Tooling firms weather the downturn

The Wall Street Journal has a feature story on its Web site today on how tool-and-die shops in the Meadville, Pa., area are doing in this recession. Surprisingly, they're doing pretty well -- the story headline is "Joy in Meadville: 'Tool City' Weathers Downturn." The report quotes Mark Turner, executive directory of Economic Progress Alliance of Crawford County, saying: "You're not seeing the wholesale disruptions you might expect, because they learned from hard lessons in the past." Some keys to their success -- Meadville-are companies have diversified, and no longer rely too much on the automotive market, or on just one or two big customers. The story quotes one plastics-specific toolshop. Mark Hanaway, director of marketing and sales at Tech Tool & Molded Plastics, told the WSJ that he worries that the recession is pushing more of his customers to look for cheaper tools overseas.