Critical Power Exchange LLC, a Spokane Valley-based recycler and reseller of backup-power equipment, has hired an additional 10 full-time employees and plans to expand its operations with two new locations in the next six months, says company spokesman Nicholas Peterson.

“Our board of directors has given us the okay to expand, so we are filling the current location,” Peterson says. 

Critical Power, which occupies a 55,000-square-foot space in the Spokane Business & Industrial Park, at 3808 N. Sullivan, now has 35 full-time and three part-time employees, Peterson says. The company specializes in acquiring, refurbishing, and reselling used backup diesel generators, power supply units, air conditioners, power distribution units, chillers, cooling towers, and raised access flooring.

“Our main scopes are data centers and backup generators to keep power running when natural disasters hit,” Peterson says. 

The company plans to open branches in San Jose, Calif., and Phoenix, Ariz., hopefully in the next six months, he says. Those cities have a large number of businesses that have the equipment Critical Power looks to acquire and refurbish, he says. 

The company has had significant revenue growth in recent years, Peterson says, although he declines to disclose figures. The company has been buying more equipment in the last few years, he says. Last year, Critical Power bought about $12 million in equipment, up from $8 million in 2011, he says. 

Critical Power acquires much of its equipment for refurbishing from businesses that are closing, consolidating, or growing. 

“We pay cash for equipment,” Peterson says. 

He adds, “We’ll have a company contact us and say they have a quote for $100,000 to have some equipment removed. Instead, we pay them for the equipment and remove it ourselves.”

The company claims that by refurbishing and selling the equipment, it offers its clients around 40 percent cost savings over buying equipment new from a manufacturer. 

“This equipment gets very expensive,” Peterson says. “Generators can get to six figures.”

 Critical Power buys and resells equipment in the commercial, retail, medical, and educational industries, and any other business sectors that need backup power systems, including data centers and Internet service providers, Peterson says. 

 “We work with one-and-two-guy operations up to Fortune 500 companies,” he says. 

Some of Critical Power’s most notable clients include Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., and Yahoo! Inc., among others, he says. 

Most of the company’s new employees were hired as project managers, Peterson says. Project managers contact companies about purchasing equipment, either over the phone or during site visits. 

In some cases, the company send its representatives to companies to check out equipment and give a quote for acquiring it, Peterson says, but it also contracts third parties to do this as well.