While Morris was machining parts in his basement his son, Barry Turner, attended Purdue University and obtained his bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering.  Barry participated in the cooperative study program while earning his degree, and worked alternating semesters at Cummins until he graduated in 1982.  Following graduation, Barry took a position as an Application/Sales Engineer with the Timken Bearing Company providing a solid background in mechanical drive systems.  That was followed by a sales engineering position with Garrett Turbochargers with account responsibility for several large customers and a significant amount of time spent traveling.

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Christmas 1987, Morris has now been machining parts in his basement for 10 years.  While all of the family was home celebrating Christmas, Morris made the announcement that he thought that his basement machining operation could actually become a business.  He would be willing to mentor/teach anyone interested in machining parts to see what

this could become.

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Barry Turner was the only child (out of 5) that was interested and sent Morris a cover letter and a resume expressing his interest.  In August of 1988, Barry sold his home and brought his family back to Columbus and went to work in the basement with his father.  At that point in his life, he had a solid technical engineering background and experience in technical sales, but had never even sharpened a drill, let alone machine a simple component.

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After two years in the basement, with Barry receiving constant mentoring and instruction from Morris, the two felt ready to venture out and purchased a small 2500 square foot commercial building and hired their first employee.  The focus was to produce small quantities of complex parts to support the development of fuel system components at Cummins.  They were almost completely dependent on Cummins for their work.

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Four years later, the company had outgrown the building and they moved to a larger building.  Four years after that, there was an addition made to that building.  A second shift followed to allow for better utilization of equipment and another machine shop was purchased/absorbed by TMS as its owner retired.  TMS now operates out of two locations.

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Growth of the company has been completely by word of mouth as a result of satisfied customers.  During all of this growth, the focus has been on increasing capability more than capacity.  The ability to control the manufacture of a part from start to finish without having to depend on outside capabilities has been critical to the ability to respond quickly to customer requirements.  The customer base has increased dramatically providing stability by serving many industries and expanding the knowledge base and skill set within the company.

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Today, TMS employs 24 highly skilled machinists with extremely broad manufacturing capabilities supporting the transportation, automotive, consumer products, aerospace, military, firearm and medical industries both domestically and internationally.  The focus is still to support low volume, complex requirements with minimum lead times.  This includes prototypes, tooling, fixturing, gaging, and production components. 

 

TMS has been ISO 9001 certified for 20 years.

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The owner, Barry Turner, had the privilege of working with his father for over 20 years and learned a great deal of technical expertise as well as life skills from that relationship.  Barry also has interests in and has helped to launch several other manufacturing companies including a medical device company and a remanufacturing company.

If you think there is an opportunity for the skills and capabilities within Turner’s Machining Specialties, Inc to assist your operation or development program, please contact us.

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