Family-Owned JAGCO Prides Itself On Quality, Service

In a time where a lot of parts for U.S. products are made in China, Hong Kong or Taiwan, a five-person western Kentucky business is making marine, industrial and automotive parts that are less expensive, and delivering them faster.

Joe and Anne Gill founded JAGCO Industries just outside Paducah, Ky., in 1993. Although they are still involved in the business, their daughter, Terris Ladd, is the administrator, and her husband, Jesse, is in charge of shop operations. Ladd said she has seen the business go through a lot of changes.

The Gills owned Quality Radiator & Muffler in Paducah at the time they founded JAGCO to make flexible exhaust couplers for cars and trucks. The business moved to its present location, on Old U.S. 45 just south of Paducah, in 1995.

Over the years, Joe Gill’s high school friendships with those working in inland marine industries led him to expand his product offerings for marine and industrial uses. Now the company offers expansion joints, pump connectors, flanges, braided air compressor lines and more, along with the popular JAGCO Uni-Flex stainless steel exhaust couplers.

The company has maintained a staff of five to six employees over the past few years while priding itself on unparalleled customer service, speedy deliveries and always offering a quality product, using only Pennsylvania steel for its fabrications, Ladd said.

She calls the pieces rugged and hard-working, and jokes they are just like JAGCO’s employees. She tells a story of recently having looked up the number of an expansion joint on a vessel to find it finally needed replacing after 10 years of wear, even though it is common to replace them every two to three years because of the torque and vibration they withstand while in use. The products are built to last, she said, noting that JAGCO offers a one-year warranty on products as long as they are installed according to specifications.

JAGCO has designed its parts to make them as easy as possible to replace, Ladd said. A four-digit number stamped on the side of each part means a port engineer can quickly call JAGCO with the name of the motor vessel and the part number. JAGCO can quickly manufacture replacement parts using the specifications in its database for the last time that part was made or, very easily, make small modifications that might be necessary as part of a rebuild. Even if a boat has been sold and renamed, the company can find it as long as the name of the previous owner is provided.

“I can still come back and look at what we built for that boat, and I’ve done it time and time again,” Ladd said.

That history and the ability to maintain the record of a part’s history and what parts have been replaced on a specific vessel appeals to towboat owners, Ladd said.

Much of the company’s marine business is in manufacturing expansion joints. Because it manufactures its own bellows, plasma-cut flanges and liners in house, unlike other companies that require six to eight weeks to manufacture just the raw bellows, JAGCO has a five- to seven-day turnaround time on most of completed units, Ladd said. She adds that in part because of the company’s low overhead, those parts are less expensive to the customer as well.

JAGCO also offers local deliveries for free within a 50-mile radius and doesn’t charge the customer more to expedite an order.

“We can run to Kentucky Dam and meet a boat,” Ladd said. “We can go to the Port of Paducah.”

Sometimes, she said, they run to meet a company shuttle in Paducah with a part so it can get to Wickliffe, Ky., or Cairo, Ill., to catch a boat that may be scheduled for a stop. The part can then travel north or south on the Mississippi as necessary. JAGCO also has the ability to ship directly across the country, having a part at the yard or port by the time a vessel arrives.

Also setting JAGCO apart, Ladd said, is the fact that “we can fabricate specifically to industry needs.”

Ladd said she can’t count the number of times she has come into the office in the morning to find a part on her desk or a picture on a cell phone with a message from a company: “We need one exactly like this.”

With more than 160 regular customers, Ladd said the future looks bright for JAGCO. It continues to develop to meet the changing needs in the constantly growing inland marine and industrial sectors as well as having three national automotive distributors across the country, she said.

Additionally, she said, the company will soon launch its new website at jagco.net that will allow customers to print off a specifications diagram to enable port engineers and chiefs to properly measure for pump connectors, expansion joints and other parts and submit that information to JAGCO via email or fax.

Caption for top photo: Jesse Ladd works on building an expansion joint inside JAGCO Industries on Old U.S. 45, south of Paducah. The small, family-owned company builds several products for the inland marine and other industries. (Photo by Shelley Byrne)