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Metal Shop Withstands Test of Time: Employment, Sales Soar for 116-Year-Old Milwaukee Boiler

Posted on: Wednesday, 15 March 2006, 03:03 CST

By Rick Barrett, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Mar. 15--In 1890, the first entirely steel-framed building was built in Chicago, rubber gloves were used for the first time in surgery, and Milwaukee Boiler Manufacturing Co. was in business on the city's south side.

One hundred and sixteen years later, the company has survived the Great Depression, numerous recessions, wars, industrial shakeouts and its own bankruptcies.

Still located on the south side, on S. 41st St. near W. National Ave., the company now known as Milwaukee Boiler International LLC recently tripled its employment and sales. The metal fabrication shop also has tackled one of its biggest projects in making equipment for ethanol refineries.

When finished, each piece of tube-shaped equipment will be 70 feet long, nearly 14 feet in diameter and weigh 280,000 pounds. The equipment will be shipped to an ethanol plant in North Dakota.

Ethanol, usually made from corn, is blended with gasoline and used as automobile fuel. Wisconsin has four ethanol plants, and several others are on the drawing board.

Milwaukee Boiler leased a 53,000-square-foot factory in West Allis so that it could accommodate the ethanol equipment orders.

"We signed a five-year lease, so we are serious about filling that plant with work," said Jim Eaton, Milwaukee Boiler's general manager.

The company was family-owned for decades. It fell on hard times in the late 1990s and was forced into bankruptcy. The current owners, including Milwaukee businessman Roe Combs, bought Milwaukee Boiler and revived it after a shutdown that lasted for months.

Since then, "We have had steady growth for seven years," Eaton said.

Three years ago, Milwaukee Boiler had $1 million in annual sales. Last year, sales were $5 million.

"This year, hopefully, we will have somewhere between $5 million and $10 million" in sales, Eaton said. The company has tripled its employment, from 15 to 45 employees, and is still hiring.

Metal fabrication shops, similar to dairy farms, have been a quiet but formidable force in Wisconsin's economy.

It's not uncommon to find shops that have been in business for decades, said Terry Egan of the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association, a Rockford, Ill.-based trade group with more than 1,400 members.

"A lot of these old companies started in somebody's garage," Egan said. "Usually, they were set up near the steel mills, the auto industry or some other manufacturing plant" that needed metal cut, welded or shaped for certain products.

It's common for the shops to have 45 or fewer employees, Egan said. Yet, like small dairy farms, many small metal shops are fading from the landscape.

Competitive pressures and the cost of technology have taken their toll on the industry. The overall number of metal fabrication companies is way down from years ago, Egan said.

But for some of the survivors, the current business climate is strong. The surge in construction of ethanol refineries, for example, has generated millions of dollars in sales for Wisconsin companies that make stainless steel equipment.

In some cases, metal fabrication shops have turned away work because they're so busy cutting, welding and shaping ethanol tanks.

Currently, Milwaukee Boiler is operating two work shifts. Some of the senior employees have been with the company for 40 years. It has been difficult to find enough skilled workers, such as welders, and the company is continually hiring.

Some of the work under way at Milwaukee Boiler is unusual, even for a metal fabrication shop that prides itself on being versatile. One project, for example, is to rebuild the boiler from a steam-powered railroad locomotive. It was last used on the Snow Train, a tourist attraction operated in the winter near Baraboo.

Besides Milwaukee Boiler, there weren't many shops that could handle the job of inspecting and repairing the antique locomotive boiler, said Don Meyer, manager of the Mid-Continent Railway Museum in North Freedom.

The boiler, which weighs tens of thousands of pounds, underwent ultrasound testing for cracks and defects. Then it was sent to Milwaukee Boiler for further inspection and repairs.

"When this thing is put back in operation, it's operating under such extreme pressure and temperatures, you have to make sure the welded seams are going to hold," Meyer said.

Milwaukee Boiler has benefited from a boom in the mining-equipment industry, including steel fabrication work from the nearP&H Mining Equipment. It also has done well with orders from farm-equipment manufacturers such as John Deere Co.

"We do whatever we can get our hands on," Eaton said. "The overall economy is better than it was a year ago, and we were doing well then, too."

Milwaukee Boiler went through two bankruptcies in the 1990s and survived a fire that swept through its plant in 1993. The previous owners could not recover from business problems that stretched them to their limits, Eaton said. But some of the customers lost during the bankruptcies and shutdown have since returned.

"We are pretty much booked with orders through the end of the year," Eaton said. "I think the outlook is good for the next couple of years. It's really up to us now. The potential is there."

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Copyright (c) 2006, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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