Pensacola Winnelson opens in Florida Panhandle
Dayton, Ohio — WinWholesale has opened Pensacola Winnelson Co. in Pensacola, Fla., to provide plumbing contractors in northwest Florida and southwest Alabama with a complete line of equipment, parts and accessories.
Marty McCrory is president of the new company, which has shared ownership with local shareholders and WinWholesale. McCrory has been in the plumbing wholesaling business in the Pensacola area for 30 years.
“We believe Florida continues to be a market where the WinWholesale business model does very well,” said Monte Salsman, WinWholesale chief operating officer. “We’re very pleased to have Marty McCrory and his experienced team providing their expertise and quality products to customers.”
The company’s product lines include American Standard, Mansfield, A. O. Smith, Moen, Delta and Charlotte, among others.
WinWholesale has more than 470 local companies across the U.S. in addition to more than 70 Noland Company locations, mainly in the Southeast. Noland Company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of WinWholesale.
Visit www.winwholesale.com.
Taco’s WorkShare initiative prominently mentioned in article on White House Jobs Summit
Cranston, R.I. – Taco Inc. was highlighted in a widely reported Associated Press story on the recent White House Jobs Summit. The company’s successful attempts to avoid laying off any workers during the downturn this year was discussed at some length in the article.
The AP article focused on strategies that companies can undertake to create and preserve jobs. The first of four examples cited in the article concerned Taco’s experience. Rather than lay off experienced workers during the course of this year, Taco elected to carry out a layoff avoidance strategy called WorkShare, whereby workers worked a day less each week and made up much of the difference in lost salary with unemployment compensation. WorkShare also allowed workers at Taco to keep their benefits intact.
The WorkShare effort affected almost 300 Taco production employees in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and was carried out in conjunction with the R.I. Dept. of Labor & Training and the Mass. Dept. of Workforce Development. “WorkShare has allowed us to make the best out of a difficult situation,” commented Taco senior vice president-human resources Kyle Adamonis. “It makes it possible for us to keep our valued employees and maintain our production, although at the slightly diminished level dictated by our circumstances.”
Taco CEO and president John Hazen White Jr. has long maintained that his workers are his most important obligation, even beyond his customers. “Taco employees are my number one priority,” he said, “because they are the key to our success.”
Rhode Island employers, in addition to Taco, have used WorkShare to avert the equivalent of 5,800 layoffs through October of this year, the AP article stated, adding that 17 states now participate in some version of the program.
Visit www.taco-hvac.com.
Specified Fittings acquires division of KWH Pipe
Bellingham, Wash. — Specified Fittings has acquired the HDPE solid wall fitting division of KWH Pipe. This acquisition triples Specified’s HDPE production capabilities and broadens the line both dimensionally and configuration wise. The production equipment will be relocated from Saskatoon, Sask., to Bellingham, Wash. The equipment has IPS, DIPS and metric capabilities with some machinery able to produce fittings through 54 “ and 500 mm. Much of the new machinery has crossover capabilities that will enhance the PVC/CPVC side of Specified’s product line. All machinery will be operational within 30 days, allowing for quicker turn around and greater product breadth.
Specified’s product line includes but is not limited to fittings and appurtenances for:
- Solid Wall HDPE — IPS; DIPS; CTS; Metric DRs 32.5 – 5; 3/4- 63"
- PIP — SDRs 102 - 21; 4"- 48"
- CIOD — DRs 51-14; 4"- 48"
- Sewer — SDR35; SDR26; SDR14 ; 3"- 48"
- Profile — A-2000™; Corr-21™; Korflo™; Perma-Loc™; Pro-21™; Ultra-Corr™; Ultra-Rib™; Vylon™; 4”- 60”
- IPS — Class pipe SDRs 64-17; Sch. 40; Sch. 80; Sch. 80 CPVC; Sch. 120; 1/8”- 24”
- Corrugated HDPE — 4”- 60”
- Gated — 6"- 12"
- Duct — PVC; CPVC; 4" - 36"
- Heat and Air — 6"- 20"
- Basins — Drain Basins; Inline Drains; Curb Inlets; 6"- 48"
- Fittings — Fittings for Yelomine ™; Certa-Loc™; Spirolite™
- Containment — Double containment piping and fittings 1/2"- 63"
- Specialties — Spooling; Headers; Valves; Grooving; Threading; Tapping; Bending; Tanks; Manholes.
Production of unique, use specific and OEM fittings are also a component of the overall line.
Its previous acquisitions of Professional Fiberglass, Norcor, Infutech, New Plastics, Total Poly, coupled with this latest acquisition, have allowed Specified Fittings to continue operating by their guiding principle of producing in-house the fabricated fittings and components the company sells.
Specified Fittings is headquartered in Bellingham, Wash., with manufacturing plants in Bellingham and Tacoma, Wash., and warehousing in Oakland, Calif.; Preston, Idaho; Dallas and Lubbock, Texas; Springfield, Ill.; Orlando, Fla.; Kearney, Neb., and Atlanta, Ga. They are one of the largest fabricators of HDPE, PVC, CPVC and exotic plastics in North America, serving the municipal water and sewer, storm water, industrial, mining, oil & gas, agricultural, plumbing, golf, HVAC, environmental and road construction markets.
F.W. Webb to build facility
Springfield, Mass. — F.W. Webb Co. has announced plans to locate at the Springfield Smith & Wesson Industrial Park in East Springfield, Mass., and will invest about $9 million in the project, which will create approximately 40 jobs.
F.W. Webb will purchase 14.3 acres at the city-owned industrial park for $1 million to build a distribution center and showroom in two phases, costing about $8 million. Each phase will be about 65,000 square feet.
The industrial park is located on Performance Boulevard, off Roosevelt Avenue.
F.W. Webb is one of the largest distributors of plumbing, heating, cooling, and piping products in the Northeast and will become the second tenant of the industrial park.
The company will initially employ about 20 people and is expecting to at least double the workforce over the next few years, said Edward J. Welch, F.W. Webb’s regional manager in Methuen.
Construction is expected to begin in the spring.
The company will continue to operate smaller plants in Northampton and Greenfield, and is also opening new sites in Hyannis and Boston.
Welch said the location offers great access to Interstate 291 and the Massachusetts Turnpike.
Progress Supply moves corporate offices
Cincinnati — Progress Supply Inc., a leading southwest Ohio air conditioning, refrigeration and controls wholesaler, has moved their corporate offices to 1201 Harrison Avenue in the Brighton-West End area of Cincinnati. The company purchased a two-story, 8,500-square-foot former bank building that was built in 1920. Progress Supply’s former location will continue to house their store and warehouse.
“Our former location was inadequate for our needs,” said president and CEO Mark Faessler. “Despite stagnant sales due to the recession, we knew we needed to plan for the future once the downturn ends. Moving our corporate office people made sense from a productivity standpoint as well. We also knew we wanted to be close to our current Cincinnati warehouse location and, after five months of negotiation, we closed the deal on the property before it was scheduled for demolition. We wanted a first-class office facility for our customers and our staff so we made a significant investment for the future and brought in the Cincinnati firm RSL Architects and the Dayton-based Miller-Valentine Corporation to completely redesign and upgrade the entire building.”
In addition to housing corporate staff personnel, the new office also has a large training room on the second floor. Plus, they have installed a new digital telephoned system throughout all their locations that features desk-to-desk dialing and opens up phone lines for easier customer access.
Progress Supply is a full-line wholesaler of Emerson Climate Technologies and provides HVAC products to customers in over 60 counties in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia from sales locations in Cincinnati, Columbus and Dayton, Ohio.
BLÜCHER now part of Watts Water Technologies
Spindale, N.C. — BLÜCHER North America is now part of the Watts Water Technologies family. Formerly sold under the BLÜCHER-Josam name, BLÜCHER North America will continue to offer its extensive line of stainless steel drain, shower, channel and pipe products. The BLÜCHER product offering will compliment the extensive line of drainage products currently offered by Watts.
Founded in 1965, BLÜCHER is an established worldwide leader in stainless steel drainage & pipe solutions with 45 years experience. Core products include push-fit pipe and fittings, shower/bath drains for premium commercial and residential applications, and drain and channel products for wide ranging commercial and industrial applications.
BLÜCHER North America will be based in Spindale, N.C., and Burlington, Ont. For more information on BLÜCHER products, request literature F-B-Drainage Specialist by calling 800/617-3274 or visiting www.blucherdrains.com in the U.S. or www.blucherdrains.ca in Canada.