Then & Now George W Rachels Jr. established Rachels Industries in 1971. This evolved into Rachels Machine and Fabrication Inc. in 1975. The number of employees in the original business was 2-George Rachels and Robert Dudley. As business increased, the 4 sons became part of the expansion. The business began in a rented warehouse in Wadley. Currently, Rachels Machine is located on 19 acres with 35000 sq. f.t building and currently has 24 employees. The original objective was to capture a percentage of the million dollar sprocket business available in the United States as identified by the Georgia Tech Survey. Over the years, Rachels Machine has expanded from primarily sprockets into fabrications. Today, Rachels Machine is a multimillion dollar business shipping sprockets and fabrication across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Products and services you offer? We have a complete machine shop   with manual and CNC lathes and mills. Our cutting machine will cut up to a 12” thick plate. Our shearing/forming department can roll a ½” plate by 10’, shear thick plate by 10’, and bend ¾” plate by 10’. We are in the process of building a 7500 sq. foot paint and sandblast building.  Interesting fact about your business? When most people think of Rachels Machine, they think of sprockets since that is what we started making when the business was started. We still manufacture sprockets, but most people do not know that we build equipment for waste water plants all over the United States and Canada for OVIVO out of Salt Lake City, Utah. OVIVO has 5 fabricators in the US and Rachels Machine is their #1 fabricator.  Challenges you face? Like most business in any small community, our biggest challenge is finding people who want to work and have pride in what they do.  Most proud of?  The past 3 years have been very challenging with the death of George Rachels and Vic Rachels. George and Charles have stepped up to the plate and continue to carry out the day to day operations of the business. The future? The machining part of our operation will be like it has always been. It will have it ups and downs because of the market that it follows. I see the wastewater side of our business to continue to grow as it has the last 11 years as long as I can find quality employees that will take pride in their work.  Chamber? During our last major expansion, the Chamber helped us with the “quick start” program and 87% of those employees are still working with us. The Chamber helped us get set up with Georgia Tech to get OSHA compliance and to arrange work flow to maximize worker productivity.