It was the late 1980s in Newbery Park California and a new machine shop was pumping out millions of Teflon microwave insulators. The work was tedious the hours were long but the pay was a bit better than most blue collar jobs in the area. Each of us making over $30,000 a year back in those days was pretty good money. Three of us were young single guys (except Joe and Cell married) so that kind of money really went far.

In spite of the tedious long hours this little five man crew made it all happen. Each one of us really took great pride in our craft and honed our skills to be second to none. You would be hard pressed to find higher quality machine work anywhere in the world at the time and our aim was nothing less than perfection.

For most of those years we were our own QC department as well, with a low rejection rate any shop would envy. As production demands went up we finally got a QC department to help us out, and none too soon, since our rejection rate went up along with the high demand. Hey, we were only human after all.

Keeping ten Bechler Automatics running is no small task but we did it every day, sometimes six days a week, ten hours a day. We started work at 5:00 AM and beat the sun up for years on end. Even so, we never compromised on the quality of those parts, perfection always the goal, anything less went directly into the scrap can without question.

The crew…

David was a Navy Machinist Mate gone commercial, Mike and Cell were Simi Vocational Machinist School graduates. Ryan was an on the job apprentice attending the Simi machine shop school. Joe was the senior crew member and learned entirely on the job.

Strange as it may seem we really liked what we did knowing very few people this side of Switzerland possessed the skills required to run these difficult and rare machines.

David, Mike and Joe were the backbone of the setup crew. Joe was the fastest set-up man and Mike and David were a close second. Just the three of us could have run the shop at those production rates by ourselves. However, without the extra help from the rest of the crew we would have burned out fast.

Our apprentice Ryan was really coming into his own fast and wasn‘t far behind. Ryan had a passion to learn the trade and never stopped learning. Ryan is a highly skilled machinist today still working in the trade.

Cell was the Foreman and the “C” in FamCam.

FamCam stands for “Flo - Art - Michael - Cell and Mark” the original founders of the company.

Cell did more supervising than setting up during those years and nobody could blame him. Cell had five years on all of us at FamCam and certainly put in his time setting up. Whenever there was a problem with any of the jobs in the shop the buck stopped with Cell. If Cell couldn’t get it to work it wasn’t going to work.

Mark and Michael (not pictured) always supported the shop with CAM design and shaping along with custom drill grinding work. We all took turns in those departments but Michael and Mark did most of this work. It was David, Mike, Ryan, Joe and Cell that kept “the line” humming. Art had left the company early on and little is known of him other than he was a talented machinist. Flo, was the heart-beat of the company and the business mind that made it all happen.

The years after FamCam and today…

Mike moved to Washington state and worked for years in a large Boeing vendor machine shop. Mike’s duties included set-up and CNC programming related to mills and lathes. Mike became one of three shop supervisors and was responsible for ‘Machine Cell Two.’ Machine Cell Two consisted of two CNC lathes, one gun drill, one CNC screw machine, one HAAS CNC Mill, one Bridgeport Mill and two Chucker lathes. A lot of responsibility considering the strict QC controls demanded by the FAA for aerospace work.

Ironically, Mike spent years machining large parts ranging from landing gear parts for 707s to giant engine mounting nuts for 747s that took a crane to carry. It was one cold rainy Washington day when Mike noticed the shop’s foreman struggling with the shop’s one CNC Screw machine. Not only was Mike able to get this seemingly impossible job back running, but at ten times the speed it was previously with higher quality output. The owners of the company were dumbfounded, landing Mike a supervisor‘s position, all thanks to FamCam experiences years before.

At another company, working as a prototype machinist Mike was able to solve some difficult engineering design problems leading to an advancement as the only non-degreed engineer on the R&D staff. It was the meticulous attention to detail and math skills learned as a Swiss Screw Machinist at FamCam the enabled these opportunities.

Currently Mike is a partner in an online real estate company and does computer programming and other business related tasks for the company. The computer skills learned as a machinist and other related studies all contributed to the creation of this very profitable company. Mike will never forget those years at FamCam churning out parts in Newbery Park California.

Ryan has continued as a machinist to this day and has extensive experience in nearly all aspects of machine shop work. Ryan has done CNC screw machine work, mill, lathe and precision grinding among a few skills added to his extensive machinist resume. FamCam was a firm foundation for what is today a highly skilled and sought after machinist.

David was called back to the Navy during the Gulf War and served to the end of the war. He eventually moved on to other machine shop work. His current occupation is unknown to this author.

Joe and Cell moved to Florida with FamCam in 1991 but has since moved on to other careers. Their current occupations are unknown to this author.

In retrospect FamCam was a great experience and a solid foundation for any machinist career or occupation requiring strict attention to detail. The owners Michael and ‘Flo’ put on some very memorable company parties and were very generous to their employees. Thanks again guys!

FamCam is just one small American story but no doubt a good picture of American small business in the 1980s. FamCam is still producing machined parts and has grown into a mature machine shop in Florida