1. DemocratandChronicle.com Sunday, August 30, 2015 Page 3E
Successful internships brought
Greg Gottermeier back to medical
diagnostics and screening compa-
ny Ortho Clinical Diagnostics when
he was looking for full-time work
after college.
Armed with bachelor’s and mas-
ter’s degrees, he got hired and then
began moving up the corporate
ladder, getting promoted three
times in his first five years. The
35-year-old Rochester resident is
now a senior scientist, and just
received a 6 percent bump in pay
in June.
“I guess I was kind of lucky in
that I always had good managers in
my career and they really look out
for me,” he said. “I have a lot of
friends that get nothing, they don’t
even get the cost-of-living increase
type thing, and others that get good
raises, but it varies.”
Other area workers may see
jumps in pay as the area economy
continues to try to pull itself up and
move past the recession. Unad-
justed data from the Bureau of
Labor Statistics show that average
hourly earnings for Rochester
jumped 4.9 percent in June com-
pared with a year earlier.
The figure was fifth-best in
terms of percentage growth among
the country’s largest metro areas
with populations of 1 million or
more. It’s a stark contrast to how
wages in the Rochester area fell
from $25.10 in 2007 to $21.96 per
hour in 2014.
“The economy is generally on an
upward trajectory, so you are see-
ing this positive demand side ef-
fect, meaning firms are demanding
more labor and willing to hire
more, and I think (that’s) what’s
reflected in the data,” said Amit
Batabyal, an economics professor
at Rochester Institute of Technol-
ogy.
Seasonal employment, partic-
ularly college and high students
entering the local labor market,
likely had an impact.
“Not being seasonally adjusted
means I can’t tell how much of that
is a short-term bump from summer
and summer-related activities as
opposed to a significantly greater
longer-term trend, so that is some-
thing to definitely keep in mind,”
Batabyal said.
Still, a number of indicators
bode well for the area. Unemploy-
ment in the area was 5.4 percent in
July, compared to 5.9 percent a
year earlier, according to the state
Department of Labor. There also
were about 501,600 people em-
ployed in the area in July, about
12,000 more than at the beginning
of the year.
This is despite a weak economy
Rochester area
among best
in nation for
wage growth
TCLAUSEN@DemocratandChronicle.com
Todd Clausen
WORK LIFE REPORTER
See WAGES, Page 6E
Business ConNextions Success stories
and solutions for
small business
There was a point while
workingforaPerintonmanu-
facturer that Mark Wheeler
and Robert Nuccitelli Jr.
looked at each other and
thought, “We could do this.”
So 10 years ago, they
cashed in what savings they
had to buy large-scale pro-
duction equipment and
opened Global Precision In-
dustries in a small facility on
MountReadBoulevard.They
hired an employee to help out
during the day while initially
keeping their day jobs.
Wheeler began working
for the company full-time by
year three, bringing more
employees and equipment on
board and moving the auto-
motive component manufac-
turer into a 21,000-square-
foot plant on Dodge Street.
“It was this giant empty
building with six machines
with it and we said, ‘How are
we ever going to fill it?’ ”
Wheeler said. “We filled it in
four years.”
Demand for various parts
intheautomotiveserviceand
after-markets grew, and the
firm continued to add auto-
mated machining equipment
and workers. Wheeler began
to step back from the day-to-
day,hiringAndrewPrestigia-
como, a St. John Fisher Col-
lege graduate from Greece,
to take over sales and mar-
ketingandmakingRochester
Institute of Technology grad-
uate David Hallbach the
firm’s quality manager, while
adding other workers. Nucci-
telli is the firm’s chief finan-
cial officer.
“I could see the writing on
the wall,” Wheeler said. “We
were missing deliveries. We
were missing due dates. It
was really starting to get
chaotic.”
Even as sales began to dip,
the company invested
$500,000 to renovate an
80,000-square-foot plant on
Millstead Way in Chili. It
moved into the former home
of Gillette Machine & Tool
Co. last year, where 22 em-
ployees and about 20 differ-
ent machines make parts
shipped throughout the coun-
try and Mexico for engines
made by Chrysler Group,
Ford Motor Co. and others.
“Everything in this build-
ing sums up what we want to
beinthefuture,”Prestigiaco-
mo said.
The drop in sales showed
the leadership that they
needed to be become less re-
liantontheautomotiveindus-
try, leading them to focus on
producingavarietyofengine
components for personal wa-
tercrafts, all-terrain vehi-
cles, tractors and locomotive
engines.
The company’s smallest
parts can be held by hand. Its
largest weigh more than 600
pounds. It can take a 30-
poundblockofaluminumand
turn it into a highly shined
manifold for a hydrogen ve-
hicle. Meanwhile, each part
goes through on-site quality
testing.
“It’s about the sheer num-
ber of customers you ser-
vice,” Wheeler said. “You
really need to be at 40 cus-
tomers in different markets
because there are no guaran-
tees. Some customers stand
up and others do not. So you
have to calculate the risk on
every project. You’ve got to
be very creative.”
The company is project-
ing revenues of about $5.3
million for this fiscal year,
hoping to add as many as 30
employees over the next five
years by tapping new mar-
kets and creating new oppor-
tunities when it completes
paperwork to be designated
as a veteran-owned business.
Wheeler spent six years with
the U.S. Army.
“I just want to see a com-
pany that employs100 people
day in and day out,” Wheeler
said.
TCLAUSEN@DemocratandChronicle.com
SHAWN DOWD/@SDOWDPHOTO/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Mark Wheeler, president, center, stands with his management team, Andrew Prestigiacomo, sales and marketing manager, left, and David
Hallbach, quality manager, on the newly renovated shop floor at Global Precision Industries in Chili.
Global Precision
has big plans in ChiliTODD CLAUSEN
@TODDJCLAUSEN
SHAWN DOWD/@SDOWDPHOTO/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Global Precision Industries is located at 955 Millstead Way in Chili.
At a glance
Company: Global Precision
Industries.
Founded: 2005.
Employees: 22.
Location: 955 Millstead Way,
Chili.
Website: global-precision.com.