Northwest Aerospace News April | May 2019 Issue No. 8 | Page 22

The Big, Bold
& Beautiful
Machinists Inc. Making Parts That Amaze
By Patrick Sherman
M
achinists Inc. has helped explore Mars
and built components for Space X and Blue
Origin, even though the company itself was
founded before the first man-made object
ever left Earth’s atmosphere. In 1941, Ralph
LaBossier established the company to overhaul
and repair machine parts for heavy industry. Its
first shop was on Michigan Street, across the
Duwamish Waterway from Boeing Field, which
had just completed construction of its first paved
runway.
Today, the company occupies seven separate
buildings that encompass nearly a quarter-
million square feet in the South Park Industrial
complex, only about a mile from its original
home. Employing more than 190 people, the
company is still owned and operated by the
LaBossier family.
“Over that time, we’ve expanded the work that
we do,” said Adam Grim, the company’s human
resource director. “We still do repair work on
big machines, but now we’re also a full-service
job shop — taking our customer’s drawings and
turning them into finished parts and tools — and
we also offer design-build services. We have
engineers on our staff who work with our clients
to develop parts and tools that will meet their
needs.”
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NORTHWEST AEROSPACE NEWS