Helping customers develop electronic components is a passion for Larissa Duron, but she actually made the decision to go her own way and create Duron Industries while she was recovering from a motorcycle accident in 2020. The Founder and CEO says, “It was always in the back of my mind that it was something I wanted to do. Even in high school, I wrote up a business plan to start my own company, so it was definitely something that had been brewing for a long time.” After her accident, she says, “My life changed. It was kind of one of those things where you go through a dark period, then realize that you have a second chance at life, and at doing something that you haven’t done before.”
Duron already had extensive experience in the aerospace, defense, automotive, motorcycle, and semiconductor industries, on top of her years of military experience in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, so she was well prepared for the challenges ahead. Initially, the plan was to do consulting work on the development of electronic parts, but almost immediately, the actual construction of prototype and low-volume components became part of the service.
Broad Focus, Small Team
The bulk of Duron Industries‘ work is currently in the semiconductor area, but they also are providing services for electric vehicle and charging station manufacturers, and the aerospace industry, and are looking to make inroads into utility industries. The company does both clean-sheet designs, as well as refinement and development of existing customer designs, along with reverse engineering. As if that’s not enough for the five-person staff to handle, the company is readying its own consumer electronics product for production within the year, and that will likely lead to rapid growth for Duron.
The fact that this is a woman-owned business, as well as the experience in electrical engineering that Duron brings to the table helps make the company stand out. She says, “Most manufacturers just manufacture whatever the client gives them, whether it’s right or wrong. They don’t go the extra mile to make sure that it’s compliant, and that the components and build materials are reliable. There are many different knock-offs on components, and those aren’t reliable. If you build something that is not from a reputable manufacturer, the end of life could be really short. We make sure that everything that we do is of quality. Basically, I guess you could look at it as luxury design from our perspective.”
The Founder takes finding the right people for her staff very seriously, and with workers hand-picked from prior experience working with her, Duron handles most operations in-house, and the company even has its own machine shop.
A Unique Offering Needs Special Clients
The company actively seeks new clients and new work and finds success through networking with a wide range of people at conferences and networking events, including those for woman-owned, veteran-owned, minority-owned, and LGBT-owned businesses. Duron says, “The company is unique that we want to make sure it’s branded the way it started and the way that it is.”
She continues, “My goal really is to grow the company and grow other companies, where we can do everything. We already do full-cycle engineering and prototype manufacturing, but I want to be able to make our own products and sell them to clients. That way, we take away that work for them, to where they don’t even have to make preliminary drawings.” Admitting she was partially inspired by “The Jetsons” television show in her younger days, she continues, “One of the main reasons I became an engineer was to help other people with technology.”
One-Stop Shop from Design to Production
Although Duron Industries already offers a wide range of services to assist clients, it has even larger plans going forward. Maggie London, the company’s COO says, “Our biggest difference is that we’ve taken manufacturing a step further. We do a one-stop shop. Typically, what someone would do is shop for different distributors, engineering consulting companies, marketing experts, and manufacturers, and then they juggle the quotes. So, basically, we do all of it for you. We will start from the very beginning of your business development, helping you to get your business license, walking you through the whole process, all the way down to creating your product. It’s important because our clients might be entrepreneurs who are inventing their first product, or engineers who belong to multimillion-dollar engineering firms, so we’re really trying to highlight people who have inventions and to make them able to grow their business. If you have an idea, we can build it for you.”
Duron’s engineering, technical, and artistic background, combined with London’s legal, communications, marketing, and artistic background, put Duron Industries in a unique position to provide that gamut of services necessary to bring a product from concept, to manufacture, to a successful marketing strategy and brand image.
Standing Out For Good Reasons
Safety and compliance are also key areas of focus for the company. London says, “We are really huge on educating our clients so that they know what questions to ask so that we can make sure their product is safe and fully functional.”
The dedication and passion of the CEO and COO are evident in the uphill battle they’re waging to prove themselves in what is still a mostly male-dominated engineering field. In fact, a long-range goal for the company is to establish an internship program for women and veterans interested in entering science-related fields.
Constantly changing technology means new products are always being developed, and Duron Industries is there to help them become reality. The Founder says that the enthusiasm and interest shown for their products, and for their clients’ success, are important reasons for potential customers to support small businesses like hers. No doubt, she’s correct, in that personal attention and involvement are much harder to come by from larger competitors, but not at Duron Industries.
