On the Shop Floor
It Takes Perseverance and the Right Technology in the
Oil Patch
David Kulbeth, president of Kalco Machine and Manufacturing Co. (KM&M; Wichita Falls, TX), says the company started out in 1998 as a one-man operation in a 2000-ſt² (183-m²) shop with two manual lathes and a manual mill. Today KM&M has 70 employees at three locations in 51,500 ſt² (4790 m²) and will probably have sales of about $9.2 million this year. Here’s how that journey happened, Kulbeth said: “What got me started in this
business was I had a brother who was 18 years older than me, and he worked for the Halliburton plant in Duncan, OK. He broke off and started a machine shop in 1974, and when I turned 13 I would work in his shop every summer for three months. So actually I started doing this when I was about 13. “Ten there were some significant downturns in the early 1980s, and it was a
horrible time to be in this profession. You couldn’t find a job as a machinist any- where around here, so I did what I had to do until things picked up. I moved from Duncan to Wichita Falls, Texas, where I became a production manager at a shop for about 10 years.
Starting out small— really small—and then growing rapidly involves risk, courage, perseverance and the right machining technology. Meet a Texan who’s traveled that path.
The check valve part requires both milling and turning operations, which is accomplished in a single setup on the LV800M.
56 Energy Manufacturing 2013
Photos courtesy Hyundai WIA
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