Manufacturing and innovation are in Mark Holtschneider’s blood. Since 1969, his family has slowly built Quality Machining, Inc., from a one-person operation to a successful small business manufacturing machined products for a variety of industries from medical to aerospace and employing twenty skilled craftsmen in the process. Holtschneider has been a part of this family enterprise since he was young. “I was drilling holes with a drill press when I was ten years old,” he recalls.
It’s impossible to separate these personal roots from Quality Machining’s success, because the business continues to be, first and foremost, a family affair. Long before Holtschneider was learning the basics of building with his drill press, his father tired of city life in Virginia and moved back to Garrett County to set up a machine shop. This was a pattern that Holtschneider himself would repeat, gaining experience and technical know-how in the city before returning to Maryland to expand Quality Machining. One significant milestone was moving the company out of the basement of his childhood home and into their current home in the Central Garrett Industrial Park in 2006.
Expansion hasn’t dampened Quality Machining’s family focus. Holtschneider says that he strives to encourage a friendly environment in the workplace and that they “try to treat it more as a family atmosphere.” There’s a business-savvy reason 
behind these small town values, however. Holtschneider recognizes that creating an amicable company culture contributes to his employees overall quality-of-life, and that this focus, along with shorter commutes and the relaxed lifestyle Garrett County offers, will attract the dedicated and balanced employees the company seeks. Quality Machining’s “way to compete” with the Washington Metropolitan Area and surrounding markets “is to make them feel good about being here.”
And these employee-focused strategies work. Holtschneider and his team continue to find work at a steady pace, weathering prosperous and tough economic times. Holtschneider would love to see more manufacturing firms locate to the I-68 region, increasing opportunities for collaboration and development for both new businesses and those already located in the area. The region’s strategic location places within easy reach of major markets like Washington, D.C. and Baltimore without the associated costs and the “good-hearted and hardworking” workforce is a tremendous untapped resource.
Learn more about Quality Machining, Inc. on their website. Interested in learning more about the I-68 region and its strategic location and educated workforce? Visit the I-68 Regional Alliance website to get started.