Valley products: Precision Dynamics Corp. has been loyal to the valley and its workforce, but founder Walter Mosher and his manufacturing firm face difficult decisions due to California's business climate as the company celebrates its 50th anniversary.

San Fernando-based automatic identification wristband manufacturer Precision Dynamics Corp. has come a long way in its" 50 years in business. The company has managed to go from a part-time sideline of company founder, Walter Mosher, m a $60 million a year firm. Along the way, it has repeatedly made significant technological breakthroughs, managing to make its own technology obsolete several times over, as it commandeered a large share of the wristband identification market in the healthcare. prison and crowd control industries.

Throughout its history, the company and its" founder have both made a name for themselves throughout the Valley. With approximately 600 total employees, the majority working in San Fernando, Precision Dynamics is the fifth largest manufacturer in the area (the third largest privately-held manufacturer) and a driver of economic growth.

The success of the company can be largely attributed to the genial Mosher who ,founded the company when he was a 22-year old student at the University, of California, Los Angeles. Throughout his time as one of the Valley's major manufacturing entrepreneurs, Mosher has made a major mark on the Valley serving as an influential member of many local civic organizations and working extensively with the various job training programs in the area. And at an age where many of his peers have long since retired, the 71-year old Mosher still serves as Precision's chairman of the board and chief technology officer, where he remains the brains behind much of the company's technological vision for the future.

Question: As Precision Dynamics enters it 50th year in business in 2006, what attributes do you believe have contributed to the company's longevity?

Answer: We treat our employees like they're all part of a family. We try to give them benefits better than any other job they could find. Our average turnover is lower than most businesses because we try to give our employees an attractive environment and a good safe workplace to be in. We also try to share the profits that we make with our employees through an extensive profit-sharing program and a thorough benefit and retirement program for employees. All of these things allow us to keep the company moving forward with good people.

Q: How has the company changed over the last 50 years?

A: First, the technology has greatly changed. It's gone from a simple device that was simple to manufacture to a state of the art electronic device. The company has also changed in terms of the quality of the products we produce and the types of people we need to manufacture it.

We've tried hard to raise the level of education of our employees, so that they can handle the higher paying technological jobs versus something like simple assembly work. In order to so, we've worked a great deal with some of the local schools such as CSUN and Valley College. We're heavily involved with job training programs at those two institutions.

Q: In the past, you've been critical of the business climate of California and the city of Los Angeles? How would you assess it currently and what steps need to be done to improve things?

A: It all starts with the basic cost of doing business here, it needs to be reduced. There are too many legislative programs that cost too much money and make it difficult for us to retain jobs in this state and in this country. Precision has moved part of our jobs down to Mexico, in spite of our efforts to raise the skill levels of our local workers. It comes down to the bottom line, we can't afford to have these kinds of salaries for low-skilled jobs.

The state needs to make a change. Our educational system needs to be improved with more of a focus on the sciences, whether it's biotech or electronics or high-tech manufacturing. We just can't be surviving with burger flipping jobs.

Q: The local manufacturing sector has been hit hard by outsourcing. As you previously mentioned, Precision outsources some of its production to Tijuana and the Netherlands. However, approximately 75 percent of the workforce remains in the United States including a significant portion of the company's manufacturing force. How has it managed to remain competitive and not outsource all of the manufacturing like many other firms have already done?

A: We spend a lot of time putting high speed production equipment into our operations and we have to develop those machines inhouse. Additionally, we've switched to highly automated manufacturing techniques to create an environment that can sustain these people's employment and pay them a salary of what's necessary to make a living in this city. We also try to stay progressive using techniques like lean manufacturing to help make the company become more efficient and streamlined.

Q: What do you see as the future of the manufacturing space locally and what can be done to improve it?

A: The only companies that will survive and continue to stay here will be the highly automated companies. I don't see anyone being able to have much success in keeping our manufacturing in the Valley, after all you can see it moving out all the time.

The only real thing that can be done is for our politicians to stop giving away the store. The pension plans that the state gives their employees is outrageous. If they want to reduce the cost of doing business here, they have to streamline the way they run the city. Health care costs are completely out of line and they aren't getting any better and it makes businesses not be able to afford to keep the jobs here.

Q: Is it possible for the company to shift all of its manufacturing to its Mexican production facility?

A: Yes it is.

Q: What is keeping the company from doing so?

A: We are prepared to do such a thing if the costs get too out of line. We will be moving more and more of our commodity manufacturing to Mexico and we're in the process of moving a whole manufacturing process down there as we speak.

We still develop the equipment locally because you can't buy it anywhere else. That's what we can still do at this facility, designing and developing the machines to build the product. Eventually though, there may just come a time when almost all of the manufacturing will be done overseas or in Latin America.

Q: Do you anticipate outsourcing more jobs during the course of 2006 and are there any concrete plans to lay off more people locally?

A: We'll continue to do outsourcing because it's important to our future. We're in the process of shipping more jobs down to Mexico right now.

However, in 2006 we're going to be spending probably a million dollars in improving the productivity of the processes that are being kept here. We have a major engineering development program to replace obsolete technologies with higher productivity technologies so those jobs don't go south. We don't want to lay off people locally if we can avoid it.

Q: What else is the company going to focus on for 2006?

A: We're going to move our radio frequency identification technology (RFIT) into the crowd control and health care markets very vigorously this year. The main thrust in 2006 will be to market this technology to theme parks in the next year and you'll see many theme parks utilizing our technology. We're currently involved in negotiations with several theme park entities.

Q: If you could plan your dream vision for the next 50 years of the company, what would it be?

A: I'd like to see it grow substantially again, but into the electronics area more with organic RFIT devices. I don't know exactly where we'll take it, but we will be pushing our intellectual property forward.

Snapshot

Walter Mosher

Organization: Precision Dynamics Corp.

Title: Chairman of the Board, Chief Technology Officer

Born: April 15, 1934

Education: Glendale Community College, A.A.; University of California, Los Angeles, B.S., engineering; M.A., Ph.D, UCLA 

Most Admired People: My late patent attorney, Thomas Mahoney

Hobbies: Model trains

Personal: Not married, three children