Simone Ardoin Brings Advanced Manufacturing to Slidell With Pearl River Precision Works

Simone Ardoin spent nine years as a mechanical engineer at a large aerospace contractor before a round of corporate layoffs pushed her toward a decision she had quietly considered for years: building her own precision manufacturing shop back home in Slidell. Pearl River Precision Works opened in a modest 6,000-square-foot facility in 2018 with three employees and a handful of secondhand CNC machines. It now operates out of a 22,000-square-foot facility with 58 employees and a growing list of aerospace and marine industry clients.

"I got laid off on a Friday and had a business plan drafted by Sunday," Ardoin said, laughing, in the climate-controlled machine shop where technicians in safety glasses monitor a row of computer-controlled milling machines. "I don't recommend moving that fast, honestly. But I'd been sitting on the idea for years, and losing that job just removed my excuse to keep waiting."

Precision Parts for an Underserved Regional Market

Ardoin identified a gap in the market early: while South Louisiana has a substantial aerospace and shipbuilding presence, many smaller and mid-sized contractors in those industries were sending precision machining work out of state, often to shops in Texas or Alabama, because no local supplier could reliably meet aerospace-grade tolerance requirements. Pearl River Precision Works built its reputation by investing early in the certifications and quality control systems necessary to serve that exact niche.

The company earned its AS9100 aerospace quality certification in its third year of operation, a milestone Ardoin says was essential to landing its first major contract, supplying structural brackets for a regional aerospace parts supplier. That contract, still active today, has since been joined by work for two marine engine manufacturers and a defense contractor with a presence near the Northshore.

"Simone built something most people said couldn't survive outside a major metro with a dense aerospace supply chain already in place," said Julian Marchetti, a procurement manager at one of Pearl River Precision's aerospace clients. "She proved you could run an AS9100-certified shop out of Slidell and still hit every deadline we threw at her."

Building a Skilled Trades Pipeline From Scratch

Because precision CNC machining requires specialized training that few local schools offered when Ardoin started the company, she built an in-house apprenticeship program from the ground up, partnering eventually with Northshore Technical Community College to formalize the curriculum. Apprentices spend eighteen months rotating through programming, setup, and quality inspection roles before qualifying as full machinists.

"There wasn't a workforce pipeline for what I needed when I started, so I built one," Ardoin said. "Now about half our machinists came up through that program. It's probably the accomplishment I'm proudest of, more than any single contract."

Ardoin has been particularly focused on recruiting women into the shop, a demographic significantly underrepresented in precision manufacturing nationally. Roughly a quarter of Pearl River Precision's machinists are women, a proportion Ardoin says is unusually high for the industry and one she attributes to deliberate outreach at local high schools and technical programs.

Looking forward, Ardoin is evaluating an expansion into a second facility to accommodate growing demand from the marine engine sector, while carefully avoiding the kind of rapid growth that could compromise the exacting quality standards that built the company's reputation in the first place. "We turn down work if we're not confident we can hit the tolerance," she said. "That discipline is the whole business model."