ENTREPRENEURS MAKE NAME IN ANTI-FIRE GEAR.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

Politicians love to hear up-by-the-bootstraps tales that show good, old American ingenuity and hard work are alive and well. Especially when those examples of entrepreneurial grit happen in their district.

So Tom Salamone and Tim Mollema were happy to show Rep. Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, around their 25,000-square-foot plant last week, explaining how they began the company by themselves 14 years ago and built it into a $10 million-a-year business.

Salamone and Mollema, graduates of North Hollywood and Granada Hills high schools, respectively, met in 1984 while working as electrical installers for Rockwell International's B-1 bomber program. Salamone lived in Newhall and Mollema in Simi Valley, so they decided to car pool to the Palmdale plant.

It was on those commutes that the two, aware they would be laid off once production of the plane ended, decided they should start their own company. Valencia-based HRD Aero Systems Inc. ``began over a handshake by two men who had only known each other a week,'' reads a history of the company.

Since those humble beginnings, HRD has boomed to become the world's largest refilling and repair facility for aircraft fire extinguishers. Its clients include Northwest Airlines, America West, Mexicana, Aeromexico, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Forest Service fleet of firefighting aircraft, assorted law enforcement agencies and the government-run airlines in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Salamone said.

``We have taken virtually every dollar we've made over the past 13 years and reinvested it in the company,'' added Mollema, 40.

The initials in the company name stand for ``high-rate discharge,'' a reference to the pressurized chemical contents that put out aircraft engine fires.

Considering the company's customers come from aviation, Salamone and Mollema are particularly proud that they not only weathered the decline of Southern California's aerospace industry but actually flourished during that era. Federal Aviation Administration rules require aircraft large and small to carry fire suppression equipment, and the agency will ground an airplane until it has such devices on board, said Salamone, 44.

To minimize delays to their aviation customers, the two founders ``were dedicated to the idea that they could provide a service to the world that no one else could offer - fast (turnover) times on overhauls,'' a company brochure says. HRD is one of just 22 overhaul facilities in the world.

Salamone and Mollema had sought help from McKeon in recent months because of a business problem they had encountered. Although the two eventually resolved the matter on their own, the congressman still wanted to stop by for a visit.

``He was interested in it because it was started as a very small company (by) a couple of people, and it has grown to a very competitive, very thriving enterprise,'' said David Foy, district director for McKeon. ``Since Congressman McKeon started as a small-business man himself and his business grew . . . he feels a real affinity for people who start small businesses and make them successful.''

Salamone got the idea for the fire suppression business because, in the mid-1970s, he had worked for a Burbank company that performed the same type of maintenance on what are known as ``fire bottles,'' which are used to extinguish engine fires on aircraft.

The tanks don't look like the cylindrical fire extinguishers that people keep in their home or garage. Fire bottles contain up to 105 pounds of fire suppressant and are spherical - the strongest shape for withstanding pressurized contents. They range from the size of a cantaloupe to a bit smaller than a beach ball and are filled with a fluorocarbon gas called Halon 1301 that reacts chemically with flames to snuff them out on contact, Salamone said.

But when the gas was found to be damaging to the atmosphere, an international agreement in 1990 prohibited its manufacture, effective in 1994. There were environmental concerns that Halon was contributing to the destruction of the ozone layer.

After the ban took effect, entities that had widely used the Halon-filled fire bottles - such as computer facilities and telephone switching systems, as an alternative to sprinkler systems that would cause water damage to sensitive equipment - began selling the spherical tanks and finding alternate chemical gases to put out fires.

HRD began buying up those tanks and stockpiling them in its warehouse, knowing that the worldwide supply of Halon eventually would dry up but that its aviation customers would continue to need the fire suppressant. Despite the ban on Halon manufacturing, the laws allowed aircraft owners to keep using the substance for the life span of their planes and helicopters.

``The Air Force has done a study, and they've determined there's probably a 40- or 50-year supply of (Halon) out there,'' Salamone said. ``There's enough in the world for all the airplanes to keep flying for years.''

Another big user of the Halon-filled fire bottles is the network of oil derricks on the Alaska Pipeline, he noted.

HRD Aero Systems' staff of 75 services the fire bottles by testing the contents and verifying pure Halon is inside. Another step is to strip the paint from each stainless-steel tank to check for cracks or dents that would weaken it and make it susceptible to rupture, Mollema said.

It takes about four hours to service a fire bottle, and in the aviation business, every hour without that piece of equipment is an hour the plane or chopper stays in the hangar or on the tarmac. Mollema said the aviation industry average, for aircraft small to large, is $14,000 in lost revenue for every hour spent grounded.

A 1996 aviation tragedy created a business opportunity for HRD. After the deadly crash of a ValuJet DC-9 in the Florida Everglades, the FAA ruled that all commercial aircraft must have fire detection and suppression equipment in the cargo hold.

In the ValuJet crash, which killed all 110 people aboard, a fire that broke out in the plane's cargo hold was blamed on a shipment of oxygen generators.

Now about 3,000 passenger aircraft must be retrofitted with fire bottles by 2000, Salamone said. Most wide-body jets already have this equipment in their cargo holds, he noted.

``That means there will be more work for us,'' he said.

The FAA regulation also has international implications. ``A lot of airlines that fly into the United States are required to follow FAA rules,'' he said.

A company in Duarte and another in North Carolina manufacture a combined 95 percent of the world's fire bottles, and getting spare parts to service the tanks can be expensive. Mollema said HRD's next step will be to manufacture replica parts that would fit each type of tank and perform just as well. Someday the company might even branch out to manufacturing the fire bottles as well, Salamone added.

Although business is booming now, the early years were lean, recalled Salamone, now an Agua Dulce resident.

``We basically had no jobs and we both just had kids and started a business that was making no money,'' he said. ``I lived off my savings, and Tim lived off his savings. We probably worked 15- or 16-hour days, six or seven days a week, and that went on for a year or so.

``I knew the business was going to work. I just knew that it was going to take some time. It was a very anxious time, but I always had confidence.''

Salamone said the company philosophy was to do whatever it took to serve the customers and get them cleared for flight.

``That's why we grew,'' he said. ``People appreciated the fact that we wouldn't close the door at 5 o'clock and say, the business is closed, come back tomorrow.''

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PHOTO (Color) HRD founders Tim Mollema, left, and Tom Salamone hold aircraft fire extinguisher tanks.