Tim Spilker, former president of a prominent masonry company here, says he has bought the assets of an architectural-concrete manufacturing concern and has formed a new entity through which he'll run the renamed operation.

He acquired the assets of Conover Concrete Products Inc., at 4231 E. Queen in the Hillyard neighborhood, for an undisclosed sum, and the new company he created, Spilker Precast LLC, now owns and occupies Conover Concrete's 10,000-square-foot structure and two acres of land there.

Spilker Precast is doing business as Conover/Spilker Precast for now, and former Conover Concrete owner John Darrow will remain with the company for two years to help with the ownership transition, Spilker says.

Spilker Precast added five employees to the Conover Concrete staff, bringing the total staff to 10 employees, and Spilker says he hopes to hire more employees as the economy improves.

Conover Concrete has been in business for 50 years, supplying architectural precast sills, copings, and masonry heads in the Inland Northwest. Sills, copings, and masonry heads are pieces that often are integrated into masonry projects to provide protective caps, functional surfaces, or esthetic accents, Spilker says.

He also says Spilker Precast is a new licensee of Minneapolis-based ReCon Retaining Wall Systems Inc.'s wet-cast big-block manufacturing systems. ReCon's system produces masonry blocks that have the appearance and durability of natural stone, he says.

Spilker Precast will manufacture the concrete blocks here, and Spilker says he expects them to become one of the company's biggest-selling products.

Spilker was president of Spilker Masonry Co., of Spokane, for more than 20 years before leaving the company in 2009, he says. His father, Ken, founded that company in 1954, and it's currently headed by Spilker's brothers, Michael and Matthew.