Family, friendship, and metal fabricating

The rewards for opening a new business were worth the risks for longtime friends Cody Shipp (far left) and Tony Kramer (far right). They are they S and K in S&K Sheet Metal LLC, a custom job shop located in Monroeville, Ind. With Shipp’s wife Erika, they officially opened their doors last fall and have been learning on the job ever since.

Many welders and metal fabricators dream about opening their own business, being their own boss, and building something that belongs to them. But when the rubber hits the road, not many are willing or able to do what needs to be done to be successful.

After all, metal fabricating equipment isn’t cheap and neither is a space to house it. And even if you manage to acquire both, there’s no guarantee you’ll have enough business come through the doors to pay for it or to even pay yourself and support your family, much less make a profit.

But the rewards were worth the risks for Cody Shipp and Tony Kramer. The two longtime friends and co-workers can now call themselves business co-owners. They are the S and K in S&K Sheet Metal LLC, a custom job shop located in Monroeville, Ind. They officially opened their doors last fall and have been learning on the job ever since. Their goal is to keep it a small family affair that aligns with their values.

The FABRICATOR: What led you to want to start your own company?

CS: I was getting pretty frustrated with the traveling. Erika and I have four kids and I rarely saw them. I drove two and a half hours each way to and from work for three years straight. I’d wake up at 3:45 a.m. and get home around 5:30 or 6 p.m. I’d come home at night and pretty much be ready to crash.

TK: Most people in his situation would just stay the entire week at the job site and then come home on the weekends, but he didn’t want to be away from his family.

ES: I work every Saturday, so we just didn’t have a ton of time all together as a family. I just felt bad for him because he spent so much time on the road. It wasn’t hard, but mostly I felt bad for him because I knew how unhappy he was.

CS: The last job that I had was a shutdown job, and as soon as the shutdown was over, I knew I’d get laid off. Well, as soon as they said “Next week we’re done,” it really started to hit me that I did not want to go back to where I was or to a similar employer. So, I got on the computer and tried to figure out the difference between an LLC and an Inc., and I started getting info from CPAs and picking people’s brains until I decided that I was going to form this company right now.

FAB: What have life and business been like since going out on your own?

TK: When we put in our notice at work, our boss said, “You can bid 100 jobs and you might only get one.” So far people have been happy with our work, and more work has come our way as a result. So, we joked with each other and said, well, maybe what he meant to say was if you bid one job you get 100. All kidding aside, we’ve been very fortunate so far.

CS: Having more independence has been huge. The fact that I don’t have to spend half the day in the car is huge. Also, we make our own schedules. If I work late one night, I can sleep in a bit the next morning. If my kids have an event at school in the morning, I can attend. I’ve already taken them to school more now than I ever have.

ES: It’s nice that he’s home, especially if something were to happen with the kids and we really needed him. Now he’s just down the road or somewhere around town instead of being two and a half hours away.

FAB: How have you been able to acquire equipment without going into debt?

CS: It seems like every time we do a job we’re buying another machine. We bought this plasma table; it’s a 5- by 10-ft. CNC plasma table. We also recently purchased an ironworker. We just bought a 10-ft. ¼-in. plate shear at an auction. It was originally owned by the U.S. Navy and was brand new in 1967. We also have a 12-ft. 100-ton press brake from the 1960s. It’s got some leaks but it bends metal. We’re also eyeballing a plate roller. Something that will roll a 6-ft.-long piece of metal that is ¼ in. thick.

As long as we have enough to pay our personal bills, we’re just barely surviving that way so that we can afford to get the equipment we need in here without going into debt.

FAB: What advice would you give to those looking to branch out on their own?

CS: You’ve got to be able to be OK with not living the same life you were before. That’s advice I would give. You’ve got to be willing to make some sacrifices. You have to be pretty financially smart as far as how you spend your money. From our perspective, it’s worked to reinvest the money that we’ve made back into the company and take a smaller cut personally. And we’re both willing to do that for a year or two or however long it takes to get the equipment in here that we need to really be the company we want to be. We’re only a few months into this, but so far it’s worked for us.

S&K Sheet Metal LLC, 260-760-3249, www.facebook.com/SandKMetals/