When Kent Williamson and S.D. Meeks launched K.D. Steel Inc. in August 1988, the Spokane company had the humblest of beginnings.


We started up with a $200 pickup, and we slept on the job sites for the first couple of years, says Williamson, who, as his own boss, was putting to the test skills hed learned in 15 years as an iron worker.


In those days, Williamson worked in the field, while Meeks did the bookssometimes staying up until 2 a.m. to complete payroll after working as a receptionist at her day job.


At times, she put money from her paycheck into the company, which now has its offices at 7004 N. Altamont. The married couple say they borrowed money against their house at times to keep K.D. Steel afloat. Not every year did we make money, says Williamson, whos 55.


Today, K.D. Steel employs 60 people, down from a historical high of 75 last fall. The company, which supplies and erects steel frameworks for buildings, racked up sales of $20.5 million last year, nearly double its $11 million in revenues in 2002. In 2001, its sales were $10.3 million, and were $4.7 million in 2000.


In March 2002, K.D. Steel launched a sister company, ONeill Steel Fabrication Inc., which had sales of $2.9 million in 2003, up from $500,000 in its first year. ONeill Steel, which already has become profitable, employs an additional 22 workers and does business in a newer 18,000-square-foot steel-fabrication shop on a 13-acre site at Elk, Wash.


So far this year, weve got a good year going, Williamson says.


His son, Sage Williamson, the companys vice president of operations, says, Its safe to say that this spring is looking better than last spring. Its hard to say for the rest of the year because markets can fluctuate.


From the outset, K.D. Steel has worked on projects far from home. The company has helped erect scores of big retail stores for such major chains as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp., Home Depot Inc., Lowes Cos., and Fred Meyer, now part of Kroger Co.


Its a pretty awesome success story, Sage Williamson says.


The company built the framework for the 360,000-square-foot U.S. Postal Service annex near Spokane International Airport and for the U.S. Navys largest military commissary and base exchange, at Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii, Kent Williamson says. He says K.D. Steel is capable of erecting frames for buildings as large as 1 million square feet, is licensed to do business in 11 Western states and Hawaii, and while working on one hospital addition erected steel that stood seven stories tall.


Among Spokane-area contractors, K.D. Steel has done jobs for Vandervert Construction Inc., Citadel Construction Inc., Walker Construction Inc., and others.


Says Williamson, We love putting iron up.


He asserts that doing that faster than anyone else, and safely, along with a willingness to work from daylight to dark, seven days a week, has made K.D. Steel successful.


The company both supplies steel and erects it, eliminating scheduling-coordination problems for general contractors who otherwise might have to work with one subcontractor to procure steel for a building and another to erect the steel. Having one subcontractor fill both of those roles can eliminate scheduling snafus and back charges, which occur when steel, which is precut before being shipped, doesnt fit and has to be recut on the job site.


By supplying its own steel, K.D. Steel also can save markup and double markup that otherwise can be slapped on the metal as it changes hands, says Ed Sonneborn, K.D. Steels vice president of sales and marketing.


The company buys its steel from vendors such as Haskins Steel Co., of Spokane, and Seaport Steel, of Seattle, and then we fab it up, put all the clips on it that you need so it can be erected, paint it, and send it out to the job site, Williamson says. The paint is a primer that deters rust and often is red in color, hence the term red iron, which structural steel often is called.


The fabrication shop cuts pieces of structural steel to length and welds clips of plate steel or angle iron to the steel pieces where theyll be needed to help support the structure. Sometimes the pieces of structural steel are bolted together. The fabrication work must be done as precisely as possible to meet engineering specifications and so the erection of the steel goes swiftly. When the steel arrives on the job site, contractors already will have anchor bolts set in the buildings main footings so K.D. Steels crew can bolt vertical columns in place and begin erecting the steel.


One of the reasons K.D. Steel started ONeill Steel Fabrication is that it does so much steel-erection work it wanted to have its own fabrication shop to help meet its needs. Yet, ONeill Steel cant keep up with K.D. Steels steel-erection activity, Kent Williamson says. Another son of his, Wade Williamson, is a foreman in the fabrication shop, and Meeks son, Kris, is a welder-fitter there.


While K.D. Steel could look at starting other ventures that would be related to its principal line of work, it has nothing like that planned right now, Williamson says.


Because it casts its net so widely to do jobs, the company to a certain extent depends on the health of the national economy for business. Sage Williamson says that after having done lots of jobs for big retailers, K.D. Steel is starting to see the countrys office and industrial markets rebound.


Also, the company anticipates that its business will continue to grow. It certainly didnt expect to almost double its sales last year, but added people to accommodate that growth as it occurred, Kent Williamson says. While the company doesnt expect that its sales will grow that fast again this year, it will do what it needs to do to accommodate further growth, he says.


Were growing too fast, everybody tells us, he says. He adds that eventually, the company could expand into other areas of the country.


K.D. Steels workers put in about 60 hours a week. Theyre paid $15 to $20 an hour, plus per diem to meet expenses while theyre away from home, Williamson says. The company offers a full range of benefits, including health-care coverage and a 401(k) retirement plan, he says.


Williamson, who more than once in K.D. Steels early days washed up under a shower hed rigged up by stringing a hose and nozzle over a piece of equipment on a job site, says the companys crews stay in nice motels now. Those are far better accommodations than the sleeping bag he threw out on a mattress in a camper shell on the back of his $200 pickup when he and Meeks launched the company.


He remembers that on the companys first job, which was the erection of a new Albertsons supermarket in Blackfoot, Idaho, the baker at the old Albertsons store nearby would bring a pan of cinnamon rolls out to the job site at mid-morning.


We had to have a break about then, he recalls with a smile.


Meeks has a legacy of hard work in her own background. She grew up buckin hay (bales) and movin sprinkler pipe on farms in the Shoshone, Idaho, area, in the southern part of the state. She has worked on K.D. Steels job sitesand has a pink hard hat to wear when shes on the job site.


Williamson, asked whether he and Meeks ever expected K.D. Steel to grow to such size when they started the company, says, Never.


It isnt stopping, either, Sage Williamson says.