by Joe Romanowski
Chairman & CEO
Machinery Systems, Inc.

If you’re a regular reader of our customer stories, you have probably discerned that I’m very enthusiastic about the entrepreneurial spirit that resides in our American culture.  Few things invigorate me more than rubbing elbows with the American entrepreneur.  Even more exciting and deserving the highest esteem is the American immigrant entrepreneur.  There is no question this is the most difficult path to owning and operating your own business.  John Kulczuga started Ultimate Machining & Engineering, Inc. www.ultimateme.net in 1994.  John’s story is one of struggle and perseverance.  Born, raised and educated under the heavy hand of the Polish communists, he and his wife each received permission (which turned out to be a bureaucratic error) to visit Austria at the same time in the early 1980s.  It was almost impossible for an entire family to leave Poland together.  As soon as they got to Austria, they and their two year old daughter were declared political refugees.  After living in an Austrian refugee camp for one year, a charitable organization loaned them the money to purchase airfare to the United States.

While this might seem a victorious end to a difficult struggle, it was only the beginning for John and his family.  Although John had earned a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Warsaw Polytechnic University, he couldn’t speak English.  He and his wife immediately took night shift factory jobs in the Chicago area and went to school during the day to learn English.  After almost three years he was able to land a job with an aerospace company that wanted to utilize his technical background as an engineer and programmer .  This was not enough for John.  His vision to own his own business continued to burn in his heart.

As John began to establish his new company he made sales calls in spite of his limited command of English.  There were other barriers — securing financing for equipment, managing cash flow, hiring people to work in a start-up company, etc.  John always found a way over, under or through each roadblock.

What makes Ultimate special?  Lynn Minarich, Ultimate’s Vice President of Quality Management Systems (video link), explained, “We deliver high quality, low volume precision parts — and, we dislike communicating with our customers via voicemail.  We want our customers to talk to a person whenever they have a need.  And, most importantly, we love when our customers bring us their toughest problems.  We ask for the work that no one else will do.”

I asked about China.  Aleksandra Kulczuga, Director of Business Development and John’s daughter, said, “We saw a major exit to China in the early 2000s, but that exit has stabilized significantly.  We now believe customers are coming back to us as a backup to their Chinese sources and to rescue them from problems created in China.” 

Ultimate is ISO certified and with that I sensed an atmosphere of aggressive continuous improvement.  In their search to increase plant throughput, they are constantly updating their processes to reduce set-up and track parts flow and plant errors.  They recently installed a Mazak 5-axis Variaxis machining center that allows them to machine parts in one set-up that previously took three or four set-ups. 

Ultimate is in the process of installing a Machinery Tooling & Supply (MT&S) vending machine so they can track tooling costs by job and part.  Since they currently have a competitor’s vending machine, I asked why they were changing to ours.  Chris Borla, Production Manager, said, “Two reasons; the other company was increasing prices without telling us and their service wasn’t very good.”  I then asked, “What makes you think we will be any better?”  Chris replied, “We have been watching you (Ultimate is a MT&S tooling customer) and you haven’t been playing games with your prices.  Your salesman, Ed Chlebek, does a great job for us.”

How could I not be impressed with John Kulczuga and Ultimate.   Yes, John is one in a million.  Once John knew what he wanted and was willing to put up with the roadblocks to get it, he was almost guaranteed success.  Congratulations, John, I’m proud to know you.

Aleksandra Kulczuga next to their cutting tool vending machine from our subsidiary company, Machinery Tooling & Supply (MT&S).

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