Keeping it in the family

Roy Parker says it was his great-great uncle who first opened the doors of the H.C. Jones Welding Co. The year was 1911, a time when most homes had no electricity and automobiles were a novelty. Memories of the American Civil War were still fresh and World War I was but a few short years away. "It was basically a blacksmith shop back then," Parker says. "We still have one of the anvils out in the back of the shop."

The original facility was located in downtown Mobile, he explains, but the city undertook a "Beautify Mobile" campaign sometime in 1967 and the company was relocated to its present location on Telegraph Road, not far from the Tensaw River where it spills into Mobile Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. The company name had been shortened by that time to Jones Welding, when Parker's grandfather, Douglas Roy Parker Sr., bought the company from his uncle.

When the senior Parker retired, Roy Parker's father took over, managing the shop on behalf of the family until 1999, at which time his son assumed ownership. Parker had been working there since before high school, which is where he learned his passion for machining. "When I bought the company, we almost immediately added on to the building. By 2001, we started putting in CNC lathes and machining centers, and have added capability every year since."

Parker says they still do welding and fabricating, but the majority of the business is now precision machining. Aside from an impressive list of Mazak CNCs, there's also a pair of multi-axis waterjet cutters in the shop, allowing Jones Welding to do a fair amount of plate processing and blanking. What was once a place of fire, smoke and the ringing of hammers has since evolved into a state of the art manufacturing facility.

Roy Parker gives much of the credit for this achievement to his family. "My grandfather and father both instilled a strong work ethic in me, most importantly to always follow through on anything you have committed to. They taught me that all you have is your word, and that people need to know they can count on you to do what you've promised."

For more information:
Jones Welding Company, Inc.
1926 Telegraph Road
Mobile, AL 36610
(251) 452-8796