Aerospace Repair Shop in Rio Rancho Welcomes the Warehouse Moving in Next Door
By Richard Metcalf
Journal Staff Writer
New Mexico's fledgling aerospace industry is getting another boost with a Houston company's decision to open an aircraft parts warehouse in Rio Rancho.
Source One Spares plans to consolidate warehouses in three states next to Aero Mechanical Industries Inc., a 13-month-old aircraft parts repair company at 4901 Rockaway.
"It's definitely a synergistic relationship," said Seth Hall, president and co-founder of Source One Spares.
For Aero Mechanical, the location of an aircraft parts warehouse next door will mean a steady flow of business requiring employment growth from the current 21 employees to between 50 and 65 by year end.
Aero Mechanical, which had three full-time and two part-time employees a year ago, expanded operations ahead of schedule in 2005, said president and co-founder Jim Cooper.
The underlying reason is changes since 9/11 within the struggling airline industry. Airlines used to repair or overhaul parts in their own shops or have the work done at the manufacturer, such as Boeing or Airbus, often with high labor costs.
Now airlines are subcontracting the work to save time and money, Cooper said.
"So we have focused our main thrust on a real reasonable price, quick turn times and quality," he said. "We ensure our products meet the highest standards when they go out the door."
Quick turnaround
Most of Aero Mechanical's customers are companies that stock refurbished parts and sell them to airlines, such as Source One, but the company recently shipped a direct order to Alaska Airlines.
Aero Mechanical's emphasis on a quick turnaround fits in with Source One's strategy of providing airlines with parts as quickly as possible.
"For airlines with a plane down, time is of the essence," Hall said.
By locating a warehouse near Aero Mechanical, Source One stands to gain one to two days of transportation time.
Working with Brad Allen of Roger Cox & Associates, a representative of Source One scouted the metro area for a suitable location last fall.
"We always had it in our mind to build additional warehouse space at the site," Allen said. "As we talked with them, we realized this would be a good matchup.
Roger Cox, the company's owner and chairman of the board, helped to form a limited liability company to develop the 50,000-square-foot warehouse for Source One to occupy.
Once in operation, the warehouse will employ two or three people, Hall said.
Dry is good
A year earlier— in the fall of 2004— Cooper and fellow founder Rodney Doss were looking for a place in New Mexico to locate their company in 2004, partly because they liked the state.
"New Mexico was one of those places I just fell in love with," said Doss, who was living in Santa Fe and working as a consultant in aircraft certification at the time.
In addition, the state's dry climate is a major consideration when working on aluminum and graphite composite aircraft parts. "High humidity sets up corrosion in aircraft parts in storage," Cooper said.
Aero Mechanical ended up in Rio Rancho almost by accident.
"The timing worked out well," Allen said.
Sparton Corp., an electronics manufacturer, was moving out of the Rockaway site in the fall of 2004 for larger space in the old Honeywell plant on Albuquerque's West Side. At the time of the move, Sparton was leasing the space from Roger Cox & Associates.
Sparton's move was gradual, allowing Aero Mechanical to set up shop in 1,500 square feet in November 2004 and expand into 20,000 square feet a month later.
"It was literally their trucks pulling out and our trucks pulling in," Doss said. "Instant backfill— it was perfect timing but nothing pre-planned."
By September 2005, Aero Mechanical was occupying the 71,000 square feet it has today. Some of the space is being used as temporary warehousing for Source One's inventory of parts from Texas, Hall said. More parts will ship from Source One warehouses in Arkansas and Oklahoma.
Co-location benefits
Cooper, a veteran of more than 30 years in aircraft parts refurbishing, and Doss, a former Federal Aviation Administration inspector, said Aero Mechanical will see its business spike because of Source One's co-location. But the company will continue to seek other customers, including airlines, through networking, they said.
Although there will be some clerical jobs added over the next year, most new workers will be technicians and mechanics certified to work on commercial aircraft. Pay is in the $12- to $19-an-hour range.
"We've been fortunate to find people here who've gone off to work for the airlines and either retired, got laid off or came back looking for something to do," Doss said.
Aero Mechanical does not really compete for employees with Eclipse Aviation, which in the final stages of developing a business jet.
Other aerospace companies in the metro area include Honeywell, which has a defense avionics plant, and Boeing-SVS Inc., an aviation technology company.
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