LaVezzi goes from the movies to medicine

One-hundred years ago, Edward LaVezzi walked door to door with a cigar box filled with parts he invented to fix movie projectors.

An engineer, LaVezzi sold the carbon steel parts to MGM, Paramount and Fox when they were located in Chicago.

These days the family business, LaVezzi Precision, is still going strong, creating and selling parts to the motion picture industry.

With the late founder's hard work ethic, third generation owners, cousins Al LaVezzi and Douglas Kremer, have expanded the company, which now focuses on the medical field.

LaVezzi designs and creates bone screws, dental implants, pieces for heart pumps and other parts. About 75 percent of the family business is focused on that area.

The move into the medical field has its roots in the late '70s; even before Blockbuster stores started popping up everywhere, the company realized it needed a new area for growth, even though about 85 percent of the world's theater equipment manufacturer's relied on LaVezzi for critical parts.

"People don't go to the show as much," Kremer said at the time. "We won't be making as many replacement parts."

They shifted the focus to the medical field. The current owners, who took over the company in 1983, manufacture critical titanium components for heart pumps, known as LVADs. The pumps, used for people awaiting a heart transplant, are implanted under or on the heart to maintain blood flow through the body.

The company started in Chicago then moved to Elmhurst. In 1992, LaVezzi doubled its space when it moved to its current location at 999 Regency Drive in Glendale Heights.

In growing the business, Kremer stresses that a focus has been to invest in new equipment. During the last two years, 16 percent of the company's gross revenue has been spent on new equipment, Kremer said. The machines to create the intricate parts cost about $600,000 each.

"You must have the right equipment. You don't go to a drag race in a beat up Volkswagen and expect to win," he said.

The Glendale Heights company has loyal customers, among them Australia-based Heartware Inc., which makes artificial heart pumps.

"LaVezzi is a great company. They make very hard-to-make parts for us," said Gus Vega, supply chain manager for Heartware. "LaVezzi is the supplier that makes the most critical parts for our heart pump. Percentage wise, they make more parts for the pump than any other company."

Kremer, who grew up in Elmwood Park, said they are having a tough time keeping up with orders and have added a second shift bringing the number of employees to 75.

"In the last five years, we've doubled our sales," said Kremer, 57.

He added that his cousin, a mechanical engineer, is "brilliant." LaVezzi, 66, grew up in Itasca and graduated from Marquette University.

Kremer and LaVezzi, both raising families in Oak Brook, say they are more like business partners than cousins.

Their fathers and uncles have run the business in the past. Through the years, they say they've developed a strong reputation based on their core value to create quality parts. "We've never deviated from the core competency," Kremer said.

Tips from LaVezzi Precision

We asked Douglas Kremer, co-owner of 100-year-old LaVezzi Precision, for tips on making it through tough economic times.

• Stay focused. Take a look at what you do and stick to it.

• Do not cut back on sales and marketing.

• Put money back into the business. "We're (owners) not spoiled. It would be nice to have boats and multiple houses. We don't."

• Have a niche and do it well.

• Give 110 percent effort.