Nothing but boat trailers. For nearly 50 years, that tight focus has kept Spokane-based EZ Loader Boat Trailers Inc. successfully cutting sometimes choppy seas, company officials say. Now with a generally healthy U.S. economy and a strong market for boats, EZ Loader has boosted employment, increased production, and added to its distribution network.


We really decided the marine area was where to focus, says Rick Norman, the companys sales and marketing manager. We wanted to be the best in one area, not diversified into lots of areas.


EZ Loader claims to be the largest trailer manufacturer that makes only boat trailers. In addition to its main manufacturing campus here, the company owns seven assembly and distribution centers around the country.


To make shipping more efficient, EZ Loader makes trailer components here, then ships the unassembled trailers to those centers as well as directly to a network of independently owned distributors throughout the U.S. and Canada, where they are put together and sold to nearby retailers.


Each facility is fairly unique, Norman says. Independently owned sites and several company-owned sites merely bolt together the Erector set-like metal parts produced at the Spokane facility to make adjustable trailers that can accommodate boats of various sizes. EZ Loader plants in Tennessee and Arkansas also weld those parts together to form custom trailers for particular boats, and a company plant in Florida makes aluminum and galvanized trailers.


EZ Loaders network of company-owned assembly facilities has grown in the last year and half with the acquisition of three previously independent distributors in Woodinville, Wash.; Portland, Ore.; and Sacramento, Calif., from an owner who wanted to retire, Norman says.


EZ Loaders owners, Randy Johnson and Dave Thielman, also own Amrad Products & Supply Co. and Spokane Galvanizing Inc., both located on the West Plains here. Amrad makes brakes and snowmobile trailers, and the galvanizing company prepares metal used by Amrad and EZ Loader, Norman says.


The trio of companies employs about 160 people in the Spokane area, although employment tends to vary by season, he says.


Norman says EZ Loaders employment has been growing in the last two years and now is at about 100, up about 15 from last year. The company employs about 180 people nationwide.


EZ Loader produced about 50,000 trailers last year, up from the 32,000 it made five years earlier, Norman says. He says production has been growing every year. Our goal is to make more trailers than we did last year, and we always meet that goal, he says.


That wasnt once the case, though, as the company weathered the ups and downs of the marine market. In 1988, EZ Loader made about 63,000 trailers to accommodate rocketing pleasure-boat sales, but the boomingsome said overinflatedboating industry went soft after that, and EZ Loaders production declined for several years, before beginning to climb again. By the mid-90s, low inflation, low interest rates, and reasonable fuel prices helped to propel the marine industry out of its slump.


Norman attributes recent growth to the general health of the economy, which has provided the discretionary income for people to buy boats and thus boat trailers. Norman says the bulk of EZ Loaders revenue comes from the sale of mid-sized trailers that can handle boats of 15 to 22 feet in length, although it also sells trailers for boats both smaller and larger than that.


One of its newest products, and so far the only trailer EZ Loader sells directly to customers rather than through distributors, is a trailer small enough that it can be shipped via United Parcel Service. The galvanized trailer, which can carry a boat up to 14 feet long, is being sold through EZ Loaders web site at www.ezloader.com, and the unassembled parts are sent directly to the customers door, Norman says.


Building a trailer


The construction of boat trailers starts with truckloads of raw steel, mostly in the form of steel tubes, which arrive at EZ Loaders manufacturing campus at 717 N. Hamilton, Norman says. EZ Loaders operations here occupy several buildings on both sides of Hamilton, and the steel is unloaded at the building on the east side of Hamilton, where the manufacturing process starts.


There, stacks of steel tubes are cut to length with a band saw, then sent along to subsequent stations where, with some bending, drilling, punching, and welding, they begin to look like the parts of a trailer that could cradle a boat.


For some of the repetitive welding needed to create thousands of identical parts, EZ Loader uses a robot, whose mechanical arm can be programmed to repeat the same steps over and over, Norman says. The company employs human welders for less monotonous tasks.


The completed metal pieces then are shotblasted, a process similar to sandblasting in which tiny steel pellets are sprayed at high pressure against the parts. This process removes oxidation, residue, and any other blemishes on the metals surface. It also slightly roughens the surface so finishes will stick better, Norman says.


Boat trailers need a good protective coating so theyll hold up to tough marine environments. EZ Loader uses either galvanized metal or applies a powder-coating finish to each part.


For the finishing process, the parts are attached to an overhead chain that moves along through various stations. The dangling parts are cleaned further at these stations with several solutions, then are dusted with the powder-coating particles and are carried into large ovens that bake the powder coating onto the parts. The parts, still hanging from the chain, wend their way from the ovens to a cooling tunnel, the skywalk-like structure that arches over Hamilton Street and connects the two sides of EZ Loaders campus.


In EZ Loaders main building on the west side of the street, the pieces that will make up the frames of boat trailers are either bolted together to be shipped to nearby distributors or retailers, or are shipped off in compact stacks to other facilities around the country where they will be assembled.


Here EZ Loader also assembles its torsion axle suspension system, which replaces conventional springs in about half of EZ Loaders trailers. Norman says the system, which uses shock-absorbing rubber instead of springs, is similar to what is used in Airstream camping trailers.


Rubber rods are placed in a cryogenic unit that chills them to minus 233 degrees, a temperature that shrinks the rubber so the rods are smaller in diameter. The shrunken rods are installed around and parallel to the axle, and as they warm, they expand to their original size to provide suspension, Norman says.


EZ Loader has been building trailers since the early 1950s when Larry Johnson and William Thielman, the fathers of the current owners, founded the company. The business grew out of sideline work done at a Hillyard auto body shop. In the early 60s, Johnson developed a roller system that made loading a boat easier, and the innovation helped propel the company to the forefront of the industry. Norman says the research-and-development department at EZ Loader still continuously is trying new things and ensuring that new features will do what the company claims they will.