Travis Brewer said he found the perfect place to grow his manufacturing business when he moved to Bulloch County last year and earlier this week his company – ShaloTek – received a $4 million award from the Small Business Administration that will accelerate his already ambitious plans.
“This grant is going to allow us to stand up a 15,000-square-foot expansion right next to our current plant,” Brewer said. “Instead of putting one or two machines in it at a time, by February, that whole new facility will be full again. It’s going to allow us to add more staff. It’s going to allow the staff that’s already here to continue to grow.”
ShaloTek specializes in precision machining that uses an automated manufacturing process where pre-programmed computer software directs factory tools and machinery for aerospace applications that demand accuracy, consistency and quality. Brewer said ShaloTek moved its operations to its 10,000-square-foot plant in Statesboro off Highway 301 North, just north of the airport, in June 2025.
Thursday afternoon, Kelly Loeffler, administrator for the U.S. Small Business Administration, toured the plant and spoke about the grant award for ShaloTek.
“It’s great to be here in Statesboro at ShaloTek, with the leadership team, with the founders of this incredible business in Bulloch County,” Loffler said. “This is what the Trump administration envisioned to make sure that we can make our own critical components, whether it’s defense, aerospace and even advanced robotics that we see happening here.”
Joining Loeffler for the tour, hosted by Brewer and Stuart Gregory, ShaloTek’s director of Business Development, were District 12 Congressman Rick Allen, Board of Regents member and local Realtor Everett Kennedy, State Sen. Billy Hickman and State Rep. Butch Parrish.
“We are a supplier to multiple firearm manufacturers, but the majority of our business is in the aerospace world, the defense world,” Brewer said. “We’re a second-step contractor for missile components.”
– photo by JIM HEALY/staff
On display during the tour were a series of components that make up the hand of a humanoid robot hand, Brewer pointed out, that are made using some of the plant’s 34 CNC – computer numerical control – machines outfitted with a range of robotic arms for precision and guided by ShaloTek’s highly-skilled workforce.
ShaloTek currently employs about 100 workers in the plant that operates three shifts over 24 hours, seven days a week. That has grown from a 1,000-square-foot plant Brewer and his business partner Matthew Genton opened in Savannah in 2021, producing 8,000 parts per month to the Statesboro operation producing 130,000+ parts per month.
While Brewer will be looking for a significant number of new employees for his new plant, perspective workers don’t necessarily have to come with all the skills they will need to operate the plant’s machinery and robotics.
“I would say 60% of the staff in this building had never touched a machine before they came in this building,” Brewer said. “I look for good people. I’ll take good people and we’ll train them up.”
And where do his employees get their training?
“People don’t understand, but Bulloch County is a hardcore pipeline for manufacturing,” Brewer said. “Ogeechee Tech, Georgia Southern are great. And as that becomes more known, it’s only going to get better. Ogeechee Tech’s Robotics Center is about to come on line. We’re sending 24 employees for training through that center over the next two years. We’ll be sending more in the future.”
– photo by JIM HEALY/staff
Getting started
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Brewer was working for his family’s business in Ocala, Fla., selling what he describes as law enforcement gear to counties, jails and other government entities.
But they were running into a serious problem – their supply chains were being disrupted and they didn’t have enough inventory, because what inventory was available was being sold to larger suppliers.
“My grandfather always told me you can’t sell from an empty wagon,” Brewer said. “That really hit me.”
It was then, he said, that he wanted to get into the manufacturing side of the business. His new friend Matthew Genton had just started working at Gulfstream and had a 1,000-square-foot shop on his property. He and Genton then co-founded ShaloTek and from that small shop started manufacturer precision parts for firearms and components for other equipment.
Brewer commuted between his home in Ocala and Savannah for a year and half. The partners then moved to a 5,000-square-foot space in Rincon and Brewer and his eight-months pregnant wife moved to Bulloch County.
Three years later, Brewer was looking to expand to a larger space and found his current spot in Statesboro.
The SBA Award
In the middle of August, Brewer said, he and his partners learned about the Critical Suppliers Prize Competition being run by the SBA with a total of $18 million dollars to a non-set number of companies. The awards would be aimed helping companies modernize equipment, expand production capacity and scale U.S.-based manufacturing of critical defense, aerospace, shipbuilding and advanced-materials component.
But with a deadline of Aug. 28, Brewer said he and his team put a proposal together quickly and submitted their plan at the deadline.
“And from there, we just went through a rigorous process,” Brewer said. “They called all of our referrals. I had to go through a big panel myself. We were just blessed to be one of the companies chosen.”
Brewer said his company’s plans are in direct alignment with what the SBA what the SBA is looking for in awarding the funds.
“I really appreciate what the SBA did with this award,” Brewer said. “They set a hard line. This is for CapEx. It’s not for OpEx. You can’t spend it on labor. They were really trying to make sure that you were going to push it into growth. So, this $4 million has to be spent on equipment only. We’re going to load up that new building.”
Brewer said the growth of the company is inspired by the company’s goal of continuing to create good jobs that pay well. And that lines up with the SBA’s goal, too, Loeffler said.
“Right here in Georgia, this is the type of operation that means that America not just has national security, but economic security,” she said. “And it’s great to see the lives of Georgians having been improved through economic opportunity, great paying jobs, and the opportunity to grow and work right here in the community where they reside.”
– photo by JIM HEALY/staff
