Ultimate Joystick Maneuvers Valley Company to Next Level
The makers of PlayStation 2 and Nintendo 64 have nothing on Mason Electric Co., which makes the ultimate joystick.
The San Fernando-based company’s control sticks, grips and wheels are used to pilot some of the world’s most expensive toys: the F-18 fighter jet, the Apache attack helicopter and the Leopard II tank.
And when all that stands between a pilot and disaster is one of Mason’s sticks, the company knows its products better be made right.
“We deal with mission- and flight-critical applications,” said Kent Byington, the company president, who also served as an Air Force pilot during Vietnam.
“You wouldn’t want the stick coming off in your hand or the weapons system firing accidentally over a populated area,” he said. “That’s why everything is 100% tested.”
Although defense spending is at a 14-year low when adjusted for inflation, Mason Electric has experienced robust growth, with sales in recent years increasing about 15% annually.
And with a new administration in Washington, business should be even better for suppliers such as Mason, said Thomas Lewis, an aerospace industry analyst with C.L. King & Associates.
“A lot of spending on maintenance, retrofits and new aircraft programs has been deferred,” Lewis said. “I’d be very surprised if we don’t see meaningful increases in spending on aviation hardware.”
The company was founded in 1959 by Howard Mason, an entrepreneur who patented an electric switch that became the basis of the specialized switching systems built into Mason’s control sticks and wheels.
Mason went through a series of owners until it was bought in 1996 by Esterline Technologies, a publicly traded aerospace and defense firm based in Bellevue, Wash.
Esterline owns Korry Electronics, a leading maker of aircraft instruments and panels, and the acquisition gave Mason entree to Korry’s all-star roster of clients.
Today, Mason’s customer base looks like a who’s who in the aerospace industry, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Bell Helicopters, Sikorsky, Raytheon, British Aerospace, Gulfstream Aerospace and Cessna Aircraft Co.
About 60% of Mason’s products are sold for military applications, the rest for commercial aircraft.
The company makes throttle and control grips for fixed-wing aircraft such as the F-16, F-18, Harrier II, B-22 and F-117; and helicopters such as the UH-60 and AH-64.
It also makes controls for ground vehicles such as the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and Wolverine Assault Bridge, and “target acquisition grips” that allow soldiers to fire and steer a TOW missile to target.
On the commercial side, Mason’s control wheels, flight and communication switches can be found in a wide range of business and passenger jets, everything from the Gulfstream V to the Boeing 777.
While the stick or control wheel is the most recognizable part of Mason’s products, the electrical switches that go into the controls are actually the most important part.
The company’s switches adjust an aircraft’s trim, trigger weapons and allow for radio communication. Mason also makes microphones and headsets, including the flight helmets used by the Los Angeles Police Department.
The company, which has 140 employees, makes virtually all of its controls and switches in its 67,000-square-foot manufacturing plant at 605 8th St. in San Fernando.
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Mason’s engineers work closely with its customers to design products. The designs are done on computer and can be transferred directly to computerized lathes and milling machines for the production of prototypes.
The parts are cast in aluminum and then milled to the proper specifications.
In another area of the plant, workers make electrical switches by placing copper contacts into molds that are injected with special plastic.
Assembly workers later add the various switches to the completed grips and wire the devices. Each product goes through rigorous testing before it is packaged and shipped.
“You don’t want to have a bad one,” said Byington, noting that an F-22 jet is worth about $60 million, to say nothing of a pilot’s life.
Because of the custom nature of the work, the company’s production runs might seem small in comparison with other manufacturers. “A good run for us is 100 or so parts a year,” Byington said.
At the same time, the carefully crafted products command top dollar. A control wheel for a Gulfstream jet, for instance, sells for $2,000 to $3,000, and a grip for an Apache helicopter sells for about $6,000.
Despite the downturn in the aerospace industry during much of the ‘90s, Mason Electric has doubled in size over the last decade and expects to double again over the next decade.
Key to the company’s success has been its aggressive pursuit of new markets around the world, said William Southern, vice president of sales and marketing.
The company recently opened a sales office in Europe in an attempt to break into what Byington describes as “fortress Europe.” The company hopes to take market share from its arch rival, Britain-based Ultra Electronics.
Now, Mason has sales representatives all over the globe. “We like to say the sun never sets on a Mason sales rep,” Southern said.
The company also is enjoying thriving trade in the upgrade market. Many countries, such as Turkey, Brazil and Taiwan, still fly older military aircraft, and they need new controls to modernize their old U.S.-made F-5 fighters or Soviet-made MiG-21s.
“Every time you put a new system into an aircraft, it generally needs a different arrangement of switching devices,” Byington said.
It’s difficult to say how much money the Bush administration will devote to defense, but Byington is hopeful the budget will increase.
“The Joint Chiefs of Staff are clearly asking for the appropriations to be increased,” he said. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
