okay my name is Tony Marfione I'm one of the owners of microtech in Marfione
custom knives we've been doing this now since I've been making knives actually
since about 1992 incorporated the company 1994 you know April and we've
been doing it ever since full time full time always had a passion for creativity
started out in the gunsmithing world did a lot of work on the firearm side and
the guns and knives kind of go together and didn't make a whole lot of money on
the gun side but I seem to have a knack to have a passion for wanting to make my
own knives could never really afford a really good one to begin with anyway so
it led me to believe that I thought I could maybe put something together for
myself and it really kind of started out that way it never really was intended to
say hey I'm gonna set off to be a knife maker started out as a tool maker still
am today but managed to manufacture one of my own knives
it was actually pretty disappointing because my very first knife is actually
pretty pretty crummy we have it and you know luckily my wife did a great job of
keeping a library of all the different models that we've made throughout the
years but the piece she actually bought it back from the purveyor you know back
in the day I sold we sold anything that we can make you know to make a living
but at the end of the day a lot of these pieces have made their way back into our
collection and the very very first piece wouldn't even fold right it didn't and
we have it but the neat thing about it is I made I made the small switchblade
you know which was at the time you know how I got its name or our company name
there's a lot of guys that's seen it they're like hey that's very cool that's
real small very handy it's very micro very microtech and that's how we got
the name as far as our logo one of my co engineers that I work with at the time
actually designed a logo and said hey if you ever do your company should call it
this and voila the microtech emblem was born so it was a matter of fact it was
an Orlando guild show that I took the knife to just to go well again I wasn't
soliciting for orders or anything along those lines basically it got passed
around and I got a solicitation from one of the larger distributors that said hey
if you ever make this this is great we'll buy everything you can make so a
lot of my co-workers that I work with prompted me along and said well you
should maybe consider knife making and I came home to my wife and I said baby
what do you think about making pocket knives that as long as we could you know
pay our bills sure why not.
you know the very the very first night I've always been infatuated with
switchblades period I mean as a kid you know whether it be old case-knives that
were autos or old Italian style switchblades every time my mom would
travel to Europe she would always bring me back a little sample of a knife and I
was just infatuated with autos in general and just the Mythbust the story
of how I came up with the UDT is actually Charles Oakes that made the
floor to black knife was involved you know Reese wildin whether you know he
designed that or Charles one of the two but that full-size knife you know the
small one was patterned someone off of that I called Reese Weiland said hey do
you mind if I make this pattern it's similar to what you guys are doing the
guys did not you know if you could do it knock yourself out so that mini UDT
you know was the pattern that got the host company started and you know from
what the guys actually seen compared to what they received the quality level was
just beyond their expectation
that's a very competitive industry at best but at the end of the day I think
it was our own industry that continued to challenge us you know for the need to
say hey look and I'd love to have a three inch or hey could you make a thumb
opener at the time or a guy who would challenge us and say hey you can't put a
coil spring and do a double action with that that was actually butch Vallot and
sure enough I responded to with the SOCOM double actions and that's how we
came out with that but a lot of those guys a lot of those early guys whether
it be Reese Weiland butch Valentin or the Bauman's family in general then this
guy's mentored me along and probably my biggest mentor for the history and still
is today would be Chris Reeves he taught me how to grind blades taught me how to
sharpen and hone taught me as good as you could you know to be as good as a
businessman but you know his philosophy was to think twice cut once theory and I
think there's a lot more meaning behind that as just like look if you're going
to go to the you're going to go to the market with a product regardless of what
you make it doesn't matter if it's knives gun related or whatever make the
absolute very best that you could possibly do within your skill level and
constantly reinvent yourself and constantly just you know do everything
you can to just bring up the very best adaptation equality that you could bring
to the table and it'll work you know because there's no guarantee in any of
these sales we didn't you know we didn't have a guarantee that if we made it
people were just going to swarm to buy it you know we didn't have access to
internet you know back in the early 90s like it's prevalent today on social
media we had to go to these shows we had to you know put the knives in front of
people we had to take the criticism and it helped it helped they'll evolve
the entire line
the biggest thing for microtech is again I mean it's not solely you know my
you know I'm one of the founders my wife as a co-founder of this business as well
our children have played a very intemperate role of making this business
very very successful but what's really made micro tech really really blossom is
our ability to bring great talent to the table I mean we have over 75 full-time
employees that make and work alongside of us and and are some of the best
technical engineers the best marketers the best craftsmen men and women that I
think I have available and as long as we can continue to grow that grow that
business from that side I think they're you know the possibilities for micro
tech at this point for endless you know we are going to work on the firearm side
but only to a certain extent I mean our core or our identity is knife making and
that's where we're gonna stay but if we could pick up on some different areas
that continue to stimulate us to have some synergies we're going to continue
to grow our business that way in micro Tech's been growing at a rate of about
30 percent a year which is extremely aggressive you know we're being cautious
about that growth over growing your company can collapse upon yet we've had
that happen in the past on our gun side but at the end of the day you know as
long as we continue to mentor or continue to cross mentor our individuals
that work amongst the organization we're extremely pleased with the outcome
it gives it now allows media have the freedom to do
better developments and ideas in products and also explore some
adventures for their product lines