* HISTORY
In a small machine shop tucked away on the back roads of southern Marshall County north of Enos, Allen Forbes and a small group of family employees make parts that, on first glace, look too small to be of any consequence.
Sometimes it’s the little things that make the biggest difference.
Forbes Enterprises, the family business of Wichita, Kan., native Allen Forbes creates small parts for a variety of industrial uses.
Forbes said his spare parts find their way to companies including Boeing, Lear, and Cessna. He even makes parts for the Department of Defense, though details on those jobs are sparse.
“All we know is we get a drawing with a name on it,” he said.
He said the company did make a lot of components used in offshore oil drilling, but that work has dropped off precipitously since the BP oil disaster.
* WHO WORKS THERE
Forbes does most of the work by himself, but occasionally has his adult children working alongside him. He hopes to expand his operation in the future, and said the most important skills and qualities any burgeoning machinist can have are steady hands, mechanical aptitude and a mastery of math.
With the rise of computer numeric control machines, like the CNC lathe Forbes recently added to his shop, computer skills are a must as well.
“When we first fired this thing up in the morning we’d have to adjust it two to three tenths of a thousands of an inch,” he said. “From there on we’d run 250 parts and never do a thing.”
* WHY ENOS?
Setting up shop in Southern Oklahoma is the fruition of what Forbes called the Wichita Dream: Getting out of Wichita.
Forbes followed family members to the area, and later found work at a nearby machine shop. In 1985, he finally decided to go into work for himself and opened his own shop.
* PLANS FOR THE FUTURE
While Forbes hopes to expand his shop, one particular avenue he is pursuing is the Speedy Hitcher, an invention he created to help people connect and disconnect gooseneck trailers without having to climb into the back of a truck.
“I’ve always said a machine shop should have it’s own product,” he said.
“I could never come up with one until we stumbled into this.”
Forbes sells the Speedy Hitcher for a variety of hitch variants and is always encountering more.
