Carol Johnson, Southern Indiana Business Report
BEDFORD – Ken Newton didn’t have a business plan when he started Fastech Precision, a small machine shop in Bedford, but he knew he had the skills to manufacture and deliver products quickly and accurately.
Newton started Fastech Precision three years ago. Located on Summit Lane, the business primarily serves aerospace and defense customers.
Services offered by Fastech include:
- Precision CNC machining services
- Rapid prototyping for aerospace/defense R&D
- Press brake bending
- Water jet cutting services
- Laser engraving for industrial applications
Most of the work done at Fastech is highly specialized.
“High precision prototyping with a quick turnaround,” Newton said. “Other jobs people would never touch, that’s what we do. We rarely produce more than 10 of anything.”
Speed and quality assurance are the hallmarks of Fastech Precision. Customers who submit a project request will receive a quote within 48 hours.
Nathan Howe is managing director of Fastech. Howe has a background in IT as a systems administrator. He designed the company’s website and has set up the required systems securities in order to work with the government.
Fastech places a high priority on data privacy and security. The business is DDTC registered and ITAR-compliant. Fastech is also certified with a Form DD-2345 under the Joint Certification Program, a DLA program designed to authorize U.S. and Canadian defense contractors to access unclassified military technical data marked as CUI (Controlled Unclassified Information).
“Our CUI-handling practices and our IT environment as a whole are both safe, secure and compliant with DoD and federal government standards, including the NIST-SP-800-171 framework for CUI,” Howe said.
CUI is non-classified information that still requires a level of safeguarding and dissemination controls due to its sensitive nature and potential for disastrous consequences in the hands of foreign adversaries.
Early interest in mechanics
Newton was interested in mechanics at an early age. Growing up in Mooresville, his parents didn’t let him play video games or watch much TV. Without the distraction of easy entertainment, Newton said he followed his natural curiosity.
“I was a miscreant child and couldn’t stay away from things that were fast or dangerous,” he said.
As a teenager, he taught himself to modify a lawn mower for speed. When he got the mower to reach 30 mph, something clicked. He soon became consumed with learning how to build things.
I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life, but I was really good at doing this,” he said.
That early success fed his drive to learn as much as he could. After graduating from Mooresville High School, he went to work at McGinn Tool & Engineering in Franklin. It was an older shop and hadn’t adopted modern manufacturing practices but it was a good learning ground for Newton. He would eventually learn to use computer-aided technology and become proficient in the modern CAD-CAM workflow.
After three years, he left that job with the goal of starting his own company. He didn’t have a solid plan for this business idea, but that didn’t deter him.
Newton was drawn to Bedford by an opportunity to work at an established machine shop a couple of years ago. After a few months, the owner, who was nearing retirement, offered to sell the shop to Newton. It was the opportunity Newton had been looking for.
Newton had manufacturing experience, but lacked experience in operating a business.
“I figured it out on the fly, which is the best way to learn,” he said of learning about invoicing customers, shipping and cost analysis.
Newton’s mechanical prowess is evident throughout the Fastech facility. He has rebuilt three of the CNC machines with little to no assistance from the manufacturers. For $200, he purchased a lathe – said to be broken – from an Indianapolis aerospace company that he was able to repair and put to use, saving the company thousands of dollars.
“Ken is very savvy as far as fixing any piece of industrial machinery or equipment that you could think of,” Howe said.
In the beginning, the shop wasn’t very busy, but now the business has grown to needing another employee.
One of Fastech’s newest projects is working with the Purdue Applied Research Institute.
“We’re doing some work with their Hypersonics Lab,” Howe said.
Growing the business is Newton’s immediate goal, but long term, he wants to start a skilled trades training academy. The academy would address what he says is a growing problem today – young adults entering the workforce lacking job skills to make a good living.
“What I’m finding when trying to hire people is they’re 20-something years old, they have no experience and it’s extremely expensive to train them. They don’t have time to go to school because they need to make money to live,” he said. “There’s a lot of people who would have been good at these jobs but they’re stuck in a system where they have to learn to do the thing first because they’re not profitable to me until they learn.”