California firm: Recruiting may be easier in Carson City

A California company that purchased Carson City-based Astromec thinks its new Nevada manufacturing operation may ease some of its problems recruiting skilled workers.

Patrick Johnson, the president and chief executive officer of Santa Ana-based Pro-Dex Inc., said the company is having difficulty finding the workforce it needs in Southern California.

But, he told securities analysts, "There's a lot to be said about the attractiveness of the affordability of the Carson City area and the quality of life in the Carson City area."

Pro-Dex, which makes miniature motors and drive systems for medical, military and industrial markets, expects that production at the Astromec facility will increase by about 15 percent in the next year.

Astromec makes tiny motors for medical equipment, and its backlog of orders totaled $1.7 million at the start of this year.

Johnson said Astromec was operating profitably before it was acquired by publicly held Pro-Dex last month. But he said the Carson City firm was starved for capital to grow.

He said Astromec's Carson City facility is running at about 50 percent of its capacity, and Pro-Dex expects to move more of its manufacturing to Nevada.

"The cost of operating in Nevada is significantly lower than operating in California," he told investors.

But Johnson said it's highly unlikely that the entire company will move to Nevada, mostly because the company worries about the effects of uprooting the engineers at its headquarters, a staff that the company views as one of the secrets of its success.

"They would be very difficult to move out of Southern California," Johnson said.

Pro-Dex expects to increase sales of the motors made by Astromec by integrating the Astromec technology into the medical devices manufactured by Pro-Dex.

The California company said last month it paid approximately $2.6 million for Astromec and plans to spend another $2.2 million later this year to purchase the land and building that Astromec occupies on Arrowhead Drive in north Carson City.