Washington Business Winter 2019 | Washington Business | Page 38

washington business
voices of manufacturing
washington’s manufacturing firms provide 282,000 jobs across the state. meet four employees who spoke
to awb during the 2018 manufacturing week bus tour about what their manufacturing jobs mean to them.
Neri Cisneros has worked on the factory floor at FarWest
Fabricators in Moxee for seven months. Her daughter, who has
been a welder at FarWest for a year and a half, recruited her.
What does the job mean to her?
“Everything,” Cisneros said, especially when she sees how the
parts she makes fit into a larger whole. “When I started working
here I didn’t even know what I was building. Then you put
everything together. Once you put all the pieces together
and see what you’ve made, it’s pretty amazing.”
Steve Furjesi founded Experimental Aircraft
Metal Fabrication with his wife, Jilene, 20 years ago.
They own the grass airstrip in their backyard, which
neighbors use to fly in and out.
“I like manufacturing [and] I like airplanes,” Furjesi
said from a shop full of metal that he is forming into
one-off and experimental aircraft.
“We just made it a way of life.”
Les Sanchez , break area lead at Buyken Metal Products,
uses a 100-ton press break to bend a 3/8-inch plate.
He’s been at the Kent company for 13 years.
“I like it. It’s a good company,” Sanchez said. “It’s been a
good ride so far. I’ve been doing this for 40 years,
if you can believe it... I’d rather do this than sit at a desk.
I’m a hands-on person.”
Amber Hartman was two weeks on the job at Composite Recycling
Technology Center in Port Angeles during AWB’s tour of this innovative
research, prototyping and development facility. She was making posts
for a Pickleball net from scrap aerospace carbon fiber.
“I love it,” said Hartman, a Missouri native who moved to the Olympic
Peninsula in March. “I worked at a machine shop back at home with my
husband. This is cleaner. I love how everything is
so environmentally minded.”
38 association of washington business