Emergency Turnaround To Assist Cogeneration Facility

November 4-6:   MIRS employees worked over the  weekend to manufacture a new 9' shaft (pictured above in lathe) for emergency turnaround for a cogeneration facility. The facility was running at only 25% capacity due to the loss of the 7' forced draft fan (also pictured above).  The shaft was manufactured, and the fan was installed on Sunday, getting the facility back up and running. 

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Industrial electric motor repair shop still humming
Company's new owners 'pretty good people to work for'

By: Keith Edwards
Staff Writer

AUGUSTA- Just days before an industrial electric motor repair shop in the Augusta Business Park was to close, officials from a Connecticut motor shop visited the place to purchase some of the bankrupt company's equipment.

They liked what they saw.  So much that instead of buying the equipment, they bought the whole business from Grand Eagle Motor, an international company that owned numerous such shops around the country before filing for Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code earlier in the year.

The company's new owners decided to finance the payroll to keep the 24 employees- some of whom worked for the company for decades- on the job during the three weeks it took to close on the sale.

Now renamed Maine Industrial Repair Services Inc., the Augusta shop is turning a profit, officials said, and has even added a handful of new employees.

"I'm 56 years old, I didn't want to have to go out and start doing something else," said Maurice Kelley of Augusta, a winding technician who has worked at the shop, under various owners, for 38 years.  "I'm happy to have a job.  I was ecstatic when the new people came in. They're pretty good people to work for.  They're not some international conglomerate."

That's just the sort of attitude Charlie Davis, vice president of operations for Maine Industrial Repair Services, wants to maintain at the 25,000-square-foot Augusta plant.

You're better off being honest with people, whether they're your employees or customers," he said.  "When they realize you're just a regular guy, they treat you like a regular guy- like a friend of yours.  The employees here are just plain awesome.  They're very highly skilled, with great attitudes."

The company repairs and rebuilds high-end electric motors.  Its biggest customers are Maine's paper mills, but work also comes from hydroelectric dam operators and other motor users.

The firm is currently trying to win back a contract for rebuilding motors used in generators in nuclear-powered Trident submarines. "This shop is the only one in the United States authorized to work on Trident submarines," Davis said.  "That's very high-end work. They have to cut a hole in the submarines to get (the motors) out, which costs about $1 million.  So everything has to be just right.  There can be absolutely no vibrations in a motor that goes in a submarine."

When the shop was still owned by Grand Eagle, employees received a letter telling them they would receive their last paycheck March 1.  Davis and company owners Ray A. Dahman and Robert C. Davis then stepped in and negotiated with a bankruptcy trustee to purchase the business.  The sale didn't close, however, until March 26.  In the interim, the new owners paid employees to keep working even though they didn't own the company yet. 

"We didn't want to let it close down, we didn't want the employees to find other jobs," Davis said.  A few employees had already found other jobs and left, but the vast majority have stuck with the company.

"They bailed us out," said Jim Pruett, a winding technician from Manchester who has worked for the company for 25 years.  "They've done well so far.  They kept us on even when things were slow.  I've got no complaints."

Electric motors are often rebuilt several times over the years.  A rebuilt electric motor, Davis said, typically functions as well as a completely new one.  And, apparently, they can last for decades and still be of use.  The shop, Davis said, recently rebuilt a motor for a hydroelectric project originally built in the 1890s.

Company technicians can be called out for emergency repairs for customers at all hours. Large paper mills have machines that could cost the paper company $100,000 a day if they are shut down for repairs.  So repairs must be done quickly.

Davis said he believes Maine will be a good place for the company to do business, especially with the prevalence of paper mills and hydroelectric dams in the state.

Business is made more difficult, he acknowledged, by the size of the state in that it takes nearly a day to deliver or pickup motors at mills in the northern part of the state.  Davis hopes the company will be able to grow.

"We want to capture every bit of high-end business in Maine," he said.

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