“I had an idea for a holster... that would tilt down and release the tool. I explained it to them and they made exactly what we needed,” Holman said.
Soon, FMI will outfit the second of the department’s two engines so its equipment will be stored identically to that in the other engine.
“They make our work much easier. When we need a piece of equipment, we can look in the cabinet and find exactly what we need. ... Before, our equipment was just kind of thrown into the cabinets, but now it’s very well-organized. Now, it doesn’t matter which engine we use — we can look into the cabinets and know exactly what’s there,” Holman said.
FMI has made other components, including cabinet organizers, tool holsters and in-cabinet hangers — specifically to Holman’s specifications, which maximize usage of space inside the trucks.
“Their workmanship is excellent. We carry more equipment than ever and they make it possible to stay organized without needing to make the trucks bigger,” Holman said.
An odd combination proves a prefect match
FMI came into existence as a result of the merger of Custom Fabrication and Marine Manufacturing and Summers Brothers Fabricating in July 2007.
Before the merger, Jeff Collier was building custom pontoon boats and sometimes crossed paths with brothers Dennis and Daryl Summers and their partner Terry Albert, who were fitting fire trucks with custom equipment.
“We did work together before the merger. Some of our fire truck work required electrical work that Jeff (Collier) could do,” Dennis Summers said.
FMI’s strength is fabricating and welding aluminum. They build 25 to 30 boats a year and work on about four fire trucks each month.
“We’re doing well. We’ve been working overtime and are not even thinking about staff reductions,” Dennis Summers said.
The new company is nearly triple the size of the two former entities, with about 22 employees, a few of whom are part-time, the owners said.
FMI has been able to garner some highly skilled workers with many years’ experience who have been laid off from other companies.
Albert’s wife Melissa and Dennis Summers’s wife Cathy also work at the company.
“Some people think our business is a strange combination of products, but the boats are completely aluminum and the truck work is mostly aluminum, so it’s really a great pairing. There’s no one else out there like us,” Collier said.
Diversification is key to success
By working in two very different markets, FMI’s managers say they have not felt the sting of the economic downturn.
“We stay busy all the time and have never really advertised,” Daryl Summers said.
The sale of custom boats has slowed a bit, Collier said, but more people are sprucing up their existing boats with new railing and repair parts.
Replacement rail sets are one of FMI’s best-sellers.
That’s not to say the custom work has hit the skids. The team is building a 37-foot pontoon boat that will have two decks, a remote-control crane and an integrated ladder that is an FMI original design.
The company also builds 14-foot electric or gasoline pontoon boats and can customize boats for people with disabilities.
Boats normally range between $10,000 and $60,000.
As with their boat business, most of the fire truck work comes from word-of-mouth recommendations or others seeing their products in action.
The sales staff of Sutphen, a Columbus-based fire truck manufacturer with production facilities in Springfield — where Dennis, Daryl and Terry spent many years before branching out on their own — sends work their way.
It makes their trucks more attractive to potential buyers, Dennis Summers said, when they can tell fire departments shopping for new trucks that customization is available.
Much of the work done at FMI, whether it will ultimately float or haul life-saving equipment, isn’t standard metal fabricating. While they do make parts, there is also a large degree of problem-solving and creativity involved that results in custom parts or designs.
“This work stretches the mind, and that’s important,” Daryl Summers said.
Fire trucks can be customized for departments depending on equipment and personnel.
“We fit the truck to the people who’ll be using it,” Dennis Summers said.
Thinking ahead
In what could be the perfect amalgam of their existing products, FMI has started work on fire and rescue pontoon boats.
Low- and high-end boats are available, but FMI is seeking to fill a niche in the middle price range.
The owners said possible boat designs include options to accommodate smaller rescue vehicles and firefighting equipment.
“There are a lot of niche markets in the fire boat arena that pontoon boats can fill,” Collier said.
While those markets might not be big enough for larger companies to dabble in, a success in that category would be huge for FMI, Dennis Summers added.
The company will launch a catalog of products of the more than 90 products they’ve developed for (and with) firefighters.
“Firefighters come to us, we solve their problem and we’ve got a new product. Response time is everything to these people, so we want to do whatever we can to help them,” Dennis Summers said. “We’re kind of a candy store for fire departments looking to outfit a truck.”
About the Author