The latest in our series documenting manufacturing in Chester County, Pa.

Although 54-year-old Michael Fitzgerald likes to trace the roots of his manufacturing company back to his college days, the seeds of Acero Precision were actually planted almost a decade earlier.

In the early 1980s, as a student of mechanical engineering at Drexel, Fitzgerald purchased a machine shop, using it as a vehicle to satisfy his creative hunger for working on car parts. Soon after, that shop became Acero Precision, and it began making parts for not only clients in the motorsport world, but also those in the analytical, medical, and industrial fields.

However, the genesis of Fitzgerald’s intrigue with the anatomy of cars – particularly ones that can travel several hundred miles per hour – occurred when he was 10, watching Grand Prix at his childhood home in Havertown.

The 1966 film sparked what would become Fitzgerald’s lifelong flame for auto racing.

“I’ll never forget watching that movie,” he said. “It was already a few years old by the time I saw it. It was one of those Sunday matinees they had on network television back in the day. Watching James Garner’s character crash into a harbor in Monte Carlo was the coolest thing I’d ever seen in my life.”

Not long after that seminal moment, Fitzgerald got a job in a car-repair shop, disassembling carburetors. The rest is now history for a company that recently celebrated its 30th anniversary by building a state-of-the-art, 100,000-square-foot facility in West Chester.

Fitzgerald – Acero Precision’s founder, president, and a little of everything in between – employs 115 people, which include engineers, machinists, mechanical laborers, and quality-control experts. And he’s looking to add about 30 more to his diverse workforce.

Fitzgerald couldn’t be happier to be at the reins of the rare company that actually manufactures in America.

“For the last 25 years, we’ve been supplying parts for Roger Penske and five other Formula One (racing) teams,” he said. “That currently accounts for 10 percent of our business. What keeps us busiest are the orthopedic companies we manufacture spine implants for. That’s about half of our business right there. We also have customers in oil-and-gas exploration.”

Acero Precision has been a model of consistency. The company has grown an average of 13 percent each year, compounded annually, over the last 20.

The key to such growth has been attention to detail.

“If it’s not perfect, it’s garbage,” said Joanne Fitzgerald, Michael’s wife and the director of human capital. “That’s our mantra.”

And one that’s necessary.

“We’re in a very competitive business, and one that doesn’t have a high margin,” Michael Fitzgerald said. “You have to be disciplined. We only get paid on perfect. It’s not like cooking a pizza or cutting hair. For example, a hair dresser might cut your hair a half-inch too short, but she’s still getting paid. If we make a comparable mistake in our industry, we don’t get paid.”

“Accuracy and quality are standards that our employees have for themselves, personally and professionally,” said Joanne Fitzgerald. “They’re accountable.”

During the years in between Acero Precision’s humble beginnings and its current state of prosper, Michael Fitzgerald fulfilled his dream of becoming a professional race-car driver.

“From 1994-97, I raced on what would be the equivalent of baseball’s Triple-A level,” he said. “There was money involved, although it wasn’t very much. I stopped because I broke my back in a bad accident in Phoenix, and I have a family to look after.”

From 2004-12, Fitzgerald graduated to the less-dangerous Historic Formula One Series, which enables drivers to compete in vintage cars at Grand Prix events. It’s akin to golf’s Senior PGA Tour.

“That was a lot of fun,” he said. “I traveled the world, and won races in Montreal, Belgium, and England. I had five cars, but we sold them to help fund our expansion.”

Looking at his life’s rear-view mirror, Fitzgerald is amused by what he remembers as his initial career choice.

“I wanted to fly jets in the Air Force,” he said. “I don’t have perfect eyesight, so they took a better candidate. They offered me West Point instead, but I wasn’t interested. I’m happy with how things turned out, though.”

He should be.

Fitzgerald may not have perfect sight, but he has damn-near perfect vision.