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News : September 2000
Profile of a Journeyman Over the years, I've worked with many people, and it is a distinct pleasure to personally know and work with a journeyman--a worker who has learned his trade. Dennis Pakes was nominated by the office personnel to be highlighted in this company newsletter. Dennis started his trade in Gloucester, England working for a company called Dowty Group Limited. Starting at 15 years of age, he apprenticed 5 years in aerospace work. Two more years and he had a master's degree in design engineering. After working in England for 17 years, he came to the United States in 1967. Jacobs Shipyard in Oyster Bay, Long Island gave Dennis some very big propeller shafts and stuffing boxes to work on. Later he worked at H.S.M. in Glen Cove, Long Island. Again, Dennis did aerospace connected work for Gruman Republic, Boeing, and Sicorsky. Over a period of 17 years, he held inspection and leadman positions. Moving to upstate New York in 1984, Dennis worked at Sherwood Medical and Mallinckrodt. He also spent time at Ushers Machine Shop before coming to Fronhofer Tool where he has worked for the past 5 years. He gets a lot of big shafts to do and his previous experience really helps. One very large shaft we did was too long for the lathe we have. We had to remove the tailstock from the lathe, design and build a four roller bearing steady-rest to hold the shaft. Paul Fronhofer said, "Build it." Dennis worked out a design, Lenny Fronhofer computerized some blue prints, and a number of people built our steady-rest. It worked out very well. Dennis manages to keep occupied by doing a little work for himself on the side. He has a few machines in his garage to work with. Sometime back, Dennis was involvedin designing machines to wrap guitar strings. With all his varied experiences, Dennis is a benefit to this company and I will endeavor to keep a good relationship working with him. People working together in a machine shop, knowing each other's skills, and helping one another create a team spirit. Good ideas and suggestions come together to get the product out efficiently, and that causes the company to grow and the customer to be satisfied. There are a number of young apprentices in our shop today who benefit from Dennis's skill, knowledge, and experience. We all can learn one from another. Dennis is a member of the over-sixty club, and I've heard him say we are never too old to learn something new. By Robert Rogers Paul’s PerspectiveWhen I first decided to create the Fronhofer tool quarterly news letter I had an idea that it would bring employees, management, customers and even vendors together. I felt the more information that I could share about what we were doing with all these people the better off our company would be. I also felt it would make people realize how each decision they made effected others. All these were very positive things. So often we become isolated in our own job description that we don’t realize that by doing our job correctly or even in a courteous way, we can enhance not only the life of but the self esteem of others. In most cases it’s just simply communication. And that’s all the news letter is. One more way of communicating. If the first issue is any indication, I am not only meeting but surpassing my expectations. The feed back I got from all the people I’ve mentioned above was nothing but positive. People really do like hearing from and about the people in their industry. Even if it’s a common link through music. We will keep the news letter going as long as people we work with enjoy reading it. Keep the feed back coming, our entire staff appreciates it. - Paul Fronhofer |
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Tool Company, Inc.
Dennis on a conventional lathe.