Feb. 27—Inside welding and fabrication shops across the Johnstown region, flurries of sparks accompany purposeful zaps of torch flames on metal. The occasional clang of a random hammer indicates a worker is improvising.

Meanwhile, a computer-controlled plasma cutting table neatly slices a steel plate, and the shop radio is cranked up high enough that the music can compete with all the work noise.

Such is the scene at CSC Welding and Fabrication, located at 1075 River Ave. in a former general store section of what were once Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s mills in Johnstown.

However, outside those walls, the business is quiet; it doesn't have a marketing strategy, and co-owner Chad McGowan never expected the company to grow as fast and become as profitable as it has in the past 10 years.

CSC generates more than $1 million in annual revenue and is on pace to exceed that significantly, thanks to its role as a supplier for JWF Industries, which has risen in the ranks of the national defense industry over the past 35 years.

JWF has its own story of growth: John Polacek Sr. worked at Bethlehem Steel in the 1960s and simultaneously opened Johnny's Welding in a two-car garage. He employed his son, Bill Polacek, who led the business after his father's death and the closure of Bethlehem Steel in Johnstown.

Polacek expanded his father's business into former Bethlehem Steel properties, including a 10-acre tract on Iron Street, and renamed the business Johns-town Welding and Fabrication, then shortened it to JWF Industries when the work diversified.

'Trickle-down effect'

JWF boasts annual operating sales over $100 million, encompasses more than 1.3 million square feet of manufacturing space, and employs more than 400 people in the Johnstown area while also supporting jobs of its subcontractors — many of whom are benefiting from JWF's contract to manufacture the Flyer 72 family of ground military vehicles.

"We never intended to get this big," McGowan said. "Without JWF, we wouldn't be at this point."

Last year JWF took on a multi-year contract with Flyer Defense LLC to manufacture Flyer 72s. As a result, JWF outsourced a lot of its usual work to subcontractors and has also involved numerous companies as subcontractors for the Flyer program.

"We were able to increase our capabilities at CSC," McGowan said. "We bought another building, 525 Chestnut St., and started processing parts because there is also a need at JWF for just cutting parts, plasma cutting, laser cutting, bending."

Polacek, JWF president and CEO, said his company is constantly subcontracting work to companies in Cambria, Somerset and Blair counties for various programs, including the Flyer and other products for the construction industry, oil and gas, and defense industries.

"It's a nice ecosystem we created ... how we all work together on contracts," Polacek said. "When someone announces a contract, there's a trickle-down effect."

'Have the confidence'

JWF has involved seven local suppliers in its Flyer contract, helping the company toward its goal of producing 25 vehicles a month, or more, to be shipped to NATO countries.

For about 17 years, Johnstown business owner Mike Daniels' trucking company has hauled freight for JWF and other companies. In providing trucking service for manufacturers, he learned of fabrication services they needed, so three years ago he and a partner with manufacturing experience added those services to MJ Daniels LLC.

"We had the trucking to support the manufacturing, and my partner had all the manufacturing knowledge," Daniels said, "and that business has grown a lot more than we had projected in only three years."

Daniels' company employs 35 people.

"If it wasn't for Johnstown Welding and Fabrication, I'd be half of the size I am," he said. "A lot of what we are doing for them is making parts from sheet metal. ... Bill wants his space to be welding and manufacturing, not spec'ing the parts. So they want parts to be ready so they can grab them out of a bin, put them up and weld them together to make the bigger part."

Daniels is making a million-dollar-plus investment in a new metal laser cutter as JWF continues to share work with subcontractors as it grows.

Daniels said JWF made him an offer that if he'd buy that piece of equipment, JWF would turn to MJ Daniels for more work.

"Being somebody this small to buy something brand-new is a lot — it was about $1.4 million," he said, "but we are going to spend that, and we have the confidence that we will have work for the next five years."

JWF's Flyer vehicles are also equipped with remote weapon stations — Commonly Remote Operated Weapon Stations (CROWS), manufactured by Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace Inc., 210 Industrial Park Road, Johnstown.

Kongsberg's Johnstown facility has produced nearly 20,000 CROWS systems over the last 15 years.

The $1.5 billion contract that the company won in November to continue production, maintenance and upgrades to its CROWS weapon system for the U.S. military is the largest government contract to ever land in Johnstown, said Linda Thomson, president of Johnstown Area Regional Industries, a nonprofit economic development agency for the region.

The contract entails various technology upgrades and deliveries of the latest variants of a weapons system that the company has been providing since 2007 — stabilized mounted guns that allow soldiers to execute on-the-move target acquisition and fire-burst attacks while remaining protected inside armored vehicles.

Kongsberg will exceed 200 employees this year as it increases its workforce by a couple dozen employees to execute that contract and a couple others for the U.S. Marine Corps, said David Zucco, Director for Kongsberg Protech Systems USA.

Following a competitive process, the Marine Corps awarded Kongsberg a production contract in September 2021 for the MADIS RWS — a 30mm chain gun of the same type found on an Apache helicopter, but mounted on a remote weapons station for ground vehicles used in short-range air defense, as well as for ground-based threats.

That contract award has a ceiling of $94 million.

The second contract award from the Marines involves integrating the Kongsberg's remotely operated 30mm turret with the Marines' amphibious combat vehicles.

Kongsberg's MCT-30 turret system provides highly accurate cannon firepower for wheeled or tracked combat vehicles and is the first remotely operated 30mm turret to be qualified and fielded in the United States.