New Fabrication Plant to Open in Freeport

by David Croyle

A local couple has leased space in Freeport to turn a warehouse into a manufacturing plant.

Chad and Denise Potensky has been spending the last few months installing new equipment and revitalizing the building at 105 Fifth Street into Potensky Mechanical. The new shop will be a full-service sheet metal, HVAC, industrial, and commercial fabrication plant.

The first order of business is to design office space, and fabricating areas for both light and heavy metal fabrication. They have already taken delivery of many types of fabricating machinery. One specific machine is used in the fabrication of heavy metal pieces that Chad said has the ability to do even the most demanding jobs.

“(It will fabricate) up to four-by-four angle, quarter-inch with no problems. It has assorted dyes. It’s a dangerous machine. You have to be very qualified to operate it. You don’t want anyone to operate it that doesn’t know how because you could kill yourself.”

Chad’s wife, Denise, is listed as the owner of the new business.

“We have been talking for years about doing this. Chad finally got in the position where we said, ‘Let’s do this for us’ instead of everyone else he’s been working for.”

“We are co-creating this project together,” she continued. “Although we have been married almost 30 years, it is bringing us closer together. It is a family project. Our son is involved with us. He is also in the sheet metal workers union. It is all consuming! But we try to keep our balance and keep each other in check.”

Denise, dressed in her professional attire, sits at her desk covered with paperwork and resembling a student studying for a college final.

“It’s a big learning curve for me. I come from an arts background. It’s pretty much all new to me. I’m learning pretty fast, though. There are a lot of people around me that are helping. We’re involved with the local sheet metal workers union #12. They help you along too, a lot.”

The Potenskys have been working the last several months to get the shop ready for business.

“We’re trying to set all this up to get ready (to begin fabrication),” he said. “It takes a lot of paperwork to get it all started. Our fabrication facility has to be able to operate before we can go out and (solicit business). When you go out and say you can make anything that you want, you can’t come back and realize you don’t have that piece of machinery. You can’t start until you have your fabrication facility set up.“

Denise said they are currently adding many big pieces of machinery into the shop to do extensive fabrication of metals.

“It will enable us to do a lot more, quicker,” she said.

Chad outlined some of the fabrication that will be accomplished at the plant.

“We’re going to purchase our 10-foot power shearer, up to 10-gauge. We are going to consider that part of the building to be our light gauge shop. We’re hoping to get into water jet burning (water jet tables) and burn ceramic, glass, foam, and just about anything. We’re not going to be 100% into metal, but that’s my forte.

“Most people can’t go with a little piece of angle to anyone anywhere other than a machine shop (to have it custom fabricated). We are going to get into louvered hoods. If it’s an airplane cowling, if it’s a fender for a car, or a big piece of steel that holds up a big piece of machinery, we are going to make it. If it casts a shadow, we can make it.”

Chad has done 3D Printing in the past, but doesn’t see that as an emphasis for his shop.

“I’ve done a lot of that at Alcoa with them installing it there, but we’re not going to be into that. The closest we will get is a five-axis water jet burner. You can pretty much burn any kind of shape – even fan blades out of a piece of metal! We are going to be able to fabricate it by hand. A 3D burner cannot burn a custom copper hammered hood. We are going to make that with our hands in these machines.”
Chad said they would also do welding as well.

Denise said there is a lot of opportunity for them to serve the HVAC contractors.

“You residential heating and air conditioning shops can come and give us their plans or we can send a technician out to help them to measure the plans, and then they can come back to us and we can create all their custom ductwork according to their specifications. We can even do a lot of ordering for them that they wouldn’t have access to (products) as we do. And we are local. We are easier to get to than a lot of shops. We are able to work personally with each customer. We are not limited to just small HVAC shops.”

The Potenskys hope to service a large number of clients with down-home family values.

“Family comes first with us. Personal relationships with people are very important to us. I think in a lot of big industry it’s been lost. We really have a goal to bring that back - with our employees and with our own family - and keep that balance. We want to integrate it into our lives as well as our customers to be able to be treated like family. Old fashioned values are really important. We have lost so much of that the way things are going.”

The Potenskys hope to be in full operation by November.

 

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