Northwest Aerospace News June | July Issue No. 3 | Page 9

A
llan Marzetta, a tool and die maker by trade,
decided in the ‘70s to move his family cross-country
from Massachusetts to Seattle — lock, stock, and barrel
— with the intent of gaining employment with Boeing.
An illness in the family mandated a pit stop in Spokane,
which prompted him to look for short-term employment
to support his family. With the extended stay, Al realized
the incredible lifestyle this region offered. Being an avid
fisherman, hunter, and outdoorsman, this region was just
too much to resist. He tossed the Boeing employment
idea aside and began to make plans for permanent resi-
dency in Spokane.
After a short term with Columbia Lighting and launching
K&M Engineering with a friend, in 1980 Marzetta set up
his own shop in Liberty Lake, Washington - Altek, Inc.
Allan (the Al in Altek) quickly expanded the business,
bringing in more injection molding equipment while still
providing tool and die, machining and stamping services.
Local tech titans like Telect, Itron, then Itronix, and other
local tech staples were all setting up shop in this era and
relied heavily on Altek as a partner in not only providing
their mold products, but also for design-build engineer-
ing services in manufacturing them.
Rick Taylor, Altek’s vice president of sales, has been
with the company since 1984. “From our beginning
in die and tooling, to opportunities within the medical
industry, we found early on we had a knack for identi-
fying missed opportunities, or inefficiencies that need-
ed shoring up.” It was more instinctive for them than
intentional. In such a technical industry, the obvious and
logical is sometimes easily overlooked. The big picture
ability, backed by their technically astute brain trust, for-
tified the company’s reputation as a reliable, honest, and
excellent manufacturer. As their local clients began to
grow and companies like ATL, that had extended beyond
the Spokane region, utilized Altek, the company’s reach
stretched into larger markets.
“We’ve never really had an active sales force,” says
Taylor, “Businesses would come to us because we were
creative, had a really good reputation, and got things
done on time and on or under budget, which served us
very well. As engineers moved into other markets and
companies, they took with them the knowledge that
Altek was a reliable partner. Word just spread.”
JUNE | JULY 2018 ISSUE NO. 3
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