Springmaker Spotlight

©iStockphoto.com/Björn Meyer Springmaker Spotlight

Alex Melnikow

By Gary McCoy

Located in Syracuse, New York’s fifth largest city with a population of nearly 150,000, Midstate Spring has been in existence since 1939 and recently announced that it will move to a new facility this spring that is less than 10 minutes from its current location. The 128,000-square-foot building will more than double its space and help Midstate consolidate its operations, which are currently scattered over four buildings.

Moving to a new location helps fulfills the company’s ambitious mission statement: “To Be The Last Great American Springmaker.” Here’s a partial quote of how they state this on their website (www.midstatespring.com/ the-last-great-american-springmaker):

“We intend to exist in perpetuity. Our first focus is on business sustainability through understanding our customers and evolving alongside their needs. In less than a decade we have doubled our size, while many of our competitors have exited the market. To be the last great American springmaker,

Midstate Spring in its early days.

Midstate manufactures custom, precision springs and wireforms from round wire diameters of .002”- .437” and flat wire recoil springs that are ready to be shipped worldwide. we must continue growing. Growth begins with 100% customer retention. We will take care of our customers. Our formula for remaining relevant in an ever-changing market is continued investment in new technologies combined with expertise. Change is not our enemy, it is our opportunity.”

Helping lead the charge is Alex Melnikow, a third-generation springmaker, who serves as company president. Of the new space, Melnikow says, “We’ve had one foot out the door for the last five years looking for the right building, and we finally found it.”

Five years ago, Midstate leaders were looking for a much smaller space. The delay turned out to be a blessing due to recent company growth during the pandemic that doubled their employee population from 55 to more than 100.

“We found a great location in a historical manufacturing building that was formerly occupied by a welding company,” explained Melnikow. “I grew up in the old building. So, it will be hard

Midstate Spring will move to a new 128,00 square-foot building this spring to more than double its space.

to leave. But we needed floor space for equipment, and it’s a good reason to be moving.”

Like many businesses during its era, Midstate started 84 years ago at the outset of World War II. The original owner was not a family member. Melnikow’s maternal grandfather, the late Paul H. Bernet, worked for Midstate and bought the company from the original owner along with four employees. He later bought out his partners to retain sole ownership. Melnikow’s father, Walter Melnikow, and his uncle, Paul S. Bernet, actively ran the company for many years and grew it through the second generation. No longer involved in the day-today operations, Walter Melnikow and Paul S. Bernet continue to serve Midstate Spring in an advisory role.

Helping Melnikow lead operations at Midstate is his brother-in-law, Mike Komurek, who serves as the company’s vice president and chief operating officer.

Melnikow first worked at the company when he was six sweeping the parking lot. “I came in with blistered hands after sweeping our semi-paved parking lot,” he fondly recalls. “After that I was a little more thoughtful about the value of money.” He later worked as a teenager and through college in various roles as a janitor, in production and administrative support.

Melnikow earned a degree in business administration and management from Utica University in 2006. After graduation, he said he wasn’t ready to join the family business. Instead, he moved to Las Vegas and pursued a career as a professional poker player. His setup included four monitors, where he would have

Midstate Spring leadership team (l-to-r): Alex Melnikow, president: John Kirby, general manager; Mike Komurek, COO; Caeresa Richardson, operations manager; and Rick Raus, plant manager.

Jim Destefano 24 tables of games going at once. “I would play like 1,600 hands an hour. I got good at repeated, relatively simple decisions at a fast pace. That’s sort of the skill that I took away from this: really diving into it and making quick choices.”

Melnikow left Las Vegas in 2011 to join the family business. Although there are elements of playing poker that he misses, Melnikow does not miss the lifestyle. “At the end of the day you’re not really bringing anything into the world when you’re doing that for a living. It’s a zero-sum game minus what the casino takes out. You make money, but someone else had to lose money.”

While joining Midstate was not something Melnikow saw as inevitable, it worked out well because it allowed him and his wife, Fanny, to move back to Syracuse before starting a family. “With great parks and schools and things to do, Syracuse is a great place to raise a family.” The Melnikows have two boys, Elliot and Oliver.

Melnikow started out as vice president at the company and credits much of his growth and development to John Kirby, the company’s longtime general manager.

In addition to Komurek and Kirby, Melnikow’s five-person senior management team includes: Rick Raus, plant manager, and Caeresa Richardson, operations manager. The management team meets weekly and the different departments within the company like production, scheduling, customer service and quality, also try to meet weekly.

Even though the company has scaled up over the last few years, Melnikow says Midstate still has a small business mindset. For a while, the pandemic forced him to step back into purchasing but more recently he has returned to his primary responsibilities for the company’s overall strategy.

“I handle almost all of our interactions with our professionals, whether it’s lawyers or accountants, and in reviewing contracts and for the overall financial health of the company,” he explained.

Melnikow says the company is working to develop its mid-level managers so they are empowered to handle greater responsibility. “We want to make sure they are able to successfully execute more regular and meaningful contact every 90 days with all of our employees.”

Midstate manufactures custom, precision springs and wireforms from round wire diameters of .002”- .437” and flat wire recoil springs. They are registered to ITAR and ISO 9001:2015. Midstate’s springs and wireforms can be found in products such as firearms, power tools, locomotive air brakes and medical devices. While they are involved in freight and heavy trucks, they have chosen not to be involved in the automotive industry.

One of the distinctive things about Midstate is that some of the company’s springs are made of wire finer than a human hair, while others are of wire nearly one-half inch in diameter.

“Our model as a business has always been making quality parts and delivering them on time,” said Melnikow. He says the pandemic made it a little bit harder to reach those goals and to achieve a “painfree” buying experience for the customer.

“It was made especially difficult for us when our materials orders were 12 months late and our 25-year supplier of plating wouldn’t accept any orders for parts,” he explained.

The company’s recent growth was more of an expansion of its core areas. Melnikow describes Midstate’s expertise as precision work, and this growth required scaling this approach to a massmarket. “We do a lot more set out in the shop than we used to, and we’ve added a lot of capacity in our larger coiling and grinding areas.”

Midstate serves numerous domestic customers, but also exports products to China and Mexico. “Which I think speaks to the kind of work that we’re going after,” added Melnikow.

Melnikow recognizes the global challenges of working in New York state, where the minimum wage will soon hit $15 an hour. He said they’ve had to change

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He says they are always looking for ways to automate processes and recently purchased their first industrial robot.

As they are on the verge of moving to a new location, Melnikow says it’s a fun prospect to be able to lay out something from scratch, instead of doing it incrementally. “We’ve managed with space being a constraint for a long time, so going into a period where that isn’t the case is going to be really fantastic.” He says the plan with the new space is to leave enough room in each area of their operations to further expand in the future.

When asked what he likes most about being a springmaker, Melnikow said in his 2020 Snapshot that, “Springmaking requires such a wide range of skillsets and personalities that it necessitates a team approach. I enjoy being on a team and trying to maximize my strengths to make the whole team better, while having my weaknesses minimized by the strengths of others.”

He affirmed that sentiment for this article and went on to say, “My job, in a lot of cases, is to look for icebergs and avoid them. It’s not always obvious when you’ve done that. I do know there’s a satisfaction in knowing that when customers get their parts on time, it’s because we purchased the wire when we did by looking forward instead of being reactive.”

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During the height of the pandemic, Midstate Spring developed a unique program to help refugees from Congo. It was also a way for these refugees to help the company fill a need for more workers.

It all started when Alex Melnikow became aware of local African refugees through All Saints Church in Syracuse. At the same time, Melnikow was working to bring back longtime Midstate employee and cousin, Alec DelGigante, who had left the company in 2019 to pursue a sales career.

“Alex reached out to me and said, ‘We could use you to come back to help relieve our labor shortage and to head up a new task force with refugees from Congo,’” explained DelGigante.

In his prior 17 years at the company, DelGigante had worked with refugees from Bosnia, Sudan and Burma (now Myanmar). He noted that those refugees came to work at Midstate through a staffing agency and it was required that they have some basic English skills. Some of those refugees were later offered full-time jobs.

The new program with the African refugees was different. These refugees could only speak their native Kinyarwanda language and would need an English translator. It just so happened that DelGigante attended All Saints Church, was familiar with the church’s refugee program and was up for the challenge to lead the new program. DelGigante serves as the managerial lead who anchors the team technically.

Midstate quickly identified Elizabeth Kaitesi as the perfect person to translate for the group because she could speak both Kinyarwanda and English. Kaitesi, a refugee herself from Uganda, came to the U.S. in 2016 at the age of 16. She honed her English skills at Syracuse Academy of Science high school where she graduated in 2020.

Members of the Midstate Spring refugee team.

Kaitesi admits that she had never set foot inside a spring manufacturing plant before coming to work at Midstate. She serves as the primary Kinyarwanda translator and working supervisor. The 10-person team began working together in 2021 and consists of DelGigante, Kaitesi and eight refugees from Congo. The Congo refugees and Kaitesi all know each other through the church. “Which made it feel like home when they came to work at Midstate,” explained DelGigante.

DelGigante and Kaitesi said the group really had no technical experience and practically no experience working at a business. Midstate needed the most help in the large wire area in their grinding department. Kaitesi was responsible for translating safety and technical information and admitted it was a bit difficult at first, “but now everyone is doing fine.”

DelGigante also admits that it was challenging at the beginning but now says, “they are knocking it out of the park.” The team works Monday through Friday on second shift and DelGigante says their team is rated as the most productive shift at Midstate in the large grinding area. In addition, he says the team has integrated well with the rest of Midstate’s workforce.

Would Midstate ever bring on more refugees? DelGigante responded with a resounding “Yes.” He said the current team of refugees has helped the company to catch up on its work. “As we get busier again, and we certainly will, I can see adding more refugees to our workforce.”

Melnikow says the refugee program is something that other springmakers should consider as everyone tries to find more workers.

In addition, he says he loves the industry because “springmaking equipment is mesmerizing, and it’s cool that we create things. I recognize that not everyone has a job like that, and there’s a real satisfaction in that element of the industry.”

Melnikow has more recently become involved in SMI as a board member and as a part of the team spearheading the revival of the association’s Vangaurd

(Avant-Garde) group for young people in the industry. He says the company’s involvement with SMI goes back more than 40 years with his dad, “who built some really impactful relationships with his peers in the industry.” SMI continues to be a place where relationships are made and renewed. At first, Midstate Spring uses a variety of machines to produce springs and wireforms. Melnikow found it difficult to connect with people at SMI because he was much younger than others and at a different stage in his career. “Once I got over that and made the effort to connect, I found people to be very welcoming.” Melnikow said, “I value the peer network I’ve developed through my association with SMI. As a result of attending SMI meetings, I now have a network of people I can call upon who have dealt with the same problems I have. It’s not about sharing company secrets; it’s all about helping each other for the good of the spring industry.”

As Midstate looks to the future, Melnikow says the company’s success is all about people. “We want all our employees to get better at what they’re doing and to continue developing strong relationships with our customers.”

Melnikow says if you’re successful financially, but your employees and customers aren’t highly satisfied, then what’s the point? “In a family business there is the concept of stewardship and in my time running the company I want to make sure we get stronger, and we spend time taking care of and protecting this entity. After all, our goal is to exist in perpetuity. Which means it is important to know why you’re doing what you’re doing.” n