Made in PA Spring 2012 21
On the Cover
and marketer of sleep and respiratory products, where he served as President and CEO from 1994 to 1999 and was a member of its Board of Directors from 1988 to 1999. Meteny also serves as Chairman of the Board of Catalyst Connection.
In the trenches day in and day out building CMC, Meteny
knows firsthand what it takes to run a successful manufac- turing outfit. He talked to Made in PA about the challenges facing manufacturers, how CMC is finding success, and what the future might hold. Keep reading:
MinPA: As a CEO, what gets you all fired up and ready to go to work each day? DM: CMC is a classic manufacturing organization. If you were alive in the 1930s and 1940s you would’ve seen similar machines running Westinghouse. For me, it’s a simple premise: we make stuff! We make product that goes out these doors everyday. Pennsylvania and the U.S. should really pay attention to this industry. But what it really comes down to, for me, is the chance to build products and grow a company.
MinPA: What trends do you see coming down the road for the rest of 2012? DM: Most of our customer base is close by – pretty much a two-hour drive. We do a lot of forecasting and see things are quite busy. Hopefully, for 2012, we’ll get back to the 2008 level. (One of our best years.) We’re getting a lot of requests for quotations. The recession of 2009-10 took a lot of companies with it.
Those that survived are here. If we can execute, we can move forward. This might be the case for many contract manufac- turers, but I believe that we are often a lagging indicator. We had an incredible first half of 2009 and then the bottom fell out. In 2011 we became incredibly busy. Customers will al- low CMC to build, but when it’s bad [the economy] they will bring some of that work back in house.
MinPA: How do you gauge success? DM: As a company owned by a private equity group, we must hit our financial numbers. But, we also look a lot at our contract business, repeat business and customer base. If we do well, customers will be coming back. We have to continue to listen to our customers. Another sign of success, for me personally, is seeing our employees grow, even if that means finding a bigger job out- side of CMC.
MinPA: As Chairman of the Board of Catalyst Connection, tell us your thoughts on how Industrial Resource Cen- ters, like Catalyst, can help manufacturers reach the next level of performance. DM: There are an incredible number of small manufactur- ers, many that often serve larger manufacturers. Catalyst has an effective team of expert consultants that can really help these growth-oriented companies at a very reasonable rate. They provide the latest industry best practices, trans- lated specifically toward this group. Catalyst is launching some innovative products and ser-
vices around networking and connecting manufacturers with its new “My Manufacturing Connection.” It’s just a great organization specifically focused on manufacturing.
MinPA: Here’s the question of the day, what are the top policies/initiatives, etc., that Pennsylvania can imple- ment to help manufacturers like CMC succeed? DM: First, we need more leadership around education and training. It’s a delicate situation to get the government, schools, teachers and industry together, but it has to be done. Second, Pennsylvania has to re-evaluate its regulatory en- vironment. For example CMC wanted to add some capabili- ties that required permitting and licensing. When I found out how long it would it take, I was astonished. Would our cus- tomers tolerate such long lead times? Third, we need to look at the tax situation. Pennsylvania would be better at the other side of the tax spectrum.4
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