Precise Fabrication set to grow with new facility

Precise Fabrication is ready to grow.

Precise Fabrication will not only celebrate a new 41,250-square-foot facility located at 2800 Ridgeview Drive in the third Gage County Industrial Park with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 10 a.m. Tuesday, but also celebrate the beginning of new opportunities.

LeRoy Janzen, president; Matt Faulder, vice president; and John Hiebert, secretary/treasurer, bought Precise Fabrication, which takes raw sheet metal and fabricates it into complex component parts, in March 2001 from Louis Goossen's construction business.

The company specializes in custom laser cutting, progressives metal fabrication including weld assemblies that allow for short to long production run quantities.

Since it started, Precise Fabrication's main business has been with the lawn and turf care industry, Janzen said. However, wanting to see the business grow, company officials knew the way to do that was to diversify their clientele, Janzen said.

Thus, Precise Fabrication has begun offering its services to other industries and companies within the United States.

Janzen said the company knew it would need more room to better serve current and future customers. The old location on West Court Street was small and there was no place to expand, he said.

“We were definitely land locked on Court Street,” he said.

As the firm looked at lands available in Beatrice, a bean field in the third site of the Gage County Industrial Park became the most attractive location.

“We looked at other areas, we felt that this best bit our needs for future growth,” Janzen said.

The third site of the Industrial Park was purchased by the city of Beatrice in 1998, Mayor Dennis Schuster said. When Precise Fabrication approached them about purchasing lots at the site, the city was more than happy to work with the company.

In 2006, Precise Fabrication purchased three lots at the site and the city council approved the use of $400,000 in LB840 funds for infrastructure at the site.

“I'm glad we finally got someone to build out there,” Schuster said.

With the road and other infrastructure now in the third site, Schuster said it will be a much more attractive area for companies or other industries looking to build.

Close to a year has passed since Precise Fabrication, city, Gage County and area economic development officials stood out in the cold bitter November weather to break ground for the new building, Janzen said. Precise Fabrication, already moved in, is now looking forward to what the future holds at the new location.

The new facility is double the size of the old location, with room for future expansion on the other two sites they own. Company officials said the new location creates a more efficient and improved work atmosphere. The company also has the ability to run two shifts and employ more people at the site as the company grows.

Janzen, who is now in charge of marketing the business, said Precise is now aggressively looking to further its clientele for a prosperous future.

“It's there, we just have to find our right customers to build it,” he said.

Precise Fabrication credits most of its current success to community support.

“It's good to have the support of the community,” he said. “They've done a lot to help us to get to this point and to this facility.”