The story behind Molly and Lucian Zielinski's Cape Precision Machine

Molly and Lucian Zielinski, owners of Cape Precision Machine LLC, stand for a photo in part of their Cape Girardeau Facility.

Tucked behind a family residential development off Route W in Cape Girardeau County, Cape Precision Machine produces specialty parts for some of the area’s largest manufacturers: Procter & Gamble, Pavestone, Schaefer’s Electrical Enclosures, Major Custom Cable and Havco, to name a few. Oftentimes, the parts are created within hours to keep multi-million-dollar lines of industrial equipment running — so major employers in the area can keep churning out product. Successful beyond founders Lucian and Molly Zielinski’s initial dreams, their client base has grown largely through word-of-mouth to span much of the country, from California to Pennsylvania — with Cape Girardeau at the heart of their work.

It’s an enterprise they both chalk up to a kind of miracle — as a result of a grandfather’s death in Poland, the clashing legacy of two fathers and hours pondering the future and praying in the calm overlooking the Baltic Sea.

Molly grew up in Charleston, Missouri, and Lucian, Cape Girardeau, where he starred in tennis at Cape Central High School. But it was Lucian’s connection to Poland that spurred Cape Precision Machine’s development. For one, his father, Czeslaw, born in Poland in 1934 (just before the Soviet communist take-over), gained skills in tool-and-die making before escaping the Iron Curtain to the West. In 1962 Czeslaw met and married Lucian’s mom, Shirley, a Fulbright Scholar from Tennessee who was studying at the time in Hamburg, Germany. They were introduced because both sang opera — and Shirley was studying it. She would later gain her PhD in music from Washington University in St. Louis and teach from 1972-1984 at Southeast Missouri State University — which is how Lucian came to the area — before finishing her teaching career at Belmont University in Nashville from 1984-2001. Shirley also had a distinguished performance career with groups such as the General Electric Chorus and Detroit Symphony, and she and Czeslaw often performed together in Nashville. Lucian observed: “I did a lot of music growing up with my mom and dad, and then I discovered tennis.”

When Czeslaw and Shirley, now deceased, retired from careers in Nashville, they returned to Cape Girardeau as their favorite stop along the way. Czeslaw brought with him two tool-and-die machines, which were put into storage behind his house.

Doing something with those machines was on neither Lucian’s nor Molly’s minds. And then, God — and Poland — intervened. It was 2006, and Lucian was struggling at work. A few years prior, Molly’s stepfather had recruited Lucian from Procter & Gamble into an administrative role at a retirement home he owned. Although Lucian learned much, it was not a good fit. Stress was high, and he started to have trouble sleeping. Then Lucian learned his grandfather died in Poland. With the blessing of his wife, Lucian traveled to organize the funeral and oversee the disposition of his grandfather’s estate, something he had promised to his late father. It was quite an experience: emotionally, culturally and spiritually.

Altogether, Lucian was in Poland six weeks. During that time, he gave away most of his grandfather’s belongings to neighbors — including the bedsheets and coals stacked up for the furnace. “The people in that village just didn’t have much,” he said. “They could put it all to immediate use, and everyone was so grateful.” Hidden in the house he found several thousand American dollars, which he used to buy the best casket available, a headstone — and to organize a village-wide celebration of life.

“My father had told me that grandfather had hidden a lot of money inside the house — and to be sure to look for it,” Lucian said. “Most of it was old Soviet currency that no longer had any value.” The only tangible thing Lucian brought home was his grandfather’s clock, which he keeps in the company office.

But he also brought home an idea.

While in Poland, Lucian did a lot of waiting for legal matters to be finalized, and in this free time, he found himself going to an outlook over the Baltic Sea, where he prayed about the future and talked to Molly over long distance. Maybe it was proximity to his father’s upbringing, but he started to wonder if maybe there were a machinist path for him, too. He had inherited the two machines from his father — and he had a little experience on them as a young boy helping from time to time with his dad.

When he landed back in the States, his conviction was reaffirmed with stresses at the retirement home, so he resigned — and called his financial adviser: “How long do I have until I run out of money?” he asked.

“About six months,” he was told, “if you are disciplined.”

And so, together, he and his wife stepped out in faith, with him learning all he could about tool and die making. They’ve never looked back. What started as a business with little capital but a whole lot of heart has grown to nine employees and more than a half dozen CNC precision machines in a 3,600-square-foot machine shop. Next door they’ve constructed an 1,800-square foot building for welding and fabricating to keep the machine shop pristine. As business continued to grow, Molly, after years working as a registered nurse in a doctor’s office and then at Cottonwood Treatment Center and SoutheastHEALTH, joined the operation full time in 2015 as business manager.

Among their biggest prides is taking care of employees — and adding strong benefits over the years.

“We couldn’t originally afford good benefits,” Lucian said. “But now we have some of the best,” which is reflected in the longevity of those who work with Cape Precision Machines, he said. “Our employees are family to us.”

Taking care of customers is the other pride. Lucian and Molly talk about being there for their customers who may need help in an emergency. “For some of our big customers, who need a specialty part to keep a line running, we can create it right away and get them back up. That’s what led to our growth,” Lucian said. Once customers understand what they can do, it leads to more and more business, in emergency situations or not.

“We actually have a very defined customer type; not everyone needs our services, but for those who do, we’ve grown by word-of-mouth, including out of this area” Molly said.

Besides being able to manufacture, machine and fabricate products and parts in steel, aluminum, bronze and plastic, they repair conveyers, unit ops, gear boxes, mechanical drives and assemblies, idlers, rollers and more. They also provide specialty welding services and high-precision, surface grinding.

Precision is key to their work, and for that, Lucian said it takes training and experience. “If it were easy, everybody would be doing it. We have a great team here.”

Twenty years ago, if you asked the Zielinskis what they would be doing for their careers, it wouldn’t have been running their own production machine company. And yet, they are happy and grateful for the path God put them on.

“It’s not about being a billionaire or millionaire,” Lucian said. “It’s about attaining a good life, where you’re happy with what you’re doing, you’re doing business the right way, paying taxes and going to bed at night without worrying about how to make payroll tomorrow. It’s about family. Health. Relationships. And employees. We’re going to keep our feet on the ground, continue to invest in machines, grow our capability, take care of our customers… and continue to grow, God willing.”