San Joaquin Valley Business Perspectives

              business, a large volume of our business is transacted
with firms in states such as Ohio, New York,
Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
We do some business with firms in Canada, Mexico,
South Africa, North Africa, Australia, Greece, and a
few other scattered nations.
Are you considering manufacturing any new products
in the future?
We are constantly developing new equipment to
fulfill the needs of the wine industry. Today, the
wine industry has gone into stainless steel tanks; we
are the major supplier in that field. Last year, we
came out with a new press for pressing freshly
crushed grapes in the production of white wine. This
press has become quite an attractive piece of
equipment for the industry. We have developed a new
filter for the filtration of wine and also a new juice
separator which removes the freshly crushed grapes
from the skins and seeds in order to maintain a lighter
color for the white wines.
What is the organizational structure of the company?
The structure of our organization really changed in
1969 in a merger with AMETEK, INC., which has its
headquarters in New York and Pennsylvania. Through
a stock exchange, I became a vice president of
AMETEK and serve on its Board in New York. Valley
Foundry became a division of AMETEK and
maintains its own structure although it is no longer a
separate corporation. I still serve as the President of
Valley Foundry.
In operating as a separate division, we have very little
input from our parent organization. We maintain our
own accounting, research and development, sales and
marketing, engineering, and plant operation
departments just as though we were a separate,
independent corporation.
Do your managers have business degrees generally?
Our management group is really a mixture that
consists of those who developed their expertise by
actually working in the plant, solving problems with
their own mechanical knowledge and ingenuity, and
those who have been formally trained through the
colleges and universities. We currently are developing
a young staff who will take over as time goes on. We
are recruiting graduates from California State
University, Fresno, with majors in Industrial
Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Accounting,
Business Administration, and Marketing. In selecting
new personnel for our organization, we put a great
deal of emphasis on people with an academic
background. However, this is not the sole criterion. If
we  find someone   who has a good background of
actual work experience and exhibits desirable
qualities but does not have a college degree, that does
not preclude us from hiring that person.
Does your firm have a basic management program?
Yes, we do. We have an in-plant training program. It
takes in those personnel we want to train for
particular things which are unique to our own
operation.
Our parent organization, AMETEK, has a
management training program; there are two meetings
a year which our managers attend so they can keep
informed on management techniques. In addition,
since we handle products of other manufacturers, our
sales engineers and field engineers attend seminars
and training schools provided by those
manufacturers.
In your experience, does an incentive program
motivate employees?
Yes, hopefully. We try to increase our sales volume
and earnings through incentive programs.
The first phase of the incentive programs is to
develop a favorable climate within our organization.
We like every single employee, whether he is in top
management or is working in production, to feel that
he is important to the organization. We do this with
an open door policy to top management. Also, I like
employees in this plant to feel that there is an open
door to my office as President, that they can come to
me with their problems regardless of whether they are
personal or whether they may have to do with
creating better production methods.
To bring the employees together as a single family
unit, we have two annual social functions. Last
December, we had our 42nd annual Christmas dinner
for our employees and spouses. In July or August of
each year we have an annual picnic for all employees
and their families.
AMETEK has an extra compensation which we
receive annually from our corporate headquarters; it
is based on our volume of sales and earnings. This
extra compensation is the second phase of our
incentive program.
The compensation received is divided, among the
employees who we in management think have made
the best contributions.
Do you employ women in your business, and have
they become managers?
Yes, we have women in our organization; and no,
they have not become managers-probably because of
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10      WINTER 1977