Q&A with Jim Coulas Sr. ...
PVF industry salutes Weldbend’s Jim Coulas Sr.

BY MORRIS R. BESCHLOSS
PVF and economic analyst

If there was such an award as the PVF manufacturing entrepreneur of the past half century, it would be awarded hands down to Jim Coulas Sr., founder/owner and CEO of Weldbend.

In this day and age, traditional values like dominant leadership, courageous fighters for “buy American,” and putting quality and service before price sometimes seem like relics of the past. Coulas not only continues to successfully fight and win this battle, but continues to grow Weldbend at the ripe young age of 92, which he celebrates this month.

A month doesn’t go by anymore that I don’t hear Jim’s report that Weldbend has set another new record. Despite a broken leg, he and son Jim have piloted their plane to Los Angeles, where they bought specialized equipment to continue their massive plant’s automation process. This not only makes them more cost-effective against foreign competition, but keeps quality assurance in house, rather than depending on outside sources.

While nondescript imports have become the vogue in many similar businesses, Weldbend has become not only the premier name in carbon steel weld fittings, but is also one of the most recognized and honored trade names in the pvf sector in general.

Life wasn’t always at the top of the heap for Jim. In our many conversations, the Weldbend ceo constantly pays homage to the many industry friends and suppliers who helped him up the success ladder. Such names as Albert Fishbein, managing partner of Acme Valve & Fittings; Herbie Block, whom Coulas calls the best industry salesman ever; and Dave Glickman of J. Klein Plumbing Company, came up frequently as those who gave him a leg up when it was needed in his long industry career.

The transition from warehousing and distribution and manufacturing occurred in the mid-1980s, when Coulas bought a huge tract of land adjacent to the company warehouse at 6600 S. Harlem in Chicago. Today, Weldbend occupies 300,000+ square feet of manufacturing and warehousing facilities on 36+ acres of land, where the comprehensive line of Weldbend product is manufactured.

Through a judicious advertising/marketing program and a singular price structure, Weldbend has gained the respect of distributors, mechanical contractors, specifying engineers and industrial users alike.

By consistent profitability and a resultant adequate cash flow, Coulas has financed his growth internally.

This has also allowed the maintenance of inventories to take advantage of the tidal wave of demand that has swept the pvf sector in the last three years.

He has been backed up for the past 25 years by son, Jim Coulas Jr., and now several grandchildren. In addition to his wife, who continues to keep business records, two offices ladies, Mildred Hynes and Pat Magda, have been with the company for 40 years. Obviously, the generational continuity is well assured.

Jim Sr. is especially proud of the latest equipment acquired, which includes 10 automatic lathes that make flanges through 5 inches. One man supervises all the machines, which automatically load, machine and expel the finished flange unaided. Additionally, Weldbend also features two big lathe machines, which allow the company to manufacture flanges up to 48 inches with a 600-pound capacity.

To get more of the inside info that makes Weldbend tick, we’re pleased to include the following Q&A with our friend and industry associate, James Coulas Sr.

Beschloss: Jim, your illustrious past has included such diverse interests as coal distribution, plumbing supplies, musical band leader and piloting a single engine airplane. What single event stands out as being the most formative in putting you on the successful path you’re on today?

Coulas: I think the most formative event was meeting Herbie Block and going to Neenah, Wis., to buy the first lot of soil pipe, for which we paid $25,000, and which they agreed to ship out with a fresh coat of tar. We then sold it for $39,000 and made a $14,000 profit in about three days. When we returned to give the man at Neenah Forge the orders, he got down on the ground and said, “Kick me -- My brother-in-law in Chicago told me that soil pipe couldn’t be sold.” I said we sold it, and everybody loved it. That really started me in the business. I was told that no matter how much money you had, you couldn’t buy all the surplus that was available after the War, and that proved to be true. But that started me in the pipe, valve and fitting field.

Beschloss: As I indicated in my introduction, your interaction with people has always been the key to your impressive business success. The man who seems to have made the greatest impression on you was Albert Fishbein, owner of Acme Valve & Fittings, and brother of Morris Fishbein, the famous editor-in-chief of the American Medical Association’s Medical Journal. How did he impact your personal, as well as professional life?

Coulas: The person who made the biggest impression on me in my life was, of course, my father. As you know, I started as a young boy with other boys in the neighborhood buying vegetables in the summertime, and peddling them to the various neighbors.

But by the time I got into high school, my father, who was in the new scale business, guided me into the used scale business, which I repaired and sold to customers that needed a replacement. His instructions of only selling on time payments guided me in seeing how a business was run, and the psyche of customers in paying their bills.

Shortly after graduating high school, I met Albert Fishbein, the owner of Acme Valve & Fittings. He was a wonderful person, very sharp and very nice to me. I will never forget Albert Fishbein as an honest and dear friend.

Beschloss: There are several aspects of Weldbend that make your company unique. Foremost, in my mind, is that you depend on your marketing primarily on advertising and two or three factory specialists. What has prompted this philosophy?

Coulas: I have always strongly believed in advertising because if your potential customers don’t know about your product, you won’t sell it. I believe in heavy and honest advertising.

Beschloss: You have always been consistent in promoting “Buy American” despite a 15-year trend that has become increasingly foreign in scope. Did you ever have any second thoughts about “swimming against the tide?”

Coulas: I believe in “Buy American” and I think that some of the large companies that are abandoning employees in this country are making a mistake. America has the capability of producing good products in large quantities and there is really no need to go abroad.

Beschloss: Weldbend is the overwhelmingly generic name in the products of your manufacture. Your emphasis on domestic quality manufacturing has obviously played a large part in this achievement. Will you continue to stay on this message no matter what future developments may impede this strategy?

Coulas: I realized that our first name, “Viking,” did not suffice as a manufacturing name, and a friend of mine came up with the name “Weldbend,” which I had patented. It describes our elbow manufacturing, which was the first operation we developed.

Beschloss: As we have discussed, the flare-up of disasters in oil refineries could be traceable to defective components, often of foreign origin. Will you continue to focus on such metaphors as: “The chain is only as strong as its weakest link,” or “The nasa space capsule is endangered by the fact that it is a combination of parts contracted to the lowest bidders”?

Coulas: It is our intention to produce domestically manufactured carbon steel fittings and carbon steel flanges with the American worker.

Beschloss: As you indicated in your notes to me, you may soon have to think of retiring. Do you have a succession team headed up by Jim Jr. pretty well lined up?

Coulas: Morris, as far as my retiring is concerned, I have no idea of ever retiring. I will work, because I love work, and I will continue to work if they have to carry me here in the morning. A couple of months ago, I thought they would have to carry me, because I tripped and broke my right leg. However, I am back to normal again and I wake up every morning looking forward to going to the plant.

Beschloss: Your business, as well as many others, are blessed by an industrial end-use boom that seems to be the most voluminous in 15 years. Do you see it continuing well into 2007?

Coulas: I think our business will be very good into 2007. The Administration has promised to furnish money for sprucing up current refineries and providing money for new refineries to be built. There is no shortage of oil. There is a shortage of refining capacity. We notice in our business a big push in large-sized piping components, which indicates that refineries are being rebuilt and new ones are starting.

Beschloss: I’m well aware of your policy of pricing based on individual order quantity, with no preference given to a particular distributor, no matter how large his national presence. Will this continue to be your pricing strategy? With price volatility having such a major impact on your costs, as well as your competitors’ -- foreign or the few domestic left -- has the industry woken up to the fact that these costs must be adequately covered in the pricing of all products?

Coulas: We don’t distinguish between the size of our customers. Thus we have one price for all. If you buy a trailer load, you get the very best price. If you buy less than a trailer load, you get the same price and discount, but we don’t pay the freight. This keeps the customers from ordering one or two pieces at a time.

Beschloss: Having been blessed with a vigorous 92 years and established such a worthy legacy, is there any unfinished business that you want to accomplish in the years ahead?

Coulas: I feel very blessed that I am 92 years old and going strong. I enjoy going to work every day, and I hope to assist my son in making Weldbend even bigger. I think it is very important for America that we have this equipment available that was made in America.

 

Morris R. Beschloss, a 50-year veteran of the pipe, valve and fitting industry, is PVF and economic analyst for The Wholesaler.