Our Story

Nick Katrov got his start in machining nearly 30 years ago by sweeping floors and cutting off materials in a Massachusetts shop after immigrating to the USA from Bulgaria at 19 years old. Eager to learn more about machine tools and the industry, he wasted no time demonstrating his willingness to apply what he felt was an innate ability to machine parts. Indeed, his chance came one day when the shop was flat out with work and shorthanded on machinists that were tied up on other projects. While waiting around near an idle machine, he took the bold initiative of writing a program to machine a part that was urgently needed by a customer. When the foreman returned to the shop he was as delighted as he was stunned to learn that the young Katrov had successfully written the program for the part all on his own, untutored. This experience would come to serve Mr. Katrov well throughout his impressive career, and especially so today, where at NDK Paragon he is the Chief Technical Officer and sole machinist at a two-person shop in Oceanside, CA that manufactures complex 5-axis parts for aerospace, semiconductor and medical industries.