Orange-based Marway Power Systems Inc., a maker of surge protection gear for aerospace companies, is doubling its space in a move to a plant in Irvine.
Marway’s 45 local workers are set to move to a 33,000-square-foot plant on 17500 Gillette Ave. near MacArthur Boulevard and Red Hill Avenue. It plans to be up and running in Irvine by March 1.
The company signed a five-year lease. The value wasn’t disclosed.
Finding midsize industrial space in Orange County was “extremely difficult,” said Terri Stiles, Marway’s human resources director.
Marway searched for about six months before finding the Irvine building, which is about 10,000 square feet larger than what it had set out for.
The company looked in Orange, Anaheim, Santa Ana, Fullerton, Fountain Valley and Garden Grove, Stiles said.
They “didn’t even consider the Inland Empire,” she said.
Highly skilled manufacturing and assembly workers are hard to find, Stiles said. Marway didn’t want to move far, she said.
“A good portion of our workers live in Santa Ana, Westminster and Garden Grove,” Stiles said. “We didn’t want to lose that expertise.”
The company makes a niche product: an industrial version of a power surge protector.
Marway custom designs and makes power distribution systems. Finished products can be as small as 3 inches or as large as 6 feet.
The units are made up of electrical inputs that channel different amounts of electricity to power machines.
The systems help ensure a consistent flow of power and prevent surges.
“It works like a power strip,” Stiles said. “It makes it so the right amount of power goes to each particular machine.”
Some Marway systems provide backup power to equipment that has to keep running during an outage.
More than half of Marway’s $6 million in yearly sales are to the military, which uses the power distribution systems for its test equipment.
Marway’s products end up on military aircraft, ships and submarines,even Air Force One.
The company is one of a few that custom makes power distribution systems. Rivals include Pittsford, N.Y.-based Teknic Inc. and Fairview, Pa.-based Spectrum Control Inc.
“We have the technical engineering expertise, so we design it for the customer’s specific needs,” Chief Financial Officer Bob Moberly said.
Marway long has been part of Southern California’s aerospace hub. The company’s biggest orders come from Boeing Co., Northrop Grumman Corp. and L3 Communi-cations Holdings Inc.’s Interstate Electronics Corp. in Anaheim.
Other buyers include Lockheed Martin Corp., Raytheon Co. and General Dynamics Corp.
The privately held company has seen orders soar in recent years amid the war in Iraq,some of its smaller systems are used on Humvees and other mobile units.
Marway expects 20% sales growth this year, according to Moberly.
“The war definitely does help us,” he said.
The company doesn’t expect sales to slump if the war begins to wane. Still, “we would be affected by the budget process of the government,” he said, referring to the prospect of reduced military spending.
Military orders tend to come in waves, Moberly said. Marway’s commercial customers provide more consistent business, he said. Orders range from $5,000 to $750,000.
“This is why we also want to have a nice mix of commercial sales, so that if the war effort slows down, we will be able to continue,” Moberly said.
On the commercial side, Marway sells to Target Corp., IBM Corp. and KLA Tencor Corp., a San Jose maker of semiconductor production gear.
The move to Irvine is designed to boost production, Moberly said.
“In the current building, we are hampered because of the design. It isn’t such that it gives us a good production flow,” Moberly said. “The new facility will give us the room to grow.”
Hiring is in the works.
The company is set to hire a few workers after the move and expects to add 20 to 50 jobs within the next two years, according to Stiles.
Marway has about 28 workers in manufacturing and 17 in administration.
Its engineers have backgrounds in electrical and mechanical engineering and churn out six to 10 custom designs a month, Chief Executive Dan Richter said.
Manufacturing workers don’t do a lot of heavy machining. They assemble and solder parts that Marway buys from others, including filters, circuit breakers, transformers and sheet metal, Richter said.
Marway has been in Orange County since 1979. In 1985, it was sold to the Munday family and operated out of Santa Ana. The business moved to Orange in 1995. After Leo Munday died in 2002, his wife, Mary, ran the business.
She sold Marway in 2005 to Richter, who served for four years as Marway’s engineer manager. n
