MRO Firm Turnover Above $1 Billion

With 4,000 staff in 14 countries, turnover well north of $1 billion and a blue chip list of airline and aerospace customers, US engine components repair and manufacturing specialist Chromalloy should be better known.

Fixing that is one of the tasks occupying Armand Tauzon, appointed by private equity giant Carlyle as chief executive of Chromalloy parent Sequa a year after it acquired the underperforming engineering group in 2007. It is his third company stewardship under Carlyle.

Interviewed at the MRO Americas convention in Dallas, Tauzon made it clear he had found a workforce largely relieved at the change in culture under Carlyle after some unhappy times. More>>

NOT SO HARD

"On a scale of one to 10, with 10 being hard, it has been about a three or four. They have embraced it with no resistance," he says.

"Chromalloy was 29 profit and loss centres, with 41 individual locations, 92 specific addresses and a bunch of websites. The way the company had been run was to keep them in silos and it didn't want them talking to each other because they were worried about unionisation and eventually some people were worried about a mutiny. We are knocking down the walls as fast as we can."