KNIGHT INDUSTRIAL EQUIPMENT

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In the press

Industrial Engineering and Construction Company Set to Turn 20

The Murmansk project remains the biggest handled by Knight Industrial Equipment, which in June will mark its 20-year anniversary as an industrial engineering and construction company, serving clients through the Southeast and abroad.

What distinguishes Knight Industrial is that it is a turnkey operation, which means it will create a factory from scratch to finish, from designing it, buying its components, selecting equipment, installing everything and making it operational.

"Nowadays, you just don't sell the equipment," Knight said. "Phosphate companies look to small, little companies like this to work with their modernizations, expansions and new facilities."

Knight's company employs 10 full-time workers, including seven engineers. They're working at the moment on a dozen projects, which range in cost between $100,000 and $5 million. The company's annual revenues typically range between $12 million and $15 million.

Knight isn't your average Lakeland businessman, and his frequent flying excursions are reminiscent of Clark Kent. On any given day, the exceptionally modest and warm-natured Knight may fly to three major Southern cities.

He does it in his Beechcraft 836 Bonanza, which is kept in the hangar attached to his firm's cozy office building on West Airfield Drive.

One such day began in Lakeland at 7 a.m., and within an hour and a half he was in Charleston, S.C., checking on his cement clients and their mills. It took 45 minutes to fly in to Atlanta's Fulton County Airport, where he rented a car to check another job site.

Birmingham, Ala., was Knight's third stop, and by 7:30 p.m. he was back in Lakeland, ready to go home to his wife, Deedra. Given his workload and travels, Knight said he's never home before 7:30 p.m.

Knight earned his civilian pilot license when he was 23 years old in 1965, and has been flying in and out of Lakeland Linder Regional Airport ever since.

What started as a mere hobby became a boon to his business, especially when his out-of-state clients tell him that they appreciate knowing he could visit them within a couple of hours.

Knight is a native of Ocala, where he graduated from Central Florida Community College in 1963, earning an associate's degree in civil engineering.

He enlisted twice in the Navy, and witnessed firsthand the government's failed Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis.

After his discharge, he married his high school sweetheart and moved to Lakeland. He landed a job with Lakeland Engineering, now known as Chastain Skillman, where he handled land surveying.

After a year and a half there, he joined Linder Industrial Machinery, the company founded by Scott Linder, where he worked for 17 years. Linder was also a flying enthusiast, so he and Knight had a unique bond.

By 1984, he was senior vice president of engineering at a time when engineering was no longer a company priority.

"They had de-emphasized their engineering division, and that's where my expertise was," he said. "So I wanted to expand on that and go on my own."

He left a comfortable salary and job to launch Knight Industrial Equipment without borrowing any money.

It wasn't easy, Knight acknowledged. He was 42 years old, and was raising his 13-year-old son, Steve, without his wife, Cheryl, who died three years earlier. He barely turned a profit the first few years.

But Knight did have a handful of loyal clients that he secured while working for Linder. Two businessmen, Hank Krehling and Herb Odum, assured Knight that they would support him in any way they could.

"That was the key to my success," Knight said. "I had a lot of manufacturing contacts that wanted to see me make it."

To this day, Knight said, his company has not borrowed any money for its business, a particularly impressive feat for a business so heavily involved in construction.

Since forming Knight Industrial, he has steadily increased its employees, clients and projects. About a year after the company was formed, co-worker Ray Foucher joined the firm and has worked alongside Knight ever since.

Among the bigger projects was a $5 million fertilizer materials-handling plant that Knight Industrial designed and built for Cargill at the port of Tampa.

Cargill recommended Knight Industrial to a just-formed Russian fertilizer company, which sent associates to the United States. They approached him to build something similar in Murmansk. He was reluctant, to say the least.

"There I was a small-operation Florida boy who never played in the snow being invited to work on a project in the Arctic Circle," Knight said.

However, the Russians were persistent, constantly prodding him to draw up a scheme and proposal.

Knight dedicated four years working on the Murmansk plant, traveling to Russia once every month, for a week to 10 days at a time.

Knight's current clients include Minneapolis-based Cargill Corp., Greece-based Tarmac Group and Krehling Industries of Naples, for which Knight Industrial built about 20 plants.

Knight Industrial just finished building for Tarmac America Inc. a concrete block plant in Miami, which is the largest in the Southeast and among the largest in the nation.

Though last year was weak, this year's business climate is robust for Knight Industrial and its related industries, such as concrete and asphalt manufacturing. Phosphate businesses are rebounding, and Knight has hired two professional engineers within the past year and a half in anticipation of more projects.

They were also brought in to help run the company some day, though Knight said he doesn't plan to retire for another five or six years.

Knight plans to add another aircraft to his hangar. He has a Safire jet on order, which he expects will give him at least twice the speed of his current propeller plane with the same efficiency.

However, Knight's enthusiasm for leisure flying is rather limited because he does so much of it for business.

"I'd rather ride my Harley," he said.

Article courtesy of the Lakeland Ledger: The Ledger

Contact Information

Telephone

863.646.2997

FAX

863.647.2745

Postal address

3701 Airfield Drive West, Lakeland FL 33811

Electronic mail

General Information: info@knightindustrial.net
Sales: rfoucher@knightindustrial.net
Customer Support: rfoucher@knightindustrial.net
Webmaster: info@knightindustrial.net

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Last modified: 03/19/08