Editor's note: The following is the first installment of a new series BarrieToday will be providing to our readers, examining local businesses and organizations, while also finding out what made them choose to open their doors here.
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Greg Applegate just happened upon a career, which then led him to a chance of launching his own business.
And he really didn’t have to go too far to do it.
The Ivy native grew up on a farm, but decided early on that farming was far too much work for too little reward.
In high school, he had taken a machine shop course and at age 18, after he graduated, he set out in search of work. And he happened upon a machine and welding shop where the owner thought having a farm boy on hand might be a good addition.
With a job firmly in place and a career in front of him, Applegate set out to get what he needed to become a certified machinist.
In the fall of 1990, Applegate, along with another machinist and a welder, decided to go out on their own, launching A.B.A. Machine & Welding after the company they were working for couldn’t make it through the recession.
“We started in a little industrial plaza renting 2,400 square feet of space,” he told BarrieToday. “We stayed there for four years and then we built our own building. That’s where we are today.
“We were pretty lean and mean and didn’t have any overhead. And we were able to start up and survive in that economic time.”
They continued on with some of the relationships that their former employer had and their first customer was Molson Brewery, which was a significant employer in Barrie at the time.
Applegate said the brewery was a good client. A.B.A. would make parts specific for the brewery process as well as the shafts, sprockets and gears.
A.B.A. made sure they did everything to keep that business right up until the day Molson closed the Barrie operation.
“They were good to us,” Applegate said. “They were tough to work for, you had to be on call 24-7, but they certainly paid their bills.”
While the company reaches into the Toronto area, and supplies Honda plants in the United States, much of its business is in the Barrie area. It makes machine bases and components and welding in automation, agriculture, mining as well as local industry.
“A lot of times we don’t know what the thing is. We’re just provided with a drawing with instructions to make it as per the drawing,” he said. “Sometimes the companies are wanting to keep it quiet and in all honesty we don’t need to know what it is.”
They made profit in that first year. Applegate says they pretty much had to because there wasn’t a lot of start-up capital.
Honda, which has car assembly and motor plants in Alliston, also became a major client, accounting now for about 25 per cent of A.B.A.’s business. A.B.A., in fact, was recently honoured by Honda for meeting targets, which has been a difficult task for some suppliers during the pandemic.
“When the Molson’s plant gave notice that they were leaving town, we really focused our efforts on making Honda happy and servicing them the way we serviced Molson’s,” said Applegate.
The company has remained profitable and in year seven, Applegate bought out his two partners.
The company is located on 35,000 square feet of space on Welham Road and employs 40 people. If there were more people available, Applegate said there is potential to add a second shift, or even just an expansion within the existing space.
But a labour shortage limits any growth plans.
Applegate says the workforce is losing skilled tradespeople to retirement and they’re not being replaced.
“There just doesn’t seem to be as many young people getting into the trades as there were at one time,” he said. “For the last five years, it’s been very difficult to get people.”
Although he pointed out that the Simcoe County District School Board has an active Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program, which provides a gateway into the trades right through high school.
Applegate still lives in Ivy, a hilltop hamlet in Essa Township with views of Blue Mountain and the Niagara Escarpment. And even though he left the family farm, he says he's a farm boy at heart. With his own family he bought a farm down the road where he grew up and there he grows cash crops while he continues to run his business in Barrie.
