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USAnchor metal fabrication job shop preps today for the future

Onetime buyer of fabricating services now runs a shop aimed for present-day, upcoming challenges

Kenny and Dominique Attai, owners of USAnchor, pose with the rest of the shop team.

Kenny and Dominique Attai, owners of USAnchor, pose with the rest of the shop team. The couple opened the company in 2020 to fabricate parts for suspended maintenance and fall protection systems that they had trouble outsourcing to other metal fabricating companies.

A career path in the metal fabrication industry is hardly a linear one for most people. Not too many start with their heads in the clouds—literally.

In 2002 Kenny Attai was a 22-year-old in Trinidad who had just finished the courses necessary to get his commercial pilot’s license. He had always wanted to fly, and he was about to fulfill that goal. A test for colorblindness got in the way, however.

Pilots who are colorblind can get a private pilot’s license but not a commercial one. Needless to say, the lack of a license is a big hindrance to pursuing a career as a commercial pilot.

Attai said he recalls coming back from the airport after getting the news. His mind was racing, trying to figure out what might be next.

“I saw these guys hanging off the side of a building cleaning windows, and I thought to myself, ‘Well, that looks interesting,’” he said. He had discovered another way to make a living without being anchored to terra-firma.

Attai started from the very ground up, learning about the skills and tools necessary to provide services to high-rise buildings. He borrowed $250 from his girlfriend-at-the-time Dominique, who is now his wife, and together they started their own company. He gained experience and earned credentials in the ensuing years. He even expanded his business, providing training to others and acting as a supplier/distributor/installer of fall protection equipment for a Canadian company.

Around this same time, he and Dominique started a second company in Trinidad that focused on air-conditioning and refrigeration maintenance services. “We are very entrepreneurial,” Kenny said. (He even earned a private pilot’s license, which didn’t have a colorblindness stipulation.)

Unbeknownst to her husband, Dominique filled out applications for her and Kenny for the U.S. immigration lottery in 2005. Attai ended up winning the lottery that he didn’t even know he was entered in.

Even with the success of their companies, the couple didn’t want to turn down the opportunity to emigrate to the U.S. They were willing to start over for the chance to be entrepreneurs in the land where hard work and good ideas are still enough to build a foundation for success.

Before the move to the U.S., Kenny said he met with the president of the Canadian manufacturer of the fall protection equipment that his and Dominique’s company was representing to notify him that they were leaving the Caribbean. Instead of accepting the loss, the company president made him an offer to help in setting up a U.S. branch in Florida. Kenny accepted, and the couple began their new U.S. adventure in 2007.

These are internal supports for an interior cladding system.

These internal supports for an interior cladding system were cut on the shop’s 6-kW laser cutting machine.

Over the next seven years, they traveled the U.S. like a newly retired couple cruising around in their new RV. They started in Florida, relocated to California, moved to Pennsylvania, returned to California, moved back to Florida, made one more move back to California, and then returned to Florida. Around 2014 the entrepreneurs were seeking to strike out on their own again.

That’s when the Attais founded Access Specialty Group in Davie, Fla. The company focuses on specialty rigging and access projects. (If you visit the company’s website, you can see Kenny standing on a window several stories up, arms extended like he’s ready to take off.)

Today the company is known for designing and building suspended maintenance and fall protection systems and providing complex rigging setups. One day it might be the installation of a new sign on the side of a building, and the next day it’s supervising all of the rigging for stunts done on the side of a high-rise during filming of a commercial (like the Hard Rock Hotel ad that aired during Super Bowl LIV).

This specialty work required custom-fabricated equipment on occasion, according to Kenny, and he relied on nearby metal fabricating companies to turn the work around for him. These products included catwalks, access ladders, and platform systems. Also, he had started designing his own anchors, the support pieces affixed to buildings from which platforms and workers can be suspended, something else he needed to be fabricated.

So, in the first six years of operating Access Specialty Group, the Attais got a lesson in supply chain uncertainty. Their metal fabricating contractors often missed delivery deadlines, and they could never really find a reliable supplier. Things were especially bad when it came to the anchors. Being that they not only had to be fabricated but also hot-dipped galvanized, lead times for these parts could stretch to six to eight weeks when it should have taken two weeks.

“We finally realized that we have to try and control manufacturing. That’s when we dove all in,” Kenny said. The entrepreneurs were about to try out metal fabricating.

Running a Job Shop

The Attais began looking at the technology necessary to fabricate the parts that Access Specialty Group would need. Kenny wanted to have advanced fabricating equipment so that he could “futureproof,” as he called it, his new business. The technology had to be able to cut, bend, and weld what was needed, but do it in a way that minimized the amount of labor required to operate the shop. Even before opening a metal fabricating company, Kenny said he was aware of the challenge of finding the right workers to meet customer demands and ultimately grow the business.

During his visits with fabricating equipment manufacturers, he became familiar with TRUMPF equipment and worked with a local dealer, Southern States Machinery, to learn more about what was available. A visit to the TRUMPF campus in 2019 with his 10-year-old son convinced him that he could buy equipment that would serve him well today and act as a foundation for rapid expansion in the future.

Kenny said TRUMPF’s Future Factory concept resonated with him. One person in front of a computer monitor oversaw the whole operation—material delivery, material loading, laser cutting, part and skeleton unloading, part separation, blank delivery to bending, automated bending, part delivery to laser welding, and final part placement on a skid for shipment.

“We met with the team there for a couple of days, went through the [anchor] designs we had, and found out what we actually could accomplish. Then we came up with the selection process for the machines with the intent of having machines capable of doing a lot more than just manufacturing anchors,” Kenny said.

Workers form a part on the USAnchor press brake.

The 12-ft. bed on the press brake gives USAnchor plenty of room to accommodate the long parts that are often part of custom suspended maintenance and fall protection systems.

USAnchor, a 10,000-sq.-ft. space next to the suite for Access Specialty Group, purchased a TruLaser 1040 6-kW fiber laser cutting machine, which can cut up to 1-in.-thick material and accommodate 5- by 12-ft. sheets; a TruBend 5170, a 170-ton press brake with a 12-ft. bed; and a TruLaser Weld 5000 6-kW fiber laser welding cell. The laser cutting and welding machines share the same laser power source, but Dominique stressed, “That’s just for now.”

The COVID-19 pandemic put the brakes on installing the equipment right away after purchasing it, but by the end of 2020, everything began to fall into place. As the U.S. began to emerge from its winter of isolation and social distancing, USAnchor was ready to take on metal fabricating work.

The laser welding cell, complete with a robot that actually does the work, might seem to be a strange choice for a fab shop that employs only five people, but Kenny said that it works well for what he is trying to accomplish. Because the industry relies on roof anchors made of galvanized steel, companies have to live with lead times of six to eight weeks, because the anchors have to be sent out for the hot-dip process. Of course, those weekslong lead times often drag on for much longer than that. The stainless steel anchors from USAnchor, on the other hand, can be fabricated and welded up in a matter of minutes. Also, because the bent parts feature minimal gaps and precise edges, the laser welding robot can deliver joints that are barely noticeable and very clean, requiring no postprocess cleanup.

“There’s definitely been a learning curve because we were new to these machines and to manufacturing. But I hired an applications engineer when we first started, so now we both can run all of the machines,” Kenny said.

Creating cutting, bending, and welding programs for the machines came a bit more naturally to Kenny, who has worked with design software since he was 16. The TRUMPF TruTops software, while new, still was somewhat familiar.

“What we do now is we can offer added value to customers. We can offer up a better design than maybe what they are thinking of. We can come up with a prototype of the parts before we move to actual production,” Kenny said. USAnchor also has a 3D laser scanner to assist in these engineering projects.

USAnchor has begun to build its job shop business in addition to its support of work from Access Specialty Group. It’s even won jobs, awarded by subcontractors, linked to NASA and SpaceX. The NASA job called for a stainless steel roof anchor design that could support 5,000 lbs. in any direction. (Kenny said they provided an anchor that actually could have withstood 16,000 lbs. of force.) SpaceX was looking for assistance in fabricating high-access lifts for working on its rockets.

While visiting with SpaceX in Texas, Kenny said he was happy to see that the company had invested in laser welding as well—six welding cells similar to his, in fact. That confirmed for him that he was on the right path in his planning and technology selection.

“When we started, we were trying to predict the problems of the future. One of them that we know about is that there is going to be a shortage of skilled labor. Rather than wait until that is an issue for us, we wanted to plan ahead and put things in place to be able to automate,” Kenny said.

The laser cutting machine, which now has a dual pallet loader/unloader, can be upgraded to a material storage and retrieval system. An automated tooling changer and a robot can be added to the press brake operation. Automated material handling between the fabrication stations can be introduced to eliminate manual movement of parts. USAnchor has created the groundwork for its own future factory.

A laser cutting machine cuts parts.

The 6-kW laser cuts out the parts for a cladding system.

“It’s been a wild ride—doing our own thing in all of these different places. But I don’t think I would have it any other way,” Dominique said. “Kenny doesn’t really fit in any one box. He’s just good at getting out there and helping people solve problems.”

That’s what entrepreneurs do: See a need and fill a need. The Attais have done that in the high-rise services and fall protection markets and now they have turned their attention to metal fabricating. In fact, they have created a new sister company called 247 Manufacturing, which will specialize in job shop work. Today’s mission is to grow those businesses, but who knows what tomorrow’s opportunity might be?

A laser welding program is set up.

USAnchor believes that it is one of the few shops in the area to have laser welding capabilities.

About the Author
The Fabricator

Dan Davis

Editor-in-Chief

2135 Point Blvd.

Elgin, IL 60123

815-227-8281

Dan Davis is editor-in-chief of The Fabricator, the industry's most widely circulated metal fabricating magazine, and its sister publications, The Tube & Pipe Journal and The Welder. He has been with the publications since April 2002.