Titan was honored to be featured in Volume 18 – Issue 53. The feature takes you on Titan’s journey through his trials and tribulations in life and what led him to launching a mission to return American manufacturing back to greatness!
Story and photos by Scott Rathburn for CNC Machining Magazine
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A Tale of a Young Boxer’s Redemption Titan Gilroy’s first act began on the run. His mother fled to Hawaii to escape an abusive husband. And despite a few years of homelessness, she managed to keep her children in school. The move was a difficult adjustment for Mr. Gilroy and his sister, who were picked on for being outsiders.Mr. Gilroy took up boxing as a way to defend himself. He eventually earned a reputation for being a tough fighter, but that gift got him expelled from several public schools. He was finally admitted to a private Catholic high school, working part time to help pay the tuition.
After graduating in 1988, Mr. Gilroy was discovered by a local boxing trainer, who sent him to train with Dick Saddler, former trainer for George Foreman and Muhammad Ali.A blossoming boxer, Mr. Gilroy fought as a sponsored amateur, winning 35 of 38 amateur bouts, including a number of amateur Golden Gloves tournaments. In 1991, he moved to Las Vegas to train with Olympic coaches at Top Rank Boxing, one of the biggest fight promoters in the U.S. One of his trainers, Mitch Hamp, says Mr. Gilroy was a good fighter with potential to do well. “That’s saying something since it’s a tough sport. I have very few success stories here,” he says. But before Mr. Gilroy could make his professional debut, he got into a fight at a nightclub and seriously injured two men. He was charged with assault and served three years prison.
After being released on parole in 1995, Mr. Gilroy half-heartedly returned to boxing at Top Rank, uncertain of what he wanted to do with his future. A few months later he got into a fight with a neighbor. He wasn’t charged, but being in handcuffs reminded him of how easily he could lose his freedom — and his wife and son, with whom he’d only recently reunited. Mr. Gilroy quit boxing the next day. “I told my manager ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ ” he says.The following year Mr. Gilroy moved his family to Northern California and took an entry-level job at Zinola Manufacturing, a small machine shop in Sunnyvale with nine employees. He didn’t know it at the time, but Mr. Gilroy had launched his second act. He had no previous machining
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The reality TV show about a machining job shop is about to start a new season. But in a way, the show itself is part of a new season for its creator, Titan Gilroy, because the show came about only after some failure and success in his life had both come to an end. I see lessons in both the way he produces the show and the journey that preceded TV.
If things had gone a different way, Titan might never have been on television. “Titan,” in this case, refers to both the man and the show. Titan Gilroy (his given name) is the machining job shop owner who created, produces, directs and stars in “Titan: American Built,” the TV show focused on American manufacturing that routinely portrays the real-life machining work performed by the team in his northern California shop. Years ago—specifically, until late 2008—his shop was so busy and so successful that he might never have pushed ahead with his idea to develop a manufacturing TV show if the strong business had continued to fill his time. Therefore, part of the reason the show exists today is the economic collapse of that year.
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Titan Gilroy is on a mission to eliminate offshore outsourcing and boost manufacturing back home
When Zinola Manufacturing owner Kevin Zinola took a chance and offered convicted felon Titan Gilroy an entry-level job in his small Sunnyvale machine shop, he had no idea where the relationship would go. In the years to follow, Gilroy reformed his life, worked his way up through several companies and finally, established Titan America Manufacturing. Today, the Rocklin-based company has 30 employees, boasts several million dollars in annual revenue and has made a devout commitment to source from American companies. Gilroy’s also on a mission to change the way business leaders think about offshore outsourcing.
While business outsourcing is a common practice where companies look to other domestic experts to handle a portion of their work (such as payroll or personnel services), offshore outsourcing is very different. That’s when an organization pays to have its work done in another country. An outspoken proponent of keeping American manufacturing at home, Gilroy believes the only reason companies continue to offshore their labor is because they don’t know any better. “The sophistication of technology, automation and the machines we work with today allow us to produce top-quality products much faster than the competition, saving us money and making offshore outsourcing a thing of the past.”
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CEO Titan Gilroy stresses a ‘Made-in-America’ theme
The first thing you need to know about Titan Gilroy is, yes, that’s his real name.
As owner and CEO of Titan America MFG in Grass Valley, Gilroy is about to embark on a journey that few would associate with a machine shop boss: He’s starring in his own TV show.
Gilroy, a former top amateur boxer and a former prison inmate, is the focal point of “TITAN American Built,” which will make its series debut at 7 p.m. Friday on the MAVTV cable network.
MAVTV, owned by Lucas Oil Products Inc. and headquartered in Corona, is carried locally by Dish and DirecTV. The cable channel features decidedly macho fare, including motor sports, cage fighting and numerous automotive-themed shows.
Lately, MAVTV’s website has been promoting Gilroy as the network’s new face. His show hammers home a consistent message: American manufacturing is the world’s best.
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Titan America, CNC Machining Experts, Industrial Place, near Lake of the Pines. Titan Gilroy, CEO, Owner. Titan Gilroy holding a machine made item at the shop, and one of his paintings on the wall. Photo Credit – John Hart/jhart@theunion.com | The Union
Local manufacturer airs reality show, displays ability to push limits
Talk to Titan Gilroy about his life and try not being inspired.
From being a hungry and homeless child, to a young championship boxer serving heavy prison time, Gilroy has lived a roller coaster life, yet defied all odds in persevering through tough times, and finding redemption in changing lives through his own high-end manufacturing business in Grass Valley, Titan America CNC Machine Experts.
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In an upcoming episode of Titan American Built, Titan will return to the neighborhood he grew up in on the island of Maui. While there Titan, Titan visited his High School to speak about the challenges he faced while growing up. Chris Sugidono of ‘The Maui News’ was there to record some of the key details that helped Titan become what he is today.
“I had people who believed in me, trusted me and helped me,” Gilroy said. “And I failed everyone.”
Gilroy was charged with three counts of assault after breaking the jaw of one man and causing brain damage to another outside 505 Front St. in Lahaina. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
“Instead of walking away and leaving, I got into it and ended up hitting two people,” he said. “I hurt both of them really bad. It was a terrible thing.”
After serving just three years due to good behavior, Gilroy gave up fighting and now owns a multimillion-dollar machine shop that builds parts for companies such as NASA, BMW and Kahului’s HNu Photonics. He also stars in a new reality TV show.
He is back on Maui to shoot for his show and to speak at the high school that helped him and the community he hurt.
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Titan Engineering was an Auburn success story until the recession hit. Then the bottom fell out for owner Titan Gilroy.
His company, which made titanium, fiberglass, plastic and aluminum parts for deep-sea robotics, stopped getting contracts. That meant laying off employees and moving what he could save to a smaller facility in Grass Valley in 2009.
It was just one more pothole in the road for Gilroy, who experienced homelessness as a youth and even a stint in prison in his early adulthood.
In 2010 he started to rebuild and four years later, he is roaring back.
His business, now called Titan America, is again busy filling contracts – this time machining parts for the aerospace industry. And Gilroy is putting that expertise on view with a reality show, “Titan American Built” that begins airing Friday on MAVTV.
The 13-episode, hour-long show is the culmination of Gilroy’s dream to showcase U.S. manufacturing.
“Every week my team of expert manufacturers builds amazing products for great American companies,” he said. “Every week features a different company. One week we are doing night vision scopes for the military; another week we are doing boat parts and another week rocket parts.”
The drama derives from the short deadlines.
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OUR VIEW – “Engineering firm is the type of business Auburn airport needs” Titan Engineering, a business that’s growing swiftly in a competitive business climate, is the kind of tenant city and county economic development proponents should be pursuing at the Auburn Airport Industrial Park.Owner Titan Gilroy has grown his high-end machining enterprise over the past three years with a mixture of business smarts and dedication to his employees that’s admirable.Titan Engineering made a recent move from smaller quarters in the Lake of the Pines area to three buildings totaling 30,000 square feet at the Industrial Park.
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Former boxer runs lean, fast-moving cutting machines –
Titan Gilroy used to hit people for a living. These days, the owner of Titan Engineering is beating up on the competition.In just three years, his machine shop grew from three employees and $1 million in revenue to $3 million and 40 employees last year. Titan Engineering expects to double last year’s revenue, taking in $6 million and growing to a work force of 60 this year.The 35,000-square-foot Auburn shop started out with four CNC, or computer numerical control, machines. Today it has 18. The machines cut metal into parts that go into complex machines that perform jobs on the ocean floor and in space.Keith Granno, sales executive at Selway Machine Tool in Union City, a large West Coast distributor of CNC machines, said it’s “unheard of” for a shop to go from zero to 15 machines in three years.
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