LONG BEACH, CALIF. - Running an injection molding business has not been the easiest thing to do in Southern California in recent years. If it wasn't the economic recession that gripped the area in the late 1980s and early 1990s, then it was a business climate that prompted many molders to leave the state.
But Slaney McConnell Co. has prospered by staying put. The custom molder and toolmaker experienced a 20 percent increase in sales last year, expanded into a new building at its Huntington Beach, Calif., location and already is operating at full capacity.
The company, with $2 million in sales in 1994, has grown through word-of-mouth referrals during its 10-year history, according to Vice President Gary McConnell.
It weathered the recent recession, which put many molders out of business, and remained in Southern California because it knew that some customers did not want to deal with an out-of-state molder.
``Primarily, we succeeded because we stayed in the state of California,'' McConnell said in an interview Feb. 15 at WPE in Long Beach.
Slaney McConnell operates in a number of end markets, including automotive, lawn and garden, toys and musical instruments. It recently added decorating and assembly as part of its operations.
The company has 14 molding machines with clamping forces of 18-200 tons. As part of its $1 million expansion last year, Slaney McConnell added an 83-ton Arburg and a 90-ton Van Dorn Demag and moved into a 13,000-square-foot building it purchased.
McConnell said the company may expand by another 12,000 square feet this year with the purchase of a second building in Huntington Beach. He is projecting a sales increase of 10 percent in 1995.