| |
Murfreesboro, TENN.-
What's a short, sweet southern lady doing running a $1.7 million annual business? Ask Barbra Fox, owner of Fox Bros. Electric Motor Service LLC, and she will tell you that she's carrying on a family tradition to offer quality service in a booming area. Murfreesboro, just 27 miles southeast of Nashville, is the geographical center of the state, in Rutherford County, the third fastest growing county in the state with a population of 200,000. Her husband, John Russell, and his brother, James, started the business almost 40 years ago in James's garage.
In 1968, they saw that they had outgrown the garage's work area and rented a portion of the building that now houses the company's facilities at 861 W. College St. They first rented one big room that was 50 by 75 feet, and a year later the brothers told their landlord that they needed more space and asked if they could construct a basement beneath the building that presently houses the winding department and inventory storage. Two years later the Fox brothers approached the landlord once again and bought the building.
A quick study
Barbara Fox was an important part of the business from day one. While serving primarily in the role of mother and housewife, she also learned how to keep books, in her words, "very quickly," and when she first started she often worked in the shop winding motors. Russell and James decided that her small hands were perfect for winding the smaller motors. "I couldn't make connections to save my life, but I could set them up by getting the motors wound and they would finish up," she recalls.
Seven years ago, the Foxes realized that the business had grown so much that a decision had to be made to either move or build a larger shop area. The decision was to stay and add on to the present facility, and Russell asked his wife to investigate possible floor plans. "I looked in back issues of Electrical Apparatus and found diagrams of different motor shops to consider," Barbara says.
However, after her husband's death, almost two years ago, and the earlier retirement of her brother-in –law from the business, she found herself as owner and decision maker for the business. Her first decision was to stay in business, and although she is the driving force behind the business's continued success, other family members work alongside her to help continue the tradition.
Her son, John Russell Fox, helps his mother in various roles, as well as his sister, Debbie Willeford, who has been with the business since 1978 and works as the office manager. Two other Fox daughters, Melanie Jones and Cindy Posey, also previously worked part-time at their parents' company. Barbara's sister, Gayle Davis, is the company's cost accountant.
Loyal employees
The other 10 employees, who work in either service or sales, are quick to admit that, while they are not related to the Fox family, they do feel a kinship with the company because of the manner in which they are treated. The company's turnover rate historically is very little to none. Sales manager Kristy Roberts has been with the company 13 years and enjoys her work, from checking with the customer onsite to quoting orders to stocking the counter. Carey Norris, mechanic and winder, says he is willing to drive one and a half hours one way to work each day because he feels loyalty to the Fox family and their way of doing business. The company's former general manager, Thomas Tubb, who served the company 17 years, also served as a key decision maker.
The company services a 50-100 mile radius –depending on direction- and primarily handles repair and sales to the plastic extrusion manufacturers, food processing plants, press board manufacturers, automobile-related industries, and local utilities who make up a large part of the customers at Fox Bros. The shop's electricians are also certified to conduct ground fault testing that meets Mine Safety and Health Administration requirements.
This type of work is primarily done for the rock crusher industries in the area. The shop also handles pump repair and sells submersible pumps because so many in the rural area use well pumps.
The work scope includes AC up to 1,500 hp and DC up to 1,000 hp, pumps, power transmissions, and gear reducers. Non-motor work includes servicing switchgear and motor control centers, installing new ones, checking for loose connections, and preventive maintenance checks. Approximately 25% of the on-site work is outsourced.
Among the equipment in the 6,000 square-foot shop area are milling machine, lathes, balancer with a capability up to 6,000 pounds (rotors 20 hp and over are balanced), surge tester, core loss tester, sandblaster, steam cleaner, three bake ovens, a dip tank, and a parts washer. The shop also has two 1-ton jib cranes, two 6,000-pound forklifts. Included in the company's fleet are 1½-ton flat bed truck, a 1½-ton service truck and a 1½-ton boom truck.
Offshoring and testing
According to Tubb, there are two trends that he sees happening in the customer base. First, he has watched some industries move from Murfreesboro to Mexico and beyond. Also, he sees customers doing more price checking and asking to see more test results.
"One customer base that we especially appreciate is the local utilities which we service," says Tubb. "They won't be moving."
While Fox Bros. Electric Motor Service typically handles work often found in a service center of its size, it also has the reputation of successfully completing one-of-a-kind repairs.
One such job is referred to as "the flying saucer job." This was a job 10 years ago for a manufacturer of huge water valves that has since moved to Italy. The job involved a 7-foot in diameter magnetic clutch table used as a surface grinder. It consisted of layers of coils spaced concentrically within the unit, and each coil was connected to a channel in the form of the magnet. The coils had to be wound with certain size wire and a certain number of turns. The coils were laid with insulation paper, and, after the coils were laid in place, a compound was used to fill the grooves of the channels. When this was finished, the top plate was put back on and held in place with multiple countersunk bolts.
From start to finish, Fox Bros. had to improvise to complete the project. It took three tow motors to unload it in the basement work area. Shop employees made a special rigging that they used to walk around and wind the coils, because the coils were so heavy. Having completed this demanding job successfully, the service center crew was later asked to do the repair work on a smaller, similar unit.
Sometimes a project requires detective work. For example, recently Mi-Tech Steel, Inc., asked the shop to repair extreme carbon build-up on a 125 hp DC motor that fed a roll of steel as it was guided through the slitter machine. After discovering that the problem was with the neutral being off center, the shop technicians solved the mystery, and the motor was refurbished with a new set of brushes.
Another unusual project required the shop to seek temporary additional space in a building just down the street from their business. The job involved replacing a defective switch on more than 2,000 motors for one of Fox's customers. "We set up an assembly line. Each person had a specific job to do, which either involved taking the motor apart, pulling out the defective switch, or replacing the old switch with a new one. Finally, each motor was tested," Tubb adds.
For Fox Bros., going beyond the call of duty has also meant going beyond serving the customer to serving the community itself. Before his death, Russell Fox was known throughout the community for his devotion as the county's Director of Civil Defense. He started the fire department in his community of Christiana and served as its fire chief. "Russell would often pull employees from his business to fight brush fires and house fires," Tubb affirms.
Twice a year, the company invites students from the area vocational technical institute in for an advanced electrical training class. They give students a shop tour and show hands-on training of motor repair. "We feel that this is one way that we can help those who plan a future in our industry," Tubb says.
Like her father, Debbie believes in contributing to the community through volunteer work and has been a leader for the Cumberland Valley Girl Scouts. She does confess that a few times she has bribed suppliers to hurry up an order by offering a couple of boxes of Girl Scout cookies. But it's this down-home atmosphere and pleasant work environment, along with continued customer satisfaction, that gave Fox Bros. Electric Motor Service its identity.
From winding small motors in its early history to making decisions for the next decade of business, Barbara Fox has never given one thought to closing up shop.
Much thanks to Electrical Apparatus Magazine, and Mr. Horace Barks with Barks Publications for allowing us to include their article on our web site.
|
|
