Business View Magazine - October 2018

282 283 CAMERON MANUFACTURING & DESIGN, INC. a need in our local market for a fabricating business in upstate New York,” Peet continues. “We were known as Cameron Fabricating, back then. Over the course of the past 35 years, Cameron Fabrication has evolved into a provider of solutions in many areas –welding, fabrication, machining, engineering, project management, and automation.We rebranded as Cameron Manufacturing & Design in 2003, and CMD has progressed to encompass all forms of technological innovation in the job shop market.” When LaViola founded Cameron Fabricat- ing with fewer than 10 employees, it was a fabricating and welding business that also did some installation, and served mainly the food industry. It had little machining capabil- ity, an area that has been among its biggest growth areas in the past 10 years.When he retired in 2007, he sold the company to the employees and the management of the pri- vately held firm was able to offer its workers an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). In the ESOP, the company awards shares of stock once a year to its employees. The price of the shares is based on the value of the company at the end of each fiscal year. The shares are awarded based on employees’ earnings and years of service. Today, CMD has 250 employees who op- erate out of a 125,000-sq.-ft. complex in the heart of the southern tier region of upstate New York that houses a state-of-the-art machine shop, three separate welding and fabrication departments, an in-house engineering division, a project management group, and the company’s management and administrative teams. The com- pany also maintains an additional 27,000-sq.-ft, offsite facility. “Our core business is in the melting area - glass, carbon fiber, and other melting scenarios,” says Matt Sharpe, Director of Sales & Human Resourc- es. “We have also branched out into other areas – transit and rail.We’re currently going into special- ty fasteners with our in-house machine shop, and we have some new technologies in renewable energy– solar, wind, and lithium ion batteries.” In fact, most recently, Cameron partnered with Skyven Technologies, a solar power technology firm from Dallas, Texas, to produce its “Intelligent Mirror Array,” one of the world’s first solar solu- tions for industrial steam. The first order of panels has been completed for a company called The Radiant Store, based in Troy, New York, to install the system at Copses Farms, in Valley Falls, New York. “We work in a vast array of arenas,” adds Peet, “glass melting, food and dairy, military, ovens, large fabrications.We can’t be pigeonholed into one industry.We’re so diverse that we can provide solutions for industries across many platforms.” In addition to that versatility, Sharpe believes that CMD’s competitive advantage lies in its ability to be a solutions provider and strategic partner to its many clients. “Due to the custom nature of our shop, we are able to partner with