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Spokane Valley-based niche contractor Inland Industrial & Rigging Inc. says it parlayed a string of federal government projects, combined with a mix of smaller private-sector jobs, into a strong 2010 revenue gain.
Inland Industrial's 2010 revenue was up more than 20 percent from 2009, says Bob Haskins, its president. In addition to a full-time staff of eight people, the company probably employed an average of about 32 temporary workers during the year.
Haskins says he expects the company to exceed its 2010 first -quarter revenues this year by about 15 percent, based on its current and upcoming project lineup. He says that he also expects the company to finish the year with another 15 percent to 20 percent growth in total revenue, from that of 2010.
The industrial and commercial contracting company's sharp upswing in business runs counter to the malaise that continues to affect much of the construction industry.
Haskins says the bulk of the company's work last year involved projects for the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, as well as work for Inland Northwest companies such as Spokane-based Avista Corp. and global engineering conglomerate CH2M Hill Inc., which has an office here.
Inland Industrial specializes in projects such as erecting the structural steel of large buildings and repairing, installing, or moving large pieces of equipment in dams, Haskins says.
In 2010, he says, the company was involved in several high-profile projects for the Department of Energy at the Hanford Site, about 170 miles southwest of Spokane, which brought in significant revenue.
One of those projects involved lifting and removing two five-feet-thick, 130-ton slabs of concrete that served as the lid of an 80-foot-deep underground tank at the nuclear-energy plant site, he says.
Haskins says the company worked on that project with Coffman Engineers Inc., of Spokane, which did the required engineering work in compliance with the DOE's standards. A Utah-based company cut the slab of concrete so Inland Industrial could lift the pieces of the lid out with a crane, he says.
While that project took about three months, finishing up early last spring, Haskins said his company currently is involved in about five other projects at Hanford.
"Projects at Hanford have been the bulk of our work" over the last year, Haskins says.
He says some of those projects at Hanford have required that his employees to go through several months of training to be able to work in areas with high-radiation contamination.
Other recent company jobs in the Northwest include expansion work on two hospitalsCascade Medical Center, in Leavenworth, Wash., and Central Valley Community Hospital, in Wenatchee, Wash.which both involved the construction of the building additions' steel support systems, Haskins says.
He says that on most structural steel erection jobs, Inland Industrial works as a subcontractor for the general contractor or construction manager of the project, but that for other jobs, such as the work at Hanford, the company is the general contractor.
Haskins founded Inland Industrial & Rigging in 2003, and it started out mostly doing work for the Army Corps of Engineers on the dams it owns and operates on the Snake and Columbia rivers. He says the company still works for the Corps at some of those sites, while also doing work at other dams. As one example, it recently rebuilt a 100-foot-wide gate at a Post Falls dam that's part of Avista's hydroelectric development there.
Another recent dam project Inland Industrial completed included repairs and modifications to the downstream navigation lock gate at the Lower Monumental Dam, on the Snake River, just south of Kahlotus, Wash., Haskins says.
Until about three years ago, he says, Inland Industrial also was the general contractor for the worldwide aluminum manufacturer Alcoa Inc.'s Wenatchee operations, as well as for Alcoa-Intalco Works, in Ferndale, Wash., doing everything from replacing windows to installing new equipment. Inland hasn't done any work for the company since then due to the economic climate, he says, which caused the aluminum product makers to halt further expansions.
The company typically works on projects across Washington and in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Colorado, and Wyoming. Inland Industrial has erected the structural steel for several big-box stores across the Northwest, including a Lowe's store in Littleton, Colo., and a Home Depot Inc. store in Liberty Lake, he says.
The steel building projects usually take place in three stages, Haskins says, starting with what he calls the raising gang, a group of workers who put up the initial pieces of steel, which is then followed by the second group, called the decking crew.
He says that stage involves laying out zigzag patterns of steel sheets that support the concrete floor of a second level or the roofing material, adding that in stores like Lowe's and Home Depot, those roof supports are usually visible. Last, a deck welding crew comes in to weld all the steel together and do any other final work, he says.
At Inland Industrial's office here, there are four full-time employees, as well as four superintendents who typically work outside the office managing the company's projects. For its various projects across the Northwest, Haskins says the company hires temporary skilled workers near its job sites.
"We will employ anywhere from six to 40 workers at any time, depending on the project," he says. "As the projects come around and we need to crew up, we pull the rest out of the unions, so we employ iron workers, laborers, pipe fitters, and operating engineers."
Depending on the type of project, he says the company will transport its specialized tools to the site, but it rents any mobile equipment, including cranes, from companies close to the job site.
"Since we do so many different projects, it's not feasible for us to own a particular type of crane because we use cranes ranging from seven to 200 tons (in capacity) or bigger. The biggest we've used could lift 450 tons."
Having worked in various industrial jobs for the past 25 or so years, Haskins says he enjoys working on challenging projects, such as the big concrete slab-raising project at Hanford.
"Those are the jobs we look for the most," he says. "Jobs where we have to come up with the concept from start to finish on how to get a project completed safely and efficiently."