Compass Precision Purchases Pocasset Machine
Al Kent bought the company, which was a two-man tool & die shop in Waltham, Massachusetts at the time, from a friend who was close to retirement in 1977. His two sons, Barry and Chris, successfully operated and grew the company for nearly five decades.
But now ready to retire themselves, they are officially selling Pocasset Machine.
Compass Precision, LLC a Charlotte-based manufacturer of custom, close-tolerance metal components for mission-critical applications, announced Monday that it has acquired Pocasset Machine Corporation in Pocasset, MA from the Kent family.
Barry and Chris are expected to remain with Pocasset Machine through the transition phase. After that, Compass will replace both men with the rest of the company's staff remaining intact.
Pocasset Machine will become the ninth operating company under the Compass umbrella, and the fifth situated outside the Charlotte area, location of the company's headquarters.
'We are thrilled to be joining forces with Pocasset Machine,' explained Bill Canning, Compass's President & Chief Operating Officer. 'Barry and Chris have developed a terrific niche CNC machining business focused mostly on serving the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) market, some of which is concentrated on and near Cape Cod.'
'We see many opportunities to grow Pocasset as an integral portion of Compass,' added Jim Miller, Compass's Vice President of Sales. 'Compass loves to acquire shops with differentiated capabilities serving mission-critical markets. Pocasset Machine is all of that and more. They are a great fit for us.'
Two years after Al bought the company, the Kents began moving the machine shop to Cape Cod.
While most people view the Cape as a tourist destination, Al and his sons saw a business opportunity.
'I checked it out with the associated industries of Massachusetts and found that this corner of the state could use a machine shop,' Al said. 'It was thought of mostly as a vacation spot, but the oceanographic industry spawned a lot of small company spinoffs.'
'We were familiar with the Cape. Everything we made back then was small, location wasn't all that important,' Chris said. 'So, we had the bright idea of over a few months, slowly moving everything out to the Cape.'
On the cape, the machine shop became an intricate supplier in Oceanographic instrument products and scientific research. Many decades later, that led to the development of the AUV market, which Pocasset Machine is heavily involved in today.
Barry began working at the company immediately in 1977. Chris started a few years later after high school.
The two brothers learned under the company's previous ownership – the Paquette brothers. Barry and Chris assumed leadership roles at Pocasset Machine in the early 1980s.
Al transitioned from his previous manufacturing company, Millipore, to Pocasset by 1983. He brought Millipore work with him, but he mostly stayed 'out of the way,' as he described it, to allow his sons to operate the company.
Pocasset fits Compass' operating model, which has proven highly effective in integrating and supporting geographically dispersed operating units. Compass particularly emphasizes numerous cross-selling and cross-sourcing opportunities to enable each operating company to succeed in ways not possible by itself.
Pocasset had other potential buyers, but the Kents saw Compass as the best fit.
'They speak our language. They know what a job shop life is,' Barry said. 'Until you have lived that life, you can try to explain to people what you do, but they really don't understand it until you've lived it. It's a pretty unique life, good or bad.'
The Kent family members expressed how proud they are that Compass wanted to acquire the shop. They are looking forward to Compass continuing their traditions to help the machine shop continue to grow and prosper.
'Chris and Barry have grown this unbelievably successful company. They have done a great job, and we have a lot of really nice employees,' Barry's wife, Vicky, said. 'Because of that, we wanted to make sure that the company lived on and continued and didn't just close up and end what they had worked so hard for.
'So, that's the very, very important part of it.
'With Compass, the type of company that they are, adding Compass' family, friends, employees, is what we were looking for too.'
Chris sees Compass taking Pocasset Machine to the next level. Al stressed how important it will be for Compass to keep the machine shop's integrity, which he is confident the parent company will be able to do.
'I'd like to see that integrity factor that Pocasset Machine has developed to continue working under the Compass umbrella,' said Al.
Compass Precision was formed with the acquisition of Advanced Machining & Tooling, LLC; Quality Products & Machine, LLC; and Tri-Tec Industries, LLC in October 2019. In August 2020, Compass added Gray Manufacturing Technologies, LLC as its first add-on acquisition. Seven months later, Douglas Machining Services, LLC became Compass's second add-on acquisition in March 2021. R&D Machine, LLC was acquired in April 2022, Strom Manufacturing, LLC in July 2022, and Bergeron Machine, LLC in April 2023, becoming Compass's third, fourth and fifth add-ons.
Together, Compass's operating companies, now numbering nine including Pocasset Machine, serve a diversified group of blue-chip customers in the aerospace & defense, space, semiconductor, medical, industrial automation, power generation, telecommunications, high tech, and specialty industrial markets.
In addition to expansion via acquisition, Compass has also grown significantly since its formation in 2019 by investing aggressively in advanced equipment and adding new customers drawn to the company's mantra of 'we do the tough stuff'. In particular, Compass has concentrated its CAPEX expansion on machines capable of running unattended, lights-out, and/or in multi-tasking mode whereby previous discrete CNC machine processes are combined into a single operation.
'The technology underlying CNC machining is advancing quickly,' said Compass CEO Gary Holcomb. 'We are capitalizing on these developments by buying the latest machines capable of doing even more difficult parts faster and with fewer set-ups and operator intervention. We put our money where our mouth is regarding 'we do the tough stuff.'
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