MACON, Ga. — Brian Thomson has childhood pictures of him posing in front of industrial machines as a kid.
"But I grew up in the shop," he said with an easy smile.
The tinkering paid off.
Brian took over the company his dad started in 1981, L.H. Thomson.
"I believe we make 150 parts for jet liners," he said.
Hundreds of thousands of parts are on a jet so this company in Macon makes a fraction of what's needed.
But most of what they do create here is clutch.
"She's assembling bolt assemblies which is a bolt inside of a bolt. So in case one of them cracks there is another one there that holds the part together on the airplane," Thomson said while holding up one of those double bolts.
He says every pivotal part that an airplane needs to run has a backup built inside.
L.H. Thomson makes another key piece of equipment for safety in the air.
"They're there in case the nose wheel won't come down, a pilot can pull a cable through the floor and force the latch so the wheel will come down," he said standing next to a table of beige parts.
At it's core L.H. Thomson manufactures airline parts.
But back in 1994, Thomson's sister Amy loved to bike and she came home and said 'hey some of my friends came up with a proposal. Lets make bicycle parts.'
And now it's 25% of their business.
You can't spot a lot of the airline parts on a jet but on some bikes, the Thomson logo sits front and center where you sit and steer.
"The cockpit, everybody calls this the cockpit, because it's what everyone touches all of it except seat and handgrips," Thomson said on a bike he keeps in his office.
About 60 employees churn out the metal that goes all over the world.
"I will go to Eurobike and people will come up to me and say Thomson products and that's cool but we're still just this small group of people in Macon," he said.
They've traveled a long way in 42 years, a little company accomplishing a lot in the field of aerospace.