Issue link: https://nebusinessmedia.uberflip.com/i/812736
182 NE W HAMPSHIRE: First in the Nation • Profiles in Excellence L eading designers and manufacturers of high performance turbomachinery around the world rely on TURBOCAM to take their ideas and products to market. Privately owned and headquartered in Barrington, NH, with 700 employees in nine countries, TURBOCAM produces bladed components for rocket, aircra, and truck engines, using more than 100 five-axis milling machines, electrochemical machining, and other complex manufacturing processes. Turbomachinery is typically high-speed rotating equipment, compressing or expanding fluids. For example, a gas turbine compresses air, injects and combusts fuel, and produces power as the hot gases drive a turbine. e power may be used to propel an aircra or a ship, or produce electricity. At the lower end, turbo blowers provide the oxygen to feed bugs cleaning up sewage. Compressors and turbines have rotating and stationary airfoil blades that must be made accurately out of carefully selected and tested metals. TURBOCAM has mastered the manufacture of these critical components. TURBOCAM was founded by Marian Noronha in 1985 in a Madbury basement as a manufacturing soware company. Aer finding that most manufacturing companies could not even handle the digital data for machining, Noronha bought a five-axis machine to actually produce the components, not just the soware to drive such machines. His first machine cost three times the value of his house, so it took the savings of a few friends, credit cards, and investments from two customers for the incorporation in 1987. Still, banks were reluctant to provide any loans until a former employer provided a creative guaranty and mentor. Growth accelerated aer TURBOCAM rented space in Dover in 1988. Some of the employees who joined the startup and helped launch the company are still at it, guiding new staff and telling the "why" stories behind the technologies; like the time we prototyped impellers for the industry's smallest air turbocompressor, a 125 HP machine, and helped to produce a highly efficient machine. Soon these game-changing impellers found their way into larger air compressors for several international manufacturers. With better aerodynamic designs and improved dynamic balance, they set a new standard in the industry, as they were built on the metal properties of forged bar or billet instead of cast metal. TURBOCAM India was launched in 1989 in Goa to meet demands for turbomachinery products in India and to build a base for job and wealth creation. TURBOCAM Europe was introduced the next year in Fareham, England. Both companies received challenging assignments, developed advanced skills, and attracted loyal customers in their respective countries and regions. In the midst of these launches, TURBOCAM brashly contracted to make four stages of shrouded rotors for development of the Boeing 777 engines. e manufacture of these incredibly difficult parts taxed every resource of the Company in soware, machining skills, and in machine design and maintenance. When the engines tested on schedule in a NASA wind tunnel, it was evident that the capabilities of the company had advanced greatly, preparing it for bigger challenges. e company also made two rotors and two stators for an experimental aero engine for another aerospace major. e customer claimed that the blades were perfect, with zero deviation TURBOCAM "Leading designers and manufacturers of high performance turbo- machinery around the world rely on TURBOCAM to take their ideas and products to market." TURBOCAM employees assembled inside the new plant off Route 9 in Barrington, NH.