Being an independent small business could mean big things for MXL Industries Inc.

Senior management recently bought a majority of the firm for $5.2 million from its former owner, giving MXL a new status that should bode well for its future.

"Our parent company (National Patent Development Co.) was nothing but supportive. We had a good, healthy relationship," said MXL's Jim Eberle today.

"But it just makes sense for us to be a private company, with our size and what we do," he said.

MXL is a 70-employee maker of optical quality plastic products such as motorcycle helmet visors, fighter pilot visors and industrial respirator lenses.

A specialist in injection molding and coating of polycarbonate and acrylic parts, produced to customer specifications, MXL posted worldwide sales of $9.2 million last year.

As an independent firm, MXL will be run by local management, "the people who work here every day," said Eberle, its president and chief operating officer since 2004.

Being independent also makes MXL clearly a small business, its size and wherewithal no longer swelled by being a wholly owned subsidiary of National Patent.

That makes MXL eligible for government contracts, funding and job-training initiatives earmarked for small business.

And as a private firm, it will be spared the roughly $10,000 annual cost of complying with federal financial-reporting requirements that it faced as part of publicly held National Patent.

All those factors make Eberle upbeat about the future of the 1764 Rohrerstown Road firm, located south of East Petersburg.

Illustrating that optimism, MXL anticipates its work force reaching 80 by year-end, with sales this year expected to reach or exceed $10 million.

In addition, it has a "very preliminary plan" to replace its 50,000-square-foot building with a new plant of 100,000 square feet, capable of being enlarged to 150,000 square feet.

The $10 million project, which MXL would have contemplated even if it stayed part of National Patent, would be constructed in the Lancaster area, said Eberle.

"We'd stay very local. We don't want to lose any of our talented work force. ... We've got something special going on here," he said.

Joining Eberle in the new ownership group are vice presidents Bryan Bess, Sean Bitts, Jude Krady, Manny Rodriguez and Larry Swonger, as well as MXL founder Jerome Feldman, who no longer is part of MXL management.

The June 15 deal left National Patent with a 19.9 percent stake in MXL.

Established in 1968, MXL twice has been named to the Team Pennsylvania Foundation's "100 Best Places to Work" list.

Staff writer Tim Mekeel can be reached at tmekeel@LNPnews.com or 481-6030.