WOMEN IN MANUFACTURING: Tracy Foltz

President, Falk Precision Inc.

Company doubles its sales from $4 million to $8 million in 2024

by Mary Beth Roach

Since Tracy Foltz became president of Falk Precision Inc. in East Syracuse in 2016, the company has increased its number of employees from about 25 to 38, has expanded the services it offers and has doubled its sales figures from $4 million to $8 million in 2024.

That success is even more notable, considering that part of that growth came during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’ve just tried to expand the company into different avenues to bring in more revenue,” Foltz said.

Falk Precision is an employee-owned CNC precision machining shop, working with clients to develop tools and equipment to meet their specific requirements and blueprints.

As a means to diversify its services and build revenue, the company added a finish line in 2018, enabling it to paint and powder coat its own parts, rather than outsourcing the processes; electrical discharge machining (or EDM) about five years ago; and more recently, a water jet.

As president, Foltz said she oversees the day-to-day operations and finances and she works with the vice president of operations, director of business development and director of quality to “set the company in the direction we want it to go in.” As an employee-owned company, Foltz also is responsible for reporting to a board of directors.

Keeping the company moving in a forward direction is challenging due to the rapidly changing advancements made in the machining industry. Foltz said that the company is able to keep pace because she and her team attend tool and trade shows and they have built a good rapport with tool and equipment sales reps.

In preparing for the future, Foltz said Falk is considering further expansion of the finish line to offer more services, like passivation, which makes metals more resistant to corrosion. They are also considering adding an anodizing process to the finish line that could be at least five years away, Foltz said. And they are exploring robotics, but she added that because Falk does smaller quantities of products, it might not be as feasible for them.

Foltz’s leadership style has been impacted, to an extent, by the fact that Falk is employee-owned. For example, she said that they do a lot of team decision-making.

“I generally don’t just make a decision without talking with somebody that it is going to affect first,” she explained.

And she attributes part of her success to her listening skills.

“I like to sit back and observe everyone and see how everybody reacts,” she said.

She also lets her team experiment, realizing that failure can be its own lesson.

“I’ve come to learn that sometimes people need to fail a little bit, to see how they can succeed in another way,” she said. But she will step in if that failure could be detrimental to the company.

Foltz’s route to Falk was a bit circuitous.

She holds an associate degree in substance abuse counseling, a bachelor’s in elementary education and a master’s in curriculum and development. She was in education for a while, but decided it wasn’t a good fit for her, so she went into her family’s trucking business and became its human resources safety manager. The company dissolved in 2008.

She started at Falk Precision in 2010 as its HR manager, was promoted to chief administrative officer in 2015 and in the fall of 2016, became president of the company.

Although her career path was not a direct line, she plans to continue Falk moving in a direct line — upward.