jet fighters, tank simulators and electronic circuits. But could these same people now build subway and rail passenger cars?

“This is kind of a new world to us,” said Anthony J. Rogers, sales director for Ontic, an aerospace engineering and manufacturing firm in North Hollywood that makes hydraulic systems for jet fighters. “We’re looking to see if we can take what we know . . . and carry that over to the rail car industry.”

Rogers was one of nearly 200 executives from Southern California’s battered aerospace and manufacturing industries who met last week to find out if there is a future for them in the passenger rail car business. After listening to leading rail car builders, hopes remained high among the participants, but many realize that the conversion from defense contractors to commercial businesses won’t be easy.

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“Most of the work we do is highly complex. We work with exotic materials at high temperatures,” said Katherine Griffen, general sales manager for San Fernando-based General Connector Corp, which makes engine cooling systems for the F-A18 fighter jet. “Could we be competitive for something like this? It’s something we have to take a look at.”

The workshop, held amid gleaming subway cars in the Metro Rail maintenance shop in downtown Los Angeles, was organized by the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, which came under fire earlier this year for awarding the rail car contract for the Metro Green line to a Japanese firm. That contract was canceled, and the agency has since moved to help cultivate a home-grown transportation industry to cash in on the construction of mass transit systems in Southern California and elsewhere.

Transit officials anticipate spending about $64 billion on rail projects in Los Angeles Country during the next three decades. The Canadian-based rail car builder Bombardier said suppliers were needed for everything from passenger seat cushions and luggage racks to breaks and lighting systems.

But how much of that $64 billion will go to regional firms and how many jobs will be created has yet to be determined.

“The big question is how large of a market are we talking about?” said Gerald Shane, president of Qual-Pro Corp in Carson, which has built electronic equipment for Metro Rail Red Line cars.

Lynne Joy Rogers, a procurement specialist with the Los Angeles Minority Business Development Center, questioned how dedicated the major rail builders were to hiring minority contractors.

“I don’t think there is a real commitment on the part of the prime contractors to make an active effort to include minorities,” said Rogers. When Rogers called up one contractor to find out about opportunities for a minority client, she was told: “We already have that particular type of minority contractor.”

“It suggests to me that they are only interested in meeting the absolute minimum requirements,” Rogers said.

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Despite the billions dedicated to mass transit, most workshop participants agreed that the rail car business will certainly prove a smaller customer than the defense industry.

“It’s nowhere as big as aerospace,” said Louis Christensen, owner of H&S; Enterprises, a Monrovia-based machine shop, which is down to two employees from six as a result of cutbacks in defense industry orders. If he fails to win new orders, “I have a lot of equipment that will just sit,” he said.

Many firms said they could readily adapt their operations or products to the rail car business. Trevor Harrison’s aluminum casting foundry could as easily make parts for subway car makers as it has for the aerospace and auto manufacturers.

“They are going to need our services for machined and casting parts,” said Harrison, owner of Johnson Aluminum Foundry in Cerritos. “My concern is how accessible are these people going to be. Is there going to be a lot of red tape, or is it going to be an open pipeline?”

Many companies also wondered how they could apply their high-cost, high-technology products and services to the primarily low-tech rail car business. In fact, on the day of the workshop, rail car builder Morrison Knudsen said it would team up with aerospace giants Lockheed and Hughes Aircraft to develop high-tech products for mass transit.

“Your automobile is more cutting-edge than these things are,” Richard Taylor, an executive of Woodland Hills-based Perceptronics, said of the Metro Rail subway cars. Equipping the cars with the latest technology, however, could be a way to drum up business for Taylor’s firm, which makes a wide range of electronic equipment.