Forming Focus — Steve Perruzza, Director of Operations  Before joining AFT in May of 1996, Steve Perruzza, Director of Operations for AFT's Metal Injection Molding (MIM) business, worked as an investment banker, holding both Series 7 and Series 63 licenses. His two years of experience watching markets and knowing which investments are good bets have served him well in helping to determine what customers want — the highest return with the lowest amount of investment. It's experience that's well-suited to the kind of benefits MIM processing provides. Steve is one of the few AFT employees who can almost call himself a Colorado native, having lived in the state since second grade. A graduate of the Colorado School of Mines with a general engineering degree and mechanical specialty, he started with AFT as a product engineer and quickly moved up through the company. "I started as a product engineer and spent three months on the floor, training," Steve says. "I spent extensive time in each department, so I gained a good deal of knowledge of the process." Since that time, he moved up to become Senior Engineer, Engineering Manager, Director of Engineering, until reaching his current position as Director of Operations. For Steve, the most exciting part of the job is not so much the challenges of managing the plant, but challenges of working with a technology that's still in the beginning of its growth phase. "MIM is a unique process that has quite a long lead time," he says. "Getting that lead time down to meet customer expectations as well as giving us flexibility in manufacturing is the most challenging part of the job." Because MIM offers so much new potential — with new discoveries being made — Steve describes his position as leveraging "lessons learned" to help make AFT the leader in metal technologies. And as with many new technologies, one of the other challenges he has to meet is growth. "I'm not faced with the downsizing that most U.S. manufacturing companies are," Steve says. "Instead, right now we have to manage growth to fit our business. I envision all three business units of AFT experiencing significant growth in top-line sales." Outside of the office, Steve invests his time in playing golf. Describing himself as an avid but struggling golfer, he admits to periodically taking advantage of the golf course located across the street from the plant. He also says he enjoys running and skiing. Believing that Colorado offers the perfect climate not just for outdoor activities, but for business as well, Steve says AFT is perfectly situated to take advantage of the state's position. "Having AFT in Colorado epitomizes why we want to manufacture in the U.S.," he says. "We are not only located in one of the most beautiful parts of the world, but with our top-notch technical and manufacturing teams we are able to compete with the low-labor nations." Given that — what's Steve's forecast for the future of AFT's business? "We have a very productive work environment and are in the process of making it even better," he says. "I have great confidence in our technology and marketing plans, and believe we will not only be able to sustain our growth, but do it while maintaining our operational efficiency." | 
