In Search of a Boring Business

“Making It Work” is a series about small-business owners striving to endure hard times.When Nicole Rizzo saw the “For Sale” listing for Die Cleaning Equipment, the first detail she liked was that it was run by a married couple.Ms.

Rizzo, then 43, was searching for a company to run alongside her own husband.But her husband, David, was puzzled by the name.

Was it something involving janitors?Die Cleaning Equipment, as it turned out, employed welders.The company in Phoenix made machines that cleaned other machines — specifically, aluminum extruders, which force the metal into shapes useful for everything from bumpers to stethoscopes to gun parts.

Steve Smith oversaw the shop, where a small team assembled vats and pumps out of stainless steel.His wife, Kristin, handled the finances.The Smiths had carved out their niche-within-a-niche from scratch, with Ms.

Smith initially moonlighting as a church secretary to keep food on the table.But as the couple approached their 70s, they dreamed of a new relationship with aluminum, involving monthslong trips in an Airstream trailer.

A younger couple like the Rizzos were not the obvious choice.Neither knew much about aluminum.

Ms.Rizzo had worked in local government, and Mr.

Rizzo had held mostly corporate jobs in farming.But a visit to the Smiths’ shop near the Phoenix airport proved illuminating.“I saw the machines and I was like, This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” Ms.

Rizzo said.In June 2021, the Rizzos bought the company for about $600,000.

Ms.Rizzo became chief executive.

Almost four years later, the couple have recovered their investment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The...