Interview with Alfredo Borrego

• Business

     Alco Machine Tool & Steel, Inc.   www.alcoep.com

• El Paso Times Article        PDF Format
• Interview Data
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Duration: 0h 21m 11s      download MP3      Technical Data

• Background Transcription
  This is an interview with Alfredo Borrego on February 13, 2009, in El Paso Texas by Steve Figueroa. This interview is part of the El Paso del Norte Entrepreneurs Oral History Project. SF: Mr. Borrego, when and where were you born? AF: I was born in El Paso, Texas, 1961, May 18th. I grew up in the Barrio of San Juan. SF: Did you grow up here in El Paso as well? AF: I've lived all my life, all 47 years, here in El Paso. Most of my life, I've lived in Central El Paso. SF: Who were your parents? AF: My parents, my dad was Hector Borrego and my mom is Francisca Zuniga Borrego. SF: What were their occupations Mr. Borrego? AF: My mom's always been a homemaker. My dad was a pool table and bowling alley mechanic. SF: Tell me about your education. AF: My education. Well, I went to elementary school at Hawkins Elementary, Ross Middle School, and I graduated from Burges High School in 1979. SF: What language was spoken at home during your childhood? AF: During my childhood the language that was spoken was mainly Spanish by my parents to us, but as we were growing up, me and my six siblings, we would speak Spanish and English. SF: Which language are you more comfortable with now? AF: Well, I am more comfortable in English, but I am also fairly comfortable in Spanish. SF: Did your parents or anyone in your family operate a business? AF: My dad had always been self employed, but he never did operate a business. He would be like a subcontractor to other companies, but no, no business operation in the family. SF: Did you feel that your father being self employed influenced you to start your own business? AF: It did. It did because, I remember, when I was a little kid, he would make me go out there and work with him. Not if I wanted to go – I had to go. That's how I got my mechanical inclination. As I was growing up, I always said this is the business that I can get myself into, or partner with my dad and make some type of pool table business out of it. But it never did materialize or happen. SF: What's your present name of your company? AF: My company is Alco Machine Tool & Steel Inc. SF: Describe your business. AF: My business is tied into industrial. I have a tool and die shop machine shop. It's a metal working company. SF: How many employees do you have? AF: Right now, we have a total of 9 employees. At one time, we had 15. At the current time we have 9. SF: What kind of products or services do you offer at your company? AF: What we do is industrial machine work. By that I mean we get raw material and metal and form it to the specifications that our clients specify through blue prints, through samples, through sketches, through telephone calls sometimes. SF: How old were you when you decided to start your own business? AF: It wasn't that "I decided to start a business." It was that an opportunity came by in 1990 when I was laid off from a maquiladora in Juarez. I ran into my ex-instructor from metal trades at El Paso Tech Center. He made me an offer to partner with him and work with him and hopefully we could build a company. That is where it started. It just evolved. SF: How many years have you been with your company? AF: This August will be 19 years that I've been working by myself with the company. _________________________________________________________________ For the rest of the interview transcript, please contact: Kristine Navarro-McElhaney Director of the Institute of Oral History University of Texas at El Paso knavarro@utep.edu