As you are driving along Water Street in West Newfield, you may have noticed that there has been quite a lot of construction during the past couple years, and several new buildings.

On the stretch of land across from Moulton Lumber, one building in particular seemed to go up overnight — the Maine Source Machining Company.

Owners Nicole and Chad Humphrey started construction on the light machine shop almost as soon as they had a conditional use permit from the Newfield Planning Board.

The couple had shopped around for a piece of land for quite some time at the Saco Industrial Park and Limerick Business Park before settling in this area. However, it wasn't until they received a phone call from the prior owner that they decided to purchase the land and bring their business to Newfield.

For the past five years, the Humphreys had been manufacturing their product in the old mill in Limerick, but the opportunity to build was there and they took it. They both wanted a building that was architecturally pleasing to the rural atmosphere; they used local contractors and supplies to put up their building. According to Nicole, both of them wanted to use local products, made-in-America steel and other United States-produced materials. All of the paper and plastic that is used in the shop is recyclable, and the heat currently is a radiant heat floor. Eventually, they will have solar heat, keeping the building very eco-friendly.

Currently, the Humphreys have only one full-time employee in addition to Chad, who also works full time in the shop, to keep up with the demand of a very busy European market. Chad does most of the phone work and manages the office on a daily basis.

Production in the Humphreys' new building has already started and they are working to fill their orders. Besides Ireland, they get orders from Japan, England, Germany and Canada for wholesale products; and exports are up 300 percent. In the United States, Maine's tourism industry is a big customer, as well as Midwestern and Eastern states.

Even though 70 percent of their business is for crafts, the Humphreys also provide a service to locals. Chad, who has had many years of experience working in a machine shop, knows the need for general machine work. Maine Source provides repairs and manufacturing for specialized parts for local clientele.

"Quite often I'll have a request for a particular part for a broken plow or something," Chad said.

In a small town such as Newfield, many people are self employed, working in logging, construction, or other related jobs, using their own equipment. Chad carries different sizes of stock for these jobs; no job is too big or too small.

The wholesale side of the business is good, according to the Humphreys, but there is a lot of competition to get jobs. Even though they have products advertised in several large companies' catalogs, it has not been easy for the Humphreys to get them in there. According to the couple, businesses have to be set up to do large volumes of product and ship in sometimes a day's notice. Most of their orders come from email and faxes.

Nicole designed their business's website and does the research online for new shows and catalogs. She and Chad joked that they hardly ever see their wholesale customers because of the Internet. However, every winter, they attend four wholesale trade shows, which are mostly along the east coast, but sometimes a little further west, in such places as Chicago. Attending these trade shows usually brings them new customers and thousands of orders. Customers or shop owners attend these shows to purchase new products for the coming year. The result is very productive for Maine Source, and networking with others vendors is an added plus; sometimes, business comes from the other vendors. Wholesale clients will occasionally attend these shows, which gives the Humphreys the chance to meet the person behind an email.

There are two kinds of trade shows, cash-and-carry and order-taking, the Humphreys said. For the cash-and-carry shows, they take a lot of product to sell that day and it may take as long as 9 hours to set up their display. For the order-taking shows, they put up their display and take orders for the following year. Products ordered at these shows will be ready to be shipped anywhere from one week to several months, depending on need.

The Humphreys also have on hand sales representatives in six different regions of the United States and one national sales representative, which gives them added coverage and exposure of their product.

The Humphreys manufacture items we use on a daily basis. Their catalog features coat hooks, napkin holders, salt and pepper shaker holders, barbecue tools, paper towel holders, plate holders, candle holders, towel bars, and many more decorative items to be used in the home or office. The products are designed out of sheet metal with black powder coating and feature well-known Maine symbols, such as raccoons, loons, black bears, moose, deer, and other wildlife.

They also have products related to pets, construction, transportation, logging, country hearts, food and kitchen and contemporary and art deco. In fact, in Maine, some of the Humphreys' best customers are the state parks, the coast guard, restaurants, and gift shops, which sell Maine-related products to tourists. The Humphreys also make Maine-related signs with sayings or places, such as "Ayuh," Down East Maine, Sebago Lake, and more.

According to the Humphreys, one of their wholesale customers absolutely loves their products and will drive as long as six hours to buy anything new that has to do with moose. This customer has a lodge in northern Maine that's outfitted with items such as towel bars, toilet paper holders, soap dishes, salt and pepper holders, napkin holders and more with the moose insignia.

At times, companies request special items that will not be sold anywhere else and the Humphreys' honor the requests by designing the special products. Often, they say, this has a snowball effect — once the client sees the quality, they decide to get into other product lines.

Everything is done at the shop on Water Street, from cutting the product to shipping it out to the clients. The cutting is done by using a computer and CNC Plasma cutter, which uses a spark similar to a small lightning bolt to cut the designs. The deburring, press break, welding, powder painting, bagging and, eventually, shipping complete the process.

According to the Humphreys, there is a lot of room for growth in the business and they expect to eventually expand. This, of course, would provide some much needed job opportunities in this small town; perhaps a couple jobs in the not-so-distant future.

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