Harmon Branch Purchase Spawns New Company in South Bend

South Bend, Ind., is now home to a new glass business, though most all of the employees have worked there for many years. How is this possible? This past April employees Jim Mroz, Jason Christy and Larry Schulz purchased what was then a Harmon Inc. operation and re-named the business Precision Wall Systems (PWS).

According to Mroz, who served as PWS president and majority owner, Harmon wanted to close the operations in South Bend, which serve the commercial architectural needs of Indiana and Western Michigan primarily. "We [Mroz, Christy and Schulz] were able to purchase the operations."

That purchase saved about 60 jobs.

"We were able to retain ten office employees and approximately 50 shop and field employees," says Mroz. "Harmon is a great company. The challenge was that all of us in this location wanted to stay in South Bend. Harmon provided us with a great foundation of business skills that we're now able to use on our own."

Going forward, Mroz says he is looking forward to the challenges of being a business owner.
"Our goal is to continue providing the same level of service and competiveness as we did before, but now without the financial support that we had through Harmon," says Mroz. "We have a great group of people here who are fine craftsmen who all enjoy working together."

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