The fix is in: TigerTek earns its stripes as our Small Business of the Year by pouncing on problems crippling industrial equipment.

• Author: Murray, Arthur O.
• Position: FEATURE - Company overview

Eight o'clock Friday night, a good time to crack open a cold one and kick back--Miller time, ads would have you believe. But when you're making beer 24/7, it's no time to relax. Particularly on the night in 2003 when a pneumatic supply line ruptured at the Miller brewery in Eden and started spewing amber waves of grain. "We couldn't get the grain into the brew house," says Jim Coyle, the plant's purchasing manager, "so we couldn't brew beer."

As minutes ticked by and about 50 workers took an unscheduled break, frustrated managers pondered having to cancel several shifts at the 700-employee brewery. Hoping to avoid that, one called TigerTek Inc., about four miles across town. Soon after arriving, technicians measured the pipe, figured out how to fix it, repaired it and got production going again in just two hours. "They got us out of a tight spot," Coyle says. "They've done that plenty of times before and since then."

And not just for breweries. Think of TigerTek as an emergency responder and hospital for all kinds of industrial equipment. Its predecessor started out fixing broken motors, gearboxes and pumps for businesses in Rockingham County, but in the 10 years Peter Mitchell has owned the company, he has given it international reach. Its capabilities now include repairs of advanced electronic and computer-driven equipment. Head count has swollen from eight to 44, and customers include the likes of Procter & Gamble and Goodyear Tire & Rubber. Local plants still count on TigerTek to keep their machines running. "We outsource a lot of repairs we used to do in house," says Ron Kearns, purchasing manager of Reidsville cigarette maker Commonwealth Brands. "TigerTek has become an extension of my department. There's not been anything we've sent to them that they couldn't handle. They work late at night and through the night. They understand that every minute counts."

Its ability to pounce on customer problems and prey on shifts in technology and markets makes TigerTek BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA'S Small Business of the Year. Judging this year's competition, again sponsored by BB&T Corp., were Scott Daugherty, executive director of the N.C. Small Business and Technology Development Center in Raleigh; Missy Vatinet, whose Cary-based La Farm Bakery won last year; and Ben Kinney, BNC's publisher. "Small businesses, by their nature, have to be able to adapt to changing market conditions," Kinney says. "TigerTek anticipated the shift toward advanced manufacturing, with its reliance on complex machinery, and made itself indispensable."

Calling TigerTek is easy; finding it isn't. Since February, it has occupied a one-story vinyl and brick building a few miles west of Eden, down N.C. 135 after it forks from N.C. 770, past the soybean fields, mobile homes and satellite dishes near Stoneville, population 971. Mitchell's journey here covered many more miles. At 54, he speaks confidently but softly, his voice still carrying the British-tinged accent he acquired growing up in South Africa. Back then, his dad worried about keeping machinery running as general manager of a Carborundum Co. plant in Port Elizabeth that made grinding wheels and sandpaper for the automotive industry. Ford, General Motors and Goodyear have plants there, about 500 miles east of Cape Town. "It's like a little Detroit," he says.

But Mitchell thought he wanted something different. When he entered University of Cape Town, he planned to be a lawyer. "About halfway through, I made up my mind that I enjoyed the academics, but it was probably not something I wanted to do as a career choice." He completed a bachelor's of law degree in 1976 but never practiced. He took a job as marketing manager with an industrial-repair company in Johannesburg, but the political situation in South Africa made him uneasy. "It was at pretty much the height of the apartheid era. Nelson Mandela and others were still imprisoned. I guess I wanted to seek my fame and fortune somewhere else."

He worked three years in marketing for Carborundum in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Then he decided he needed an MBA. He picked UNC Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School for its strong sales-and-marketing program. There he found his African roots weren't the only things that distinguished him. "Most of my colleagues in business school were looking to go to work on Wall Street or with a big multinational company. I wanted to find a small company. That's what turned me on--smaller companies. You can have an immediate impact. Your decisions can get implemented without having to go through committees."

He received his degree in 1984. "I found a little company in Greensboro that was doing industrial electronic repairs. I joined them when they were a pretty small company, and we grew it to being a really large company." Working mostly in sales and marketing, he rose to executive vice president, and by the time he left 14 years later, Electrical South Inc. was the nation's largest repair center for industrial electronics such as temperature controllers. Wanting his own company, he found what he was looking for in Eden--Oakley Motor Repair, started in 1983...