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by Jeff Moad, MA Editorial Staff Posted on Thursday, January 03, 2008 12:13:38 PM   Back in 2002, Haider Nazar received an offer that was not difficult to refuse. Nazar's father-in-law wanted him to take over as CEO of a small precision-parts manufacturing company, Kemco Tool and Machine Company, which he owned. The 85-person firm in Kirkwood, MO, while cash-flow positive, was not growing. Worse, Kemco (since renamed Kemco Manufacturing) relied on mature programs at just a few defense contractor customers -- Boeing Co.'s Integrated Defense Systems unit accounted for 65% of Kemco's business -- and many of them were beginning to look to lower-cost, offshore suppliers for parts. "At the time, job shop work of the sort Kemco was doing was becoming more and more commoditized," Nazar says. "Those margins were shrinking year to year. If the company didn't change and approach the market differently, this business that had been successful for 50 years would have been in jeopardy." Not the sort of opportunity that ordinarily would attract an executive like Nazar, who was accustomed to high-growth, rapidly changing markets. Before getting the invitation to run Kemco, Nazar had been a consultant in Accenture Inc.'s San Francisco office and had acted as a key manager in two Silicon Valley software startup companies. [Click to continue] |