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 Dan Ocampo / The Californian |
Chris
Wilkins repairs and improves drive hubs at B&G Machine and
Welding which is celebrating their 50th year in business.
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The original business plan for B&G Machine & Welding was a simple one: 1) Work hard. 2) Work often. 3) Work well.
Fifty years later, the same basic philosophy exists as it did when brothers Bud and Gordon McCain (where the B&G initials come from) started the company out of Bud's garage, armed with a single 10-inch bench lathe bought on credit from Montgomery Ward in 1951.
The original lathe, though a little worse for wear, remains a historical fixture at the company shop, now located on Gilmore Avenue. Before moving to its current 10,000-square-foot building in 1966, B&G Machine & Welding resided on Pierce Road.
The company's first five invoices also have been preserved and hang in the office today, all of them documenting the brothers' standard rate for repair, manufacturing, fabricating and general metal work -- a mere 4 bucks per hour.
In a single month back in 1951, the company took in a grand total of $223.50.
Comparatively, today's rate at B&G is $60 per hour for work done among the company's seven, much larger lathes, drill presses, milling machines, saws and welding equipment.
When the company opened in spring 1951, Bud McCain kept his day job and Gordon McCain quit his for the business. Both worked at B&G at night. The brothers shared Bud McCain's wages, and if any profit was made at B&G, it was divided.
"We didn't even own an adding machine," said Bud McCain. "And our first truck was an old, beat-up 1940 Chevy that we borrowed from some guy who I guess felt sorry for us, because he ended up giving us that truck."
"It was a hard start, but we always made it through," said Gordon McCain. "We never went to bed if we had work to do -- that was our policy."
Of course, on some late evenings, that meant not going to bed at all, the men said.
Sometimes, the work done at B&G could be called unusual, even a little hazardous.
Perhaps the strangest request came from a man who had patented an invention called The Magic Turban.
The way the McCains remember the oddity, the turban would be soaked in lanolin oil and other moisturizing agents and was meant to be wrapped around a woman's locks overnight so that she'd awake with a beautiful, healthy head of hair.
The inventor of this product came to B&G one day, requesting an assembly line machine that could help mass produce his Magic Turbans.
So B&G developed a contraption reminiscent of a printing press that would implant the healthy ingredients into the turbans, which were then run through and cut individually, ending up packaged and ready for sale. The fate of the turbans remains unknown to the McCains.
The McCains said B&G also came up with an invention of its own -- a "hobble clamp," used on oil rigs as a tie-down clamp.
As for the most frightening experience at B&G, there is no doubt it was the accidental explosion at the shop June 15, 1981.
One of the welders was working on a 5,400-gallon tank that once contained a flammable liquid when it ignited and blew up, throwing the welder into the street, shattering all the windows at B&G as well as surrounding businesses and turning the shop's ceiling into an instant skylight.
The only injury was a skinned knee.
Always, the business has been an old-fashioned operation. When it opened, its customers were people the McCains knew. Through the years, it grew by word of mouth.
"We had no customers, the way most people think of customers," Bud McCain said.
"What we had were friends -- we knew their names, their kids' names, and they knew us and knew we'd do good work for them."
These days at B&G, the "B" and the "G" are only occasional visitors, leaving the company in the hands of their sons, Gary McCain and Jim McCain, who each began working at the shop in their teens, officially taking over the reins in 1988.
Gordon's daughter, Sharon Davis, is the company's bookkeeper. A longtime foreman, Earl "Red" Reynolds, has worked at B&G for 39 years and is more like family than an employee, the McCains said.
"We believe in taking care of our employees, and in turn they really take care of us. We have a great crew," Gary McCain said.
And though they were the owners' sons, there was no preferential treatment for the younger set of McCains when they first became B&G employees.
"The boys learned the broom long before the lathe," said Gordon McCain.
And, today, they're the ones charged with carrying the family business into the decades to come.
"They were both our mentors," said Jim McCain. "They still are."
Copyright© 2001, The
Bakersfield Californian |