Tri Precision Chief Turns Ailing Firm Around : Kathy Morrow’s company’s performance quickly surpassed her goals in sales and profitability.

Kathy Morrow set a few performance goals when she bought into a bankrupt sheet metal firm and took over its operations three years ago. She wanted to quickly make the company profitable and she wanted it to gross $2 million in annual sales.

Tri Precision Sheet Metal Inc. turned a profit within three months once Morrow assumed the helm, and it expects to reach its sales goal this year.

Morrow, who has increased her ownership stake from 35% to 85%, said she’s trying to figure out what to do for an encore.

“I didn’t expect to reach $2 million in sales so quickly,” Morrow said.

With customers like Birtcher Medical Systems Inc. in Irvine, Tri Precision is building a loyal following in an industry with dozens of competing metal fabricators dotting the light industrial parks from Fullerton to San Clemente.

Tri Precision makes, among other products, cabinet-carts for Birtcher’s medical electronic gear, cargo aircraft floor panels for Kaiser Electroprecision, an Irvine-based division of Kaiser Aerospace & Electronics Corp., and computer cabinets for several small computer clone companies.

Morrow believes her company’s concentration on quality and service helps to distinguish it from most other sheet metal firms. Several customers agree.

“We had some problems with another company we were using a few years ago, and we were looking for someone else,” said Elaine Appel, a buyer for Birtcher. “We toured her facility, and we were quite impressed with her quality control procedures.”

Tri Precision won the job to make two models of hospital carts used to hold electronic equipment and medical supplies. Today, it ships about 75 units a month to Birtcher.

Appel said her company is “100% satisfied” with Tri Precision’s work and appreciates the small company’s ability to take on extra work and turn it around quickly.

With 22 employees working three shifts six days a week, Tri Precision churns out products in four to six weeks, though it can turn orders around overnight, if necessary. Morrow herself helps in the shop during busy times by sweeping floors, packaging parts or delivering products.

“Nobody here is a prima donna; everybody pitches in,” she said. “I think customer service is important. There are a lot of sheet metal shops, and they all can do the same thing. It’s service that sets you apart.”

Morrow stays away from the machines that do the actual bending, cutting, welding and painting. “I’m not good with machine stuff,” she said.

In fact, not too long ago, Morrow had no idea what sheet metal was, much less how to bend it, mold it or create anything from it.

Going from high school to marriage at 17 and then raising four children, Morrow didn’t look for work elsewhere until she was 35. She found a job as a bookkeeper at a Santa Ana sheet metal company.

“I had no clue what sheet metal was,” said Morrow, now 51. “I thought I was working for an ink company (because the company name ended with Inc.) And I had to learn bookkeeping on the job.”

But during the next 13 years, she learned enough to get herself promoted into jobs generating new business and supervising the production shop. By the time she left in 1990, she had helped to raise the number of customers from four to 40.

Morrow said she was essentially running the place and was even promised an ownership interest, but she saw the owner’s son-in-law waiting in the wings and figured she would never take over.

When the owner was asked to buy into Tri Precision, he declined. But Morrow jumped at the chance, mortgaging her house to put in $60,000 for her initial stake and bringing the company out of bankruptcy.

With only five employees and three customers, Morrow began building the company back up. It helped, she said, when about half the customers from her previous company came with her to Tri Precision. Now Tri Precision is making products for 44 customers.

Meanwhile, Morrow raised $100,000 more to buy the additional stake in the company and hopes to acquire the rest soon.

Her plans so far anticipate continued growth, but she wants to keep her customer base in Southern California. She said she tried shipping products out of state, but they sometimes were damaged, and the cost of covering those losses got burdensome.

“When you’re growing, cash-flow is a problem. So I don’t want to do anything that would hurt cash-flow,” she said.

She even packs many of her smaller products in containers that were bought cheap--the manufacturers’ overruns of other companies’ shipping boxes. Some parts, for instance, are being packed this month in California Gold Pistachios boxes.

“We try to save money wherever we can,” Morrow said.