Frank Perryman’s formula for success is simple: good people, good products and good planning. But simple doesn’t mean
timid for Perryman, who with his brother, James, and father, James Sr., leads Perryman Co., a 110-employee titanium
products company with 2006 revenue of more than $100 million. Perryman Co. produces an exotic metal mostly for the needs
of the aerospace and medical products industries and poured $40 million into building a melt shop, which opened this year
and is designed to vertically integrate operations and meet the company’s needs for titanium while weaning it away from
dependence on suppliers. Smart Business spoke with Perryman about the value of experience, leveraging technology and the
need to understand your market.
Leverage human resources across the
experience spectrum. What we see a lot of
is people discounting people in that
retirement age group, where there is a
wealth of experience to learn from. We
have quite a few on staff now, and it’s
amazing — you put them in the right
environment and see how they get invigorated.
We’re not asking them to run the business, we’re telling them, ‘Here’s the ball,
go run with it as part of the team, here’s
where you can be part of the team.’ … It
depends on where the need is and where
the fit is. You couple that with strong
middle management and also bring in
young engineers and build for the future.
So, you’ve got to balance the combination of a certain amount of young engineers as they’re coming up, and you’ve
got to teach them, and at the same time,
you’ve got another group of engineers
who are carrying the ball. And you’re
also bringing up older, more experienced
people. So we look in a lot of directions
for the best combination of our team.
Run a lean operation to survive the business cycle. You can’t eliminate it. It’s a
matter of being able to flex and bend
with it. That’s why I talk about the
automation. The automation allows us to
ramp up. When we need to stop or slow
down, we can move people around.
What we’ve been able to do is smooth it
out a little and keep it a profitable company on both sides of the cycle by being
a lean facility, by being a low overhead
facility. We’ve been able to retain our
people; we haven’t had to have layoffs.
Anticipate where the market is going so you
get there first. If you always wait until it’s
a perfect time, you’re going to miss the
boat. We have our own forecasting models, and then it’s being completely in
time with your market. It’s being intimate with the market.
We eat it, we drink it, we sleep with it.
What we saw coming in the build rates from the publicly available information
from working with our customers at
Boeing and Airbus, they were projecting
build rate increases. We’re an industry
that traditionally never believes it. They
don’t react until they’re in it.
At that point we said, ‘Here it comes,’
and we believed it. We were looking at
the 20-year forecast and we said, ‘This
has merit to it. Let’s make plans to double our capacity by 2006.’
So over the course of ’04, ’05 and ’06, by
January 2006, we had doubled our
capacity. So we are in a position now to
support all the capacity that we’re going
to need by 2010. Sometimes you make
decisions, not based on return on investment but on whether it’s going to be able
to ensure your livelihood.
If you don’t make the investment, are
you going to be around in 10 years? Are
you going to be around in five years?
Next year?
Stay focused on the present — and the
future. Are we concentrating on today’s
market? Absolutely, but you’ve got certain sectors within your company saying,
‘let’s run today’s business.’
These guys are worried about today’s
product — this is what I’ve got to make,
this is today’s focus, this is what we’ve
got to do for the overall company. I don’t
have to worry about them; they’ve got
my back. Then you come up a level, and
you’ve got your managers that are going
to be managing the groups. Then I’ve got
my directors that are going to be working on today, the month and the year.
Then it comes up to our group where
we’re going to be looking at the vision,
and that comes up to the executive
group, usually myself and my father,
where we’re looking at 10 or 15 years
down the road. What do we need to look
like, what do we need to change into, are
we prepared for the growth? In our
vision, we’re looking out 10 and 15 years
at a pop.
Look for entrepreneurial spirit. If I have to
manage people, this isn’t the right team
for them. You’re going to get the ball; I’m
going to let you run with it.
I’m going to support you, I’m going to
block for you, but don’t expect me to
pick you up on my shoulders and have to
carry you. Our biggest strength is to be
able to find those people. We don’t find
them all the time. We’ve been wrong.
It’s almost finding that entrepreneurial
spirit in all of your employees. When
we’re out there talking to people, looking in the industry, talking to people in
other industries and meeting people,
they kind of stick out if you know what
you’re looking for. You can find the
ones that are willing to give the extra
effort and are willing sometimes to put
their neck on the line. Those are the
kinds of people we look for and we
have found.
HOW TO REACH: Perryman Co., www.perrymanco.com