MDNA Southern Regional Chapter Member Profile

Question: When and how did you get your start in this business? 

Tom Snow: “After a decade of traveling 11 southeastern states as a salesman for Taylor-Winfield, a well-known resistance welder manufacturer, my father founded our family business on April Fool’s Day, 1963. For the next 20 years, he represented a succession of other welder manufacturers, including Precision, Progressive, Federal and LORS.

I joined my father in 1973 and we got into the used resistance welder business almost by accident when customers asked us to take their old welders in on trade. As MDNA members can appreciate, it did not take long for us to realize that refurbishing and selling used machines was much more profitable than getting paid a modest commission for selling new machines made by others.

After several years of refurbishing and remanufacturing various brands of used resistance welders, we took note of the design features we liked and combined them into our own line of new resistance welding machines. However, the used welder side of the business continues to be important and we have around 200 machines in stock. For years we averaged around 300 welders in stock, but we’ve recently thinned the herd by scrapping most of the older machines that would cost too much to strip and remanufacture like new.

We have customers nationwide and in several foreign countries. We currently employ 105, including two bilingual sales people.

In addition to machinery, we have one of the largest inventories of resistance welding supplies and accessories in the world, plus a dedicated service department that utilizes two corporate planes to respond to breakdowns quickly. In addition, we offer hands-on and classroom training related to the resistance welding process.

Question: Where are you located and do you have a warehouse? 

Tom Snow: “We are located in a 65,000 square foot building adjacent to the Chattanooga, Tennessee Airport and we are in the process of buying a 7,000 square foot storage building around the corner. As a pilot, our location is a dream come true because we can walk to our hanger. We moved here six years ago after spending 39 years at another nearby location.  Our machinery storage warehouse is equipped with a 15-ton overhead crane and we have a Sciaky three-phase aerospace resistance seam welder in stock that maxes it out.  (Anyone got a home for that beast?)