Sometimes success in business is as simple as anticipating a need and finding a way to give customers what they want.

It’s a strategy that’s working well for Craig Ruch.

Ruch, a Memphis, Tenn., native, started Armor Anodizing three years ago near Columbia Falls because he saw manufacturer after manufacturer shipping parts out of state to be anodized.

“I thought, what an opportunity. I make these things; why not coat them?” said Ruch, who at the time of his business epiphany was operations manager for Compatible Manufacturing in Kalispell, a company that specializes in complex computer numerical-controlled milling and turning.

Today, Compatible Manufacturing and most other manufacturers in the Flathead Valley are Ruch’s customers.

Anodizing is an electrolytic passivation process used to increase the thickness of the natural oxide layer on the surface of metal parts. The process increases corrosion resistance and wear resistance.

Over the past three years, Ruch’s business has grown 80 percent annually. Two years into his business venture he snagged a sizable contract from Remington and was anodizing 15,000 gun barrels a month at one point, although that number has since backed off some.

He has boosted his work force from three to 12 employees in the last eight months and expects growth to continue.

“We hope to finish with a strong year,” he said.

Tapping into a service that local manufacturers need and want may have something to do with Ruch’s strong background in manufacturing. Generations of his family were in the metal stamping manufacturing business in Memphis for more than 100 years.

Ruch, 46, has spent the past 30 years in manufacturing, including a stint as a machinist with Smith & Nephew, making parts for hip and knee replacements.

Even as a boy, Ruch longed to live in the mountains, so he moved to the Flathead Valley 10 years ago after landing a job as a manufacturing and quality manager with Sonju Industrial in Kalispell. He later worked for Semitool for a time. Along the way got involved with the Montana Manufacturing Extension Center and became a third-party contractor for the center.

Ruch spent about a year researching the process of anodizing, and said there was some trial and error before he perfected the level of quality that keeps his customers coming back. Giving local manufacturers a quicker turnaround on their orders instead of having to ship parts out of state is a huge benefit, he said.

When Remington Arms Co. acquired Montana Rifleman, a local company that produced more than 312,000 rifle and pistol barrels in 2012, Remington asked Ruch if he could handle the manganese phosphate coatings for the barrels, so he added a second building to Armor Anodizing along U.S. 2 East.

“We’ve picked up several companies that use manganese phosphate, but [the second facility] is driven around Remington,” Ruch said.

He hopes to soon add another process using alkaline electroless nickel boron, a common coating used for parts in the semiconductor and firearms industries.

“I want to add processes as I see the need for them,” he said.

Armor Anodizing offers military-specification anodizing, a standard highly sought in manufacturing circles.

Ruch’s ability to find and fill niches in the manufacturing world reflects the old adage, “necessity is the mother of invention.” When the Montana Manufacturing Extension Center had a client that was getting its ultra-long drill bits from Germany and paying a premium price for them, Ruch was asked if he could make one.

“I made a few phone calls and when they told me I’d have to go overseas to have them made, I said, ‘Are you kidding me? This is freaking America,’” he said. Ruch figured out a way to make the drill bits and his price for the bits is 300 percent cheaper than the German-made bits.

While the manufacturing industry is where Ruch is creating his legacy, it wasn’t always his dream to make his living in manufacturing. About 27 years ago when he was a tool and die maker, he began selling off his tools because he intended to become a commercial pilot. He was a flight instructor in Mississippi, racking up flight hours but not making much money, and there was even less money coming in when the Gulf War broke out.

His wife was pregnant, so when he got offered a good-paying job with a medical manufacturer, Ruch couldn’t turn it down.

“I had an old toolmaker tell me once you never sell your tools. He was right,” he said.

Ruch is proud of his company’s closed-loop water purifying system that was custom-built to recycle all but about 50 of the 800 gallons of water used daily in the anodizing processes.

“We’re green,” he noted, adding that the system is environmentally friendly so no chemicals are released back into the environment. “Nothing goes into the ground.”

Ruch said he hopes to eventually consolidate both facilities under one roof, preferably along U.S. 2.

For more information about Armor Anodizing, go online to www.armoranodizing.com or call 892-2423.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.