Circuit Training Spokane’S Lab-Marc Handles Some Of The Most Sophisticated Electronics Work Around

Bill Herrlinger hasn’t exactly made history, but he has fine-tuned it.

His company, Lab-Marc Inc., had small roles in several major technical developments associated with aerospace efforts such as NASA’s Apollo program and the Boeing Co.’s 747.

In the case of the 747, for example, a local company was commissioned to make oxygen-system fittings for a prototype of the giant airplane, Herrlinger said.

Spokane’s Lab-Marc cleaned the fittings of all organic compounds, then tripled-wrapped the components in an argon atmosphere to protect them from contamination, he said.

Herrlinger said the company’s contribution to the Apollo effort of the mid-1960s was two-fold.

Lab-Marc helped a Post Falls company, Clair-Pendar, certify switches for the capsule by assuring that the testing instruments were properly calibrated for altitude and temperature, he said.

And at the University of Idaho, the company maintained equipment used to prepare the freeze-dried food used to feed the astronauts.

Herrlinger recalled there were some side benefits to that project, freeze-dried ice cream sundaes for one.

“Those things were scrumptious,” he said.

But the bulk of Lab-Marc’s business is more bread and butter. “Marc” is an acronym for maintenance, adjustment, repair and calibration.

Herrlinger and his two part-time technicians work on everything from microscopes to balances to incubators to spectrophotometers.

Much of the work is done on site because vibration during transport would disturb calibration done back in the shop, he said.

The rest Herrlinger or his employees retrieve themselves. Their headquarters are modest.

“When we talk about in-house repair,” Herrlinger observed, “yeah, we’re in a house.”

In fact, Lab-Marc occupies two inconspicuous white buildings at the corner of Altamont and Second. Only a small sign above the door indicates there’s a business inside.

Herrlinger said Lab-Marc has been at that address for 18 years. The first 17 were spent at 130 N. Stone, the site of the former Washington Testing Laboratories, which analyzed Nike missile gear and fuel.

Herrlinger and a partner founded the company when their boss at Industrial Instrument Supplies decided he wanted out of the business of repairing laboratory equipment.

They bought the parts and client base and deposited all of $100 in the bank as operating capital.

Two months passed before Lab-Marc had a telephone, he said, and more time before the company had its own entrance.

Herrlinger said he bought out his partner after about a year.

Lab-Marc has periodically sold equipment, but he said that side of the business has been discontinued. The company still installs instruments sold by others and fulfills maintenance contracts.

Lab-Marc’s service territory stretches from Western Montana to the Cascade Mountains and south into Oregon, Herrlinger said.

Major clients include Batelle National Laboratories, Washington State University, the University of Idaho and Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp.

Herrlinger said some, like WSU, have open orders that allow the company to do preventive maintenance or make repairs as necessary.

Companies too often cut equipment maintenance when budgets get tight, eventually costing themselves more money for repairs, he said.

Herrlinger said he prefers to work with a business clientele. Past ventures into consumer electronic repair generated bad debt and headaches, he said.

Herlinger said he accumulated a basic knowledge of electronics growing up on the North Side and attending Shadle Park High School.

In the U.S. Navy, he was an electrician’s mate working on submarine motors.

“I’ve been real fortunate. I’ve been able to pick it up real fast,” Herrlinger said.

But he concedes that keeping up with state-of-the-art instrumentation keeps his nose in training manuals, and he lets his employees take on some of the latest stuff.

“My electronics is the old kind of electronics,” Herrlinger said.

Still, the variety of the work has kept him enthusiastic, he said. “I’ve never been bored.”