Mound House manufacturer wins big contract at LAX

A contract to provide an overhead cable rail system to Los Angeles International Airport will provide a significant increase in revenues for Cable Connection of Mound House.

Cable Connection will make an overhead system of small cables for a "sterile corridor" at LAX. The corridor is for passengers disembarking from international flights on the new large double-decker airbuses.

"These planes land, they unload 600 people, and they all have to go through customs," says Dan Nourse, sales and customer service manager. "They hit this sterile corridor, which is off the ground and is glass sided, and the cables come across the top so somebody can't toss something to a friend that is waiting below."

The contract at LAX represents a sizeable chunk of business for the company, say CEO Lou Marino.

Cable Connection will tie in more than 175,000 feet of cable to roughly 7,000 pre-built assemblies between 18 and 25 feet long designed to span the top of the glassed-in corridor.

Cable Connection won the work through one of its resellers, which originally won the job but stumped with the project's architect for Cable Connection to handle the work based on the company's experience.

"That took a lot of work and creativeness to finally get to the point where they were able to secure approval," Marino says.

Cable Connection has begun fulfilling the order for LAX and plans on delivering the first batch of assemblies in early December. The company doesn't make wire rope or cable, but instead focuses its business on machining custom-made connections and tie-ins for industries that use wire rope, including commercial and residential construction, medical, automotive and industrial.

Workers typically attach tensioners or fastening devices on cables of different lengths and thicknesses. The company has about 30 employees, with about 15 working on the production floor.

Cable Connection operates out of a 16,000-square-foot facility in Mound House. The company was founded in 1991. One of its premier brands is its Ultra-tec cable railing systems found on the hand and guardrails of many newly built commercial office and public buildings and shopping malls. The downturn in construction slowed sales of Ultra-tec products, but over the past few years Cable Connection regained market share through increased marketing efforts.

"The building industry was booming, and folks like us couldn't miss - we couldn't handle it all," Marino says. "But since the recession, the one thing that we've done is heightened our marketing. We really didn't have people out making sales calls, but now we have two people out in the field calling on various aspects of the market."

The company also penetrated into European markets. International sales, though small, have grown because certain Cable Connection products are unique to the wire rope industry, Marino says.

Cable Connection has weathered much of the recession without any job cuts and Marino expects to continue to see modest year-over-year growth.

"Our strategy is to continue to develop new things to offer the marketplace, and we are going to remain aggressive," he says. "We like to gain the attention of architects who are designing projects, because the key is to get ourselves listed on jobs early. We also are trying to proliferate our awareness with the fabricators who do the actual installation on these projects. It is a combination of push-pull."