EDITOR’S NOTE — This story has been corrected to say that Shimtech Industries Ltd. bought a majority interest in Angeles Composite Technologies Inc., and that founder Michael D. Rauch and his wife, Theresa, remain minority co-owners, that the present board has four members, and that ACTI won defense contracts through a competitive bid process and did not receive federal tax incentives.
PORT ANGELES — Shimtech Industries Ltd., a British aerospace manufacturing company, has purchased a majority interest in Port Angeles-based Angeles Composite Technologies Inc. from Native American-owned Koniag Inc. of Kodiak, Alaska.
ACTI founder Michael D. Rauch of Port Angeles remains co-owner and serves as president and CEO. He is a member of a four-person board that has three directors from Middlesex, U.K.-based Shimtech.
The change will prove “absolutely invisible” to the general public, Rauch said Friday.
“The employees are unchanged.
“I’m still running the show.
“The only difference is that Shimtech helps position us for future growth better than we were positioned before.”
The sale was consummated in early February, Chris Morgan, Koniag Inc.’s chief financial officer and a former ACTI board member, said Friday.
Shimtech, an aerospace company that bills itself as a supplier of high-performance composite structures, is the world’s largest specialty manufacturer of aerospace shims and laminated shim material, according to its website.
Rauch said Friday that ACTI, which has 112 employees and is looking for 10 more, will remain in Port Angeles at the Port of Port Angeles’ composites campus next to William R. Fairchild International Airport.
He said the company plans to grow — not move.
“My family and I started the company in Port Angeles, and I expect to finish my career in Port Angeles,” he said.
Rauch founded the company in 1996. Port Angeles contractor Rick Anderson became an investor in 1999.
Koniag Inc., with offices in Kodiak and Anchorage, purchased a majority interest in ACTI in 2003, with Rauch and his wife, Theresa, as minority owners. Shimtech bought Koniag’s shares.
The sale to Shimtech, described by Rauch as “very amicable,” was prompted by Koniag and ACTI going their own ways.
“Generally speaking, they are focusing on service industries and natural resources and not manufacturing,” Rauch said.
“We were one of their only manufacturing subsidiaries.”
Morgan said Koniag sold its interest in ACTI to Shimtech in consultation with Rauch.
“It was sort of a strategic decision,” Morgan said.
“We are just not in the aerospace industry at this time.”
Rauch said that under Koniag’s ownership, ACTI won defense contracts through a competitive bid process and said that “the defense aerospace sector continues to offer opportunities” for the firm.
In 2009, ACTI and Lockheed Martin received the Nunn-Perry Award from the federal Department of Defense.
The companies’ mentoring-protege partnership was an example of “a mutually beneficial relationship,” then-6th Congressional District U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks said at the awards ceremony in Washington, D.C.
Dicks, a longtime Democrat whose district included Clallam and Jefferson counties, was succeeded in 2012 by Gig Harbor Democrat Derek Kilmer, a Port Angeles native.
In 2011, ACTI received recognition from the Small Business Administration as a top-10 subcontractor in the United States.
The company, nominated for the award by Lockeed Martin, had become certified as a qualified supplier of composite structures for Lockheed’s F-22 and F-35 fighter aircraft.
Rauch said Lockheed Martin remains an ACTI customer, although Boeing Co. and Bombardier are ACTI’s largest customers.
The defense industry is not a mainstay customer for ACTI products, Rauch said.
“We never really hit it big with the defense side,” he said.
“The government doesn’t have any money, and they are not spending a lot.”
Koniag Inc. is one of 13 regional Native American corporations established by Congress in 1971 under the terms of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, according to Koniag’s website.
The legislation settled aboriginal land claims by conveying land and start-up funds to Native American for-profit corporations in Alaska.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
