A tour of TMCO shows what keeps it running − the people

The machines that fill this space aren’t the ones that set TMCO on its ever-growing path. The original drill press, sander and punch press have found homes elsewhere. So has the water bucket that founder Roland Temme filled and carried with him in 1974 because there was no running water or plumbing. So has the final Magnefax high-speed tape duplication system that Temme built -- Temme and TMCO’s first job. The tape machine is on display in TMCO’s Mill Towne West office, the original instruction manual tucked behind it. The bucket’s whereabouts are unknown.

To Temme, the studio apartment-size shed still holds meaning no matter where the original contents have gone.

“That’s hallowed ground for me, but for everybody else, it’s no big deal,” he said. “I didn’t have the heart to tear it down.”

But TMCO has a plan in place to continue growing, both in size and in staff. A tour of the company starts with a room about 85 times the size of Temme’s first shop space.

Today, one might be able to bounce a tennis ball against the back wall of the 72,000-square-foot addition to TMCO without hitting a welder or a piece of machinery or a humongous container designed to safely truck massive natural gas tanks over the highways, even though the room contains multiples of each. This will not be the case for long.

“It’ll fill up fast,” Temme said. “Let’s just say it’s gonna be busier.”

The plans for this space include the addition of two welding robots -- they’re on back order but should be in place by the end of 2015. That will allow for the welding of two of those Hexagon natural gas containers at a time. And, like the containers and the spraying booth and sandblasting facility that tower inside the vast expansion project, they too will be sizable.

“I mean big, big stuff,” Temme said. “You can’t imagine unless you see it.”

Touring the rest of TMCO gives one a good idea. Forklifts ferry parts past a bending machine, a water jet, a punching machine and several kinds of metal-piercing lasers. The machines tend to be less than a decade old, state-of-the-art and German or Japanese. At least one is made from a combination of German and Japanese companies.

Although the technology continues to zoom forward, Temme said the machines can’t do anything without the employees to guide them. (Without the two welding robots on backorder, TMCO employees are assembling the containers and still turning out Hexagon containers at a one-per-day clip.)

As he walked outside past an employee parking lot, Temme noticed a spotless coupe with dealer’s plates.

“That’s Anwar’s car,” Temme said. “He’s such a hard worker, unbelievable, unbelievable.”

Anwar Rida, TMCO employee No. 39, was one of several featured in a recent story on the web series, "This Built America" (thisbuiltamerica.com), a project created by AOL and Man Made Content and sponsored by Ford Motor Co. The series focuses on one started-from-scratch business per state, highlighting the people who make the company what it is. For Nebraska, the series creators selected the Lincoln business at 535 J St.

The show touched on Rida's departure from Iraq, and then his move from Syria to the United States. The story also highlights Temme’s longtime respect and admiration of immigrant and refugee employees.

On a tour of the business, Rida talks far more about his customers than himself.

While large clients such as Claas and Hexagon bring steady work to the company that employs about 225 people -- up from about 120 a decade ago -- TMCO still takes all kinds of jobs that come through the door, both big and small.

“Whatever the customer needs, we’re making,” Rida said.

As TMCO has grown, he said he’s seen this happen occasionally -- someone walks into the enormous shop with a modest order in mind, and thinks the place will scoff at a small job. Not so, Rida said. TMCO makes about 300,000 parts a month for all sizes of companies.

He recalled a job for a Lincoln business, Escape Pod Floatation Tanks. The client, Jeremy Warner, was looking to build sensory deprivation float tanks to sell to spas and holistic centers around the country.

“I think we are TMCO’s smallest customer by far,” Warner said in a 2013 Journal Star story.

And Rida couldn’t be prouder of Escape Pod’s growth.

“We built one, helped him on the design,” Rida said. And now, he said, Warner is ordering panels for 15 to 20 Escape Pods every three or four months.

“We do one part, and we do 1,000 parts,” Rida said.

He soon checked his skeleton-style watch that shows all of the gears that churn to make the hands move.

“I like to see the stuff working,” he said. And then he was off to the next job.