High-end shop crafts precision parts
<p>Thompson Precision machinists Dusty Chouinard, left, and Tim Robison, right, talk with engineer Brent Passwater, center, about a project for one of their local customers on Thursday afternoon, January 28, at Thompson Precision Inc., north of Kalispell. (Brenda Ahearn/Daily Inter Lake)</p>
<p>Interior of one of the turning centers at Thompson Precision capable of holding 24 tools to cut and fabricate material. (Brenda Ahearn/Daily Inter Lake)</p>
<p>Greg Smith gives a tour of Thompson Precision on Thursday afternoon, January 28, just north of Kalispell. He has been with Thompson Precision since the beginning, but he has been doing this kind of work for more than 30 years. (Brenda Ahearn/Daily Inter Lake)</p>
<p>Thompson Precision machinists Dusty Chouinard, left, and Tim Robison, right, talk with engineer Brent Passwater, center, about a project for one of their local customers on Thursday afternoon, January 28, at Thompson Precision Inc., north of Kalispell. Interior of one of the turning centers at Thompson Precision capable of holding 24 tools to cut and fabricate material. Greg Smith gives a tour of Thompson Precision on Thursday afternoon, January 28, just north of Kalispell. He has been with Thompson Precision since the beginning, but he has been doing this kind of work for more…
Just off Whitefish Stage Road, on a unassuming plot of farm land, machinists are shaping materials into parts that could be going into space.
But often, neither General Manager Greg Smith nor anyone else inside the state-of-the-art shop knows what these parts will look like once fully assembled. Some of the pieces being fabricated are under such non-disclosure terms that the firms don’t even tell Thompson Precision what they are for.
“We rarely know,” Smith said. “A government entity will send you designs for pieces, just in parts. Some will make sure one shop doesn’t work on more than one piece.”
But those entities didn’t contract with Thompson Precision for their post-production advice, they did so for the extreme accuracy in production and highly trained staff.
The firm is at the leading edge of machining in the Flathead Valley, fully equipped with the tools to create highly detailed parts for the areospace, medical, semiconductor and firearms industries.
“A lot of the things we make here are the first time it’s existed on the planet,” Smith said.
The shop contains several large machines called turning centers, where materials such as aluminum, stainless steel and copper are honed into gears, cylinders and several things that a common person couldn’t imagine what they might be.
Machinists operate the turning centers, which move pieces of material beneath diamond-sharp drill bits or tools to create parts. Each turning center and drilling mill uses probes to physically map out the dimensions of the material and send that information to a digital screen before the machinist makes the first cut.
“This is all new equipment,” machinist Chris Lynn said. “We try to do everything in the highest quality and take on work that’s challenging. I take a lot of pride in the work I do, just like the rest of the crew.”
Fourteen people work at Thompson Precision between the front office and the fabrication shop. Ten of the staff are machinists, either highly experienced in the industry or new enough to begin picking up the tricks of the trade. And filling a staff with competent machinists isn’t as easy as they make it look to fabricate space parts.
“That’s the number one complaint in the industry: Skilled machinists are the holy grail,” Smith said.
Smith said Thompson Precision has attracted some of the most skilled machinists available in the industry. That core group of experienced workers is complemented by a handful of graduates from trade school programs such as Flathead Valley Community College, so new that Smith said they’re like blank sheets of paper.
New machinists in the industry are usually looking at wages of $20 and up, Smith said.
The Thompson Precision shop contains several machining tools that are new to the industry; some turning centers are capable of holding 24 different cutting tools at once to perform different detail jobs.
The more work equipment is able to do simultaneously, the more parts Thompson Precision is able to produce and get out the door.
“The trend in the industry is to try to do everything at once,” Smith said.
But the other trend in the industry is 3-D printing, a fabrication method that has had significant growth in the past few years. Certain printers are even capable of printing plastic pieces that can be assembled into fully functioning firearms.
Having been in the industry for 36 years, Smith said he’s surprised 3-D printing hasn’t already redefined machining entirely.
“Machining tools have come a long way,” Smith said. “But I’m surprised that 3-D printing hasn’t taken the machining industry by storm. That’s going to be boon or bane for the industry. That’s why we’re getting involved right now. We have to be very adaptive.”
The machining firm started five years ago on the 275-acre Thompson Farm just north of town. Founder Ray Thompson was the owner of Semitool, which he sold to Applied Materials.
Thompson founded the Thompson Group, a parent company that later purchased several other semiconductor companies, as well as a handful of other businesses, including Sykes’ Market in Kalispell. He eventually started Thompson Precision to create his own materials for his semiconductor companies and keep overhead costs down.
“At one time, 100 percent of the parts and pieces fabricated here went to other Thompson Group businesses,” Smith said. “Five years later, we’re at 2 percent or less.”
Thompson Precision now makes parts and pieces for private and government contractors all over the United States.
“We’ve come a long way in five years,” Smith said.
Reporter Seaborn Larson may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.