FACTORY MAN: Jerry Pedley and his shop of tinkerers create robotic machinery in an unlikely setting.

• Author: Williams, Allison
• Position: Cover story

Not even a fall from the eaves of his Sanford warehouse that left him in a coma for 18 hours in the summer of 2010 could dissuade Jerry Pedley from rebuilding.

It had already been a lousy spring: The Canada-based company that bought his Electro-Mechanical Specialties eight years earlier abruptly shut down U.S. operations, leaving Pedley without a paycheck and holding the lease on the 25,000-square-foot property. The shares he received in the sale were suddenly worthless.

The heartiest of souls might have cut his losses. Instead, Pedley was more determined after his accident, growing Mertek Solutions Inc. in the same place he started in 1990. Seven years after his accident, the judges of Business North Carolina's annual competition are recognizing Mertek as the 2017 Small Business of the Year.

Meikle Automation acquired Pedley's robotic-manufacturing company in 2002. "When Meikle decided to close its Sanford shop and lay off its entire workforce, Jerry decided to start a new company to help [keep] workers and the town of Sanford from economic collapse," wrote John Hardin, director of the N.C. Department of Commerce's office of science, technology and innovation. He was one of the contest's judges.

"In a town of 30,000, you don't have lots of Jerry Pedleys, and you can't afford to lose one," says Chet Mann, Sanford's mayor. "You can reinvent yourself, you can start over and go back to the fundamentals that got you there in the first place and build an even better company."

For seven years running, Mertek has notched greater profits than its predecessor. When Meikle closed, about 20 employees remained. Today, Mertek has 46 workers who are all privy to information about the company's finances, which Pedley shares at weekly staff meetings. Workers share in the good times. Last year, each employee received 10% of his or her gross salary in annual profit sharing. Pedley expects to share the same or greater this year, perhaps as much as 15%.

The work is the same--in a nutshell, making machines that put stuff together faster: Inhalers used to treat asthma. A cutter in a desktop electric pencil sharpener. A car's intake manifold, the tubes that distribute air coming into the engine. Pedley picks up a woman's cosmetics case from a shelf in his office and pops open the plastic lid. The case in his palm once took seven people to assemble. Now, it takes one, thanks to a machine made in Pedley's plant.

To be clear, Mertek isn't cranking out cosmetics...