Mukilteo machine shop revived after uncertainty in the aerospace field

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, October 7, 2026

MUKILTEO — As Gina Morken walks through the Mukilteo machine shop in September, machines hum as its operators move around their workspaces.

Since taking over New Tech Industries following her father’s death in 2008, Morken has worked to support the company’s long-term employees. When she last spoke to The Daily Herald in 2020, morale was low after Boeing temporarily halted production of its 737 Max, leading the shop to place many workers on standby.

After a period of uncertainty, the shop is humming a different tune. Morken told The Daily Herald New Tech got over the hump by 2023 following stabilizations in the Boeing assembly line — at least as far as workload.

“As far as employees, though, we’re still short-handed, and I’m constantly running an ad,” Morken said in September.

Around 90% of New Tech’s business is generated by Boeing, although none of their parts ever leave the ground. Instead, the shop is behind the tools making the airplanes.

“When they’re tooling up a new line, we’ll definitely be busy,” she said.

That was the case when the 737 Max arrived in Everett more than two months ago.

In the last year, New Tech sent out 19,128 tools to its customers, an accomplishment for a shop where tools are often made in small quantities.

“If the customer’s ordering something, they’re not ordering 100 or 1000. They’re ordering like five,” Morken added.

Morken grew up visiting the shop on Saturdays with her dad, Tom Bigelow. It was these visits where she said she “really fell in love with it, just the smell of it.”

In 1997, Morken officially joined the shop’s payroll.

“It’s like life-size Legos,” she said. “You just get to work with your hands and build something, and that is really satisfying.”

The shop currently employs 24 people. While some of the shop’s machinists took an early retirement when business slowed in 2020, others have come back part-time to mentor the new generation of apprentices.

“Providing a place for people to work and wages to raise a family, and watching them raise their family,” Morken said. “That’s been really fulfilling.”

Dan Treherne has worked at New Tech for 40 years. While he said his favorite moments are the satisfaction of seeing a tool completed, it’s the people who work there that make the job fun.

“It just comes down to the people. It really does,” he said. “They strive hard to get the job done.”

Manufacturing’s image within the trades needs some reinventing, Morken said. She encourages young people entering the workforce not to think of it as a plan B.

“It’s a great trade,” she said. “At the end of the day, these guys — they’re not completely exhausted, where they can have really fun hobbies and get to do fun things with their family.”

Morken’s daughter recently joined a machinist apprenticeship. While it’s too early to know if she’ll join the family’s business, Morken said she is excited to see her daughter enter the trade.

”I’m not going to put the pressure on her,” she added. “I am excited that she is going to go into this trade because I do think it’s very important, for all kinds of reasons, that this type of trade doesn’t die.”

For anyone looking to get into the field, Morken recommends looking into classes at local colleges.

After many small shops shuttered, Morken said she is proud that New Tech has stood the test of time for its employees.

“For a small shop like us, it was really hard to make them trust that we weren’t going to close our doors and that we were going to do everything to stay financially stable,” she said. “That they would have a place to come to work. So, I do feel like that was a huge accomplishment.”

Jenna Millikan: 425-339-3035; jenna.millikan@heraldnet.com; X: @JennaMillikan