When
I’m not shooting real estate or portraits for clients, my “fun” photography
typically involves birds, trees, gardens, parklands, architecture, or one of
many numerous landmarks around Orange County, the State, and beyond… But my
outing yesterday was a very different, and very special unique opportunity—and
it was practically in my own backyard… (I’m going to have to add
business production process photography to my list of services!)
I
had the distinct pleasure of seeing for the first time the Cla-Val foundry and
manufacturing complex in Costa Mesa. You may have never heard of Cla-Val,
but what I came to learn is that they produce the world's highest quality
automatic control valves for a diverse array of industries, from military ships
to offshore oil platforms to high-rise office buildings. Just as their clients
rely on the quality and performance of their products, we too depend on them
indirectly. According to their website (http://www.cla-val.com/company-overview.php),
Cla-Val was established in 1936 in South Pasadena with just five
employees. Cla-Val moved to its present home, a twenty-acre property in
Costa Mesa, California in 1954. The Costa Mesa facility, which serves as the
worldwide headquarters, features two in-house foundries as well as a
manufacturing operation with more than four acres under roof--and we saw it
all! Cla-Val also has state-of-the-art production facilities and
warehouses in Canada, Switzerland, France, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
The
company’s president was the gracious host for the morning tour of a California
State business and economic development official, and I was the lucky
tag-a-long! I felt like I was part press-photographer and part tourist
photographer…all I know is, I had fun! One of the highlights of the tour
was watching the end of shift for the foundry operations as they poured molten
metal into casting forms. It’s not often that you get to see what I like
to call “real work” getting done…and this was some serious work! These
guys have to be at the top of their game every day…no distractions, no
mistakes. We also got to see the wide range of supporting manufacturing,
engineering, and quality control processes throughout the facility, from
high-speed machining to investment casting using the lost wax process to state
of the art 3D prototype printing. It was easy to be impressed with the
diversity of products and the sophistication needed to develop and produce
them. I was also impressed with the number of workers, all whom were
friendly, yet diligently focused on their work…seemed like the vast majority of
jobs were very high skilled, high-tech positions. When it seems like all
you read about these days is jobs leaving California for other states or
countries, it was really refreshing to see so many jobs right here at home…and
good manufacturing jobs. This was clearly a very successful company, and
the ingredients are no secret…great people, great leadership, great products,
and superb customer service.
At
the end of the morning, I got a really cool hat with the company’s logo on
it…I’ve already worn it and was reminded of the great time I had! I hope
you enjoy seeing some of my photographs!
No comments:
Post a Comment