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What this preliminary
critique tells us is that, in order to successfully
restart Knight Foundry and to ensure its long-term
preservation:
* New customers
must be brought in, qualified sales and marketing
expertise must
be recruited, marketing must be adequately funded.
(With
successful operation established, acquisition by an appropriate
entity will be
facilitated.)
* A detailed
business and marketing plan must be developed, followed
and updated on
a regular basis as experience is acquired, opportunities
appear and
conditions change.
* Adequate
start-up funding and sufficient business for six months of
operation must
be in hand.
* Organization
must be structured from the start to balance all interests,
make the most
of all available leadership talent, volunteer effort and
supporter
participation - that means establishing clear lines of
communication
and democratic, consensus oriented process.
* Based on
consensus, staff and consultants must be empowered to
detail policy
and to act.
A draft marketing plan is
presently being circulated for input by all of you
who feel the preservation of Knight & Co. is worth this
'new and
improved' try. Initial analysis indicates that the primary
marketing target
should be the historic preservation community itself. The restoration of
historic urban districts has become a multi-hundred million
dollar
enterprise nationwide; Knight did much of the structural
and decorative
iron work for the renovation of both the State Capitol
building and Old
Town Sacramento.
Historic railroads have ordered replica switch stands and
turntable
hardware from Knight. Replica builder's plates and other
memorabilia
could be sold in their gift shops. Several brand new
California railroad
museums and historic theme park displays are beginning
construction or
are in the planning stage, west coast maritime museums, the
State and
National Parks, restorers of old vehicles and farm
equipment - all potential
customers for Knight. A part produced at Knight for an
authentic historic
restoration has the added value of being produced with
authentic methods
and materials; sending business to Knight will also ensure
that Knight is
around to provide hard-to-reproduce parts for future
preservation
projects.
The most important goal of the January Symposium is to
bring together the
right people, especially including the veterans of the
previous preservation
effort. We will be building on the gains they made. And,
ideally, there
should be enough customers present to put orders on the
table sufficient to
fire up the foundry for six months. i.e., about $75,000 of
business
appropriate for Knight's specialty - custom cast and
machined iron parts of
fairly large scale. That's our key task; with that in hand
everything else
becomes possible.
Andy Fahrenwald, Photos
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