Aug. 16--Apparently not everybody is singing the blues in the manufacturing sector these days.

A story in the Aug. 7 edition of The News-Herald relayed results of a national study in which 51 percent of executives polled said they were pessimistic about the manufacturing sector's outlook for the remainder of the year.

The News-Herald file photo accompanying that story showed a worker using a remote crane at Kottler Metal Products in Willoughby. The photo first ran in The News-Herald in January 2008 along with a story featuring Kottler Metal after it won the Willoughby Area Chamber of Commerce's Distinguished Business of the Year award. More than a year and a half later when the photo appeared again, Kottler President Barry Feldman was quick to point out that his company is still churning along.

Weathering what he described as the toughest economic conditions in his more than 20 years with Kottler, Feldman said the company and its roughly 30 employees are working hard to keep a positive outlook. Shortly before personally handing out paychecks to Kottler workers during a shift change last week, Feldman took The News-Herald on a tour of the pipe-bending firm's 62,000-square-foot facility and shared his thoughts on the state of manufacturing, what he does to keep employees positive and where things are going for Kottler Metal Products.

Q: The general gist of that study was that a lot of people in manufacturing have a pessimistic view on things. Here, it seems like a total opposite of that. What's your mind-set on the state of the industry right now?

A: The state of the industry and the state of the economy is challenged. Yet there are still opportunities to be had in this industry.

We feel that if we look at it from an optimistic viewpoint instead of a pessimistic viewpoint, we're able to fight through it much better and much easier. We instill that in employees, our suppliers and our customers.

Can you tell us a little bit about what you're doing here to maintain that positive outlook?

When you have a lot of employees that are reading the newspapers and seeing the gloom and doom out there, you keep it optimistic by speaking to them weekly, having meetings. Friday we're having a big luncheon as we always did to show them that we're continuing and focusing on today as well as the future. We haven't cut out any of our full weeks. We have our bonus programs as we have in the past. We haven't changed venue in what we've done in the past in order to keep our employees positive. As far as our customers, we call them on a regular basis. We solicit business from them.