S&S Fabrication & Machining adds equipment rental sales to business

S&S Machining & Fabrication is an industrial business that has provided a variety of services for more than 40 years, and owner VJ Gupta hopes to elevate the business to new heights, as well as meet smaller, local needs.

Gupta has worked his way up through the industry since coming to America in 1993 with a Bachelor’s Degree in business. He started his career at a foundry business in Canton, Ohio, shoveling sand for several months and eventually working his way up to supervisor and superintendent, until the company went belly up in 2000.

“I come from a family of industrialists back home: forgings, rolling mills, foundries, they are all in our blood,” Gupta said. “Ancestors over ancestors, that’s what we do.”

Gupta moved to Texas and began working for Fraiser & Frasier Industries in Coolidge, where he started as a grinder and worked up to Chief Operating Officer (COO) over the past 21 years.

“I bought this company last year and there’s a lot of potential,” Gupta said. “The two brothers, Tracey and Ronnie, and the whole Sims family, have done a phenomenal job over the last 41 years they’ve been in business, and it’s a family legacy, so when Mr. Sims and I started talking, it was about not destroying the legacy but strengthening it. The name S&S worked out for me personally because my greatest teacher is my father, and he’s still alive. I talk to him on the phone every morning and learn from him every day. His first name is Sumash, so it’s like Sumash & Son; that’s the way I look at it and that’s the way my family looks at it, but it gives the Sims family the satisfaction that 41 years of hard work is not just down the drain and being erased.”

Gupta hired Groesbeck local Steve Posey as manager about four months ago, who has decades of experience in the aerospace industry and also sales. He has been tasked with expanding their customer base for machining and fabrication and has quickly gotten familiar with the many services S&S is capable of.

“One of our biggest customers is American Valve (and Hydrant) down in Beaumont, they do castings and when the parts come out of the form they have sharp edges that have to be ground off,” Posey said. “Once it’s ground, sometimes it has to be machined or welded; we have those capabilities here so we can be a turnkey operation for some of these companies. We can source it domestically or internationally, we can grind it, weld it, and machine it- that’s normally a three-shop operation, so the fact that we can do all that under one roof saves money, saves time, and makes the whole process easier for customers.”

With Gupta’s recent expansion of the company, S&S has more than 70,000 square feet of working space, and they have operational equipment and machines ranging from over a hundred years old to the newest, top-of-the-line tools that cost around the million dollar mark. They offer services including custom machining, computer numerical control (CNC) machining, fabrication, and even in-the-field welding and boring for customers within a 100-mile radius.

“I didn’t want to put all my eggs in one basket, and that’s why you see so many different business models under one roof,” Gupta said. “Though they are kind of webbed together and they complement each other, they could also exist separately. The machining business is an individual, independent business but also links into the fabrication business and vice versa. Machining and fabricating cater to different industries, so if the economy goes down and affects an industry, the other industries could be up and business will be up in different areas because the last thing we want to do is lay people off because I’ve been there and it hurts, so we don’t want to get to that point.”

Even still, Gupta still has big aspirations for the continued success and growth of S&S. Last month, they held a Ribbon Cutting and Grand Opening Ceremony to celebrate the recent addition of a Rentals & Sales department.

We started the rental business because that’s something the community demanded; lots of people would come with their tractors needing repairs or contractors would come for repairing their tools. And they would say ‘Man, I wish there was a local equipment rental company because I have to go all the way to Waco or Buffalo or Corsicana.’ That was something said often, so I got support from the Chamber to start the equipment rental business.”

Though the revenue from equipment rentals will be considered small potatoes against the revenue S&S is used to making from machining and fabrication jobs, Gupta gets satisfaction from providing a service locals have been needing and asking for. S&S is working to expand its inventory of available equipment, but they are at the mercy of suppliers who are still slowed down by the impact of COVID. Currently, they offer rentals of skid steers, excavators, stump grinders, and manlifts, to name a few

As for their machining and fabrication side, Posey is chasing Gupta’s goal of helping the company earn their ISO certification (International Organization of Standardization).

“We are working on ISO, which several larger companies require in the interest of quality and safety. We’ve got the ball rolling on that, and that will open up a lot of doors for us. ISO creates more work for people and they don’t like that, but in the long term, you’re doing it the right way and every process is documented. As far as sales go, it’s a big deal and we can brag that we’ve got a worldclass manufacturing facility right here in Groesbeck, which is the goal.”

S&S hopes to have its ISO certification by the end of the year. Gupta and his family currently live in Waco and will remain there for the next four years until his youngest daughter graduates, but he’s looking forward to moving to Groesbeck. He is committed to helping Groesbeck grow and improve in any way he can, which he believes begins with supporting the community

“Being a part of the Lions Club and the Rotary Club and the Chamber teaches us to give back to the community, you owe it to the community; it’s because of the community that we stand here today and that’s very important for every business to learn and understand. I’m grateful for the opportunities ahead.”