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Cd'A Metals to Open Outlet in Montana

Posted on: Monday, 29 August 2005, 03:01 CDT

Cd'A Metals, a Spokane-based distributor of steel and aluminum, plans to open its fourth "convenience-store" outlet, this one in Missoula, Mont., in September.

The company opened a similar store two years ago in Pasco, Wash., but closed it June 15.

Separately, the 121-year-old company says it has expanded its product mixand completely has offset a loss of revenue and jobs triggered by a decision in 2002 to get out of metal fabrication, says Jim Coulson, president and CEO.

Earlier this week, Cd'A Metals held an auction to sell off its fabricating equipment, tools, and related rolling stock.

In addition to its headquarters at 3900 E. Broadway here, Cd'A Metals, which employs a total of 75 workers; operates what it calls a convenience store adjacent to its main building, as well as similar stores in Wenatchee, Wash., and in Dalton Gardens, Idaho, near Coeur d'Alene.

At its convenience stores, commercial and residential customers can buy small quantities of pre-cut metal products.

Coulson says the company shed 28 jobs when "the energy crisis" drove it out of the fabrication business, which accounted for 30 percent of its overall revenue at the time. Power shortages that shut down Pacific Northwest aluminum smelters and the earlier closure of Northwest Alloys Inc., in Addy, Wash., "delivered a critical blow to us," he says.

He adds, however, that about the same number of workers the company dropped have been hired back as Cd'A Metals has expanded its steel and aluminum distribution volume and broadened its product line to include copper, brass, and stainless steel. It also now sells lines of ornamental iron products to home builders and home owners.

"We buy a lot of product from steel mills within the U.S. and offshore," Coulson says.

Cd'A Metals, which operates 11 trucks, delivers its products throughout the Inland Northwest, to its convenience stores and directly to customers such as manufacturers, machine shops, fabricators, sawmills, mines, construction companies, and agricultural concerns.

Upon request, the company will do some work on the metal it sells, such as cutting and shaping beams, rods, pipes, angles, and plates, but it no longer will do fabrication-related work such as engineering, welding, rolling, or drilling.

The company still owns the largest press brake between Seattle and Minneapolis, asserts Coulson.

He declines to disclose revenue figures, but says sales have about doubled in the past three years. Coulson tempers that by saying, "Anyone in our distribution business can say the same thing, because the price of steel has doubled in the same time." Yet, he says, "We are a very healthy company."

Cd'A Metals, which is formally called The Coeur d'Alenes Co., has undergone many changes since it was founded in 1884.

In 1966, a merger with Union Iron Works, of Spokane, triggered a period when the company built steel bridges and fabricated massive satellite dishes for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Jet Propulsion Laboratory and 1,600-foot-high radio towers for the U.S. Navy.

Copyright Northwest Business Press Inc. Jul 28, 2005

Source: Journal of Business; Spokane

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