M Tech Incorporated Company Profile

In the late 1990s, Tom Black was running a one-man plastic fabrication shop out of an 800-square-foot building in the far reaches of Northern California. A single Kamweld hand welder resided on a workbench in the corner, and on the walls hung dozens of part templates—a jigsaw puzzle of patterns used to guide polymer sheet stock over table saws and hand routers. After building a filtration system for his wife’s screenprinting shop, Black realized that there was a need for corrosion-proof clean room equipment in the printing industry, and began creating a business specializing in the production of welded-polypropylene filtration systems and washout booths. Today, Tom Black is President and CEO of what became MTECH, Incorporated, which offers a diverse product line in a variety of industries. The company, which moved to Chico, California, in 2001, resides in a 10,000-square-foot shop and employs eight people. There are still a few hand welders on the floor, but MTECH’s certified fabricators now primarily use extrusion welders, and all those templates have been replaced with a MultiCam M-Series 3-axis router.