The Spokane Valley-based Berg Cos. recently opened a Coeur d'Alene sales and marketing office and hopes to begin construction of a manufacturing facility in Post Falls before the end of the year, says Lindsey McDonough, company spokeswoman.

She says the company's new Coeur d'Alene office is located in a small space at 1100 Lakeshore Drive, and has six full-time employees.

By opening an office in North Idaho, the company says it will be able to apply to become a HUBZone small business, meaning it operates and employs people in an area designated by the federal government as a Historically Underutilized Business Zone. Such certification would give the Berg Cos. an advantage in competition to land manufacturing contracts from the federal government, says McDonough.

Berg Cos. currently is trying to land several contracts with the U.S. military, and will hold off on construction of its planned Post Falls facility, at 1881 Seltice Way, until it knows what specific items it will manufacture there. The Post Falls land is located in the Treaty Rock Corporate Center and is owned partly by Berg Cos.' owners, Andy Barrett and Craig Dolsby, says McDonough. She declines to discuss what items the company might manufacture there if it's awarded one or more of the military contracts and says it also is too early to estimate the size or cost of the plant.

Currently, the Berg Cos. operate a manufacturing facility and office here at 16124 E. Euclid, and its products include tents, dome shelters, protective covers, and large flexible fabric tanks for water that it calls pillow tanks. A sister company, Berg Integrated Systems, operates on the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation, in Plummer, Idaho, and manufactures expandable shelters and large fuel bladders.

The Berg Cos. employs about 70 full-time people and plans to hire additional people to work in the Post Falls facility when operations begin there, says McDonough.

She says the approximate number of new hires will depend on the size of the manufacturing contracts the company is awarded.

"It is exciting to be working with a company that is defying the odds and thriving in this current economic climate," says Barrett.

The Berg Cos. were founded here in 1883 under the name F.O. Berg Co., and that company was credited with building the large "Tent City" that provided temporary operating space for businesses and living space for some residents here after a decimating downtown fire in 1889.