Tri-Tec’s Mike Leopard Becomes Compass Precision Employee of the Month
When manual machinist Mike Leopard started working at Tri-Tec Industries, LLC, Michael Jordan was not the majority owner of the Charlotte Hornets but rather still a superstar for the Chicago Bulls fresh off his sixth NBA Finals MVP. In the same year, gasoline in the United States, on average, cost $1.06. During the month which Mike started at Tri-Tec, the top grossing film at the domestic box office was Armageddon.
To celebrate his accomplishments and 23 years at Tri-Tec — his work anniversary is July 22 — Compass Precision has named Mike its Employee of the Month for July.
Mike worked with the three Tri-Tec founders — Rick Loyd, Ray Motley and Mike Davison — at Precision Dynamics. In 1997, the three men opened their own business, and Rick asked Mike to come work for the new company. At the time, Mike told Rick he wanted to wait a year to see how the company would go. Sure enough, a year after Tri-Tec opened, Mike joined the team.
Tri-Tec hired a few employees during its first year in business, but none of them are still with the Compass Precision operating company. Mike also outlasted two of the original company founders. Not counting Rick, Mike is the longest-tenured employee at Tri-Tec.
For his entire tenure, Mike has served as a manual machinist. He works mostly with lathes but also helps on milling machines. On occasion, Mike will run a CNC machine, but he would much prefer to stick with his “old-fashion” machining technique and describes his position as a hands on craft rather than as an archaic style.
“We’ve got quite a few guys running [CNC machines] out there, but there’s only a couple of us dinosaur manual machinists,” said Mike. “Rick and [the former co-owners] asked me years ago if I wanted to get into the CNC stuff and start learning programming and all that kind of stuff, but I just have never been a big computer person, and I don’t like doing hundreds of parts at a time.
“I’ve always liked using my hands.”
To begin his career, Mike worked as a manual machinist for his uncle for five years out of high school. He graduated from North Mecklenburg high school in 1987 and took some manual machining courses at Central Piedmont Community College.
Tri-Tec has allowed Mike to continue doing what he loves most, but he has also stayed at the company because of its strong work culture. As many Tri-Tec employees have, Mike described the relationship between himself and his coworkers as “almost a family-type atmosphere.”
“I’ve always said that Ray, Mike and Rick were more like brothers to me than they were owners.
“The guys that have worked here have all basically gotten along,” said Mike. “Along the road you have a few guys here and there that didn’t fit in for whatever reason. (But) we have several guys that have been here awhile.
Still, none of them have been at Tri-Tec as long as Mike. He and Rick are the only two employees that can say they’ve been with the company longer than 15 years
Mike has been married to his wife, Jennifer, since 1998. The couple have two grown children, Ryan (27) and Micaela (21).
For fun, Mike likes to run and mountain bike. He sometimes spends time with his coworkers riding on bike trails during the weekends. Mike runs intermediate distances on trails close to his home in Concord.