Making a dream a reality
BY JOHN MARTIN
PVF industry veteran
Welcome to the “Corner”! Thanks for stopping in again!
For this months article, “Martin’s Corner” is using a new twist in bringing you the story of a very successful wholesaler in our industry. Well, to be clear, this wholesaler is what I would call a very niche-oriented supplier to the fire protection and the mechanical/plumbing/HVAC contractor — from pipe fittings to pipe hangers to sprinkler heads and devices, and yes to fabricated made to order piping itself, they are indeed a PVF player in the market they choose, and very, very, successful! They know their “niche” and that niche is special pipe fabrication and piping component supply to the industry.
Before we get into this interesting interview with this company and the team and the management that “dreamed” it up and runs it today, let me tell you a story that goes back some 30 years plus anyway. Some of you will remember a buying group in the plumbing industry by the name of C.L. Watt Company. Many of you know of them even today as the plumbing division arm of Affiliated Distributors, another successful marketing/buying group. Relying on my memory for the past 43 years, I believe that Watt was the first group recognized as such in the plumbing industry. A good size group and very successful right from start, one of their early on leaders was a man by the name of Frank Capalino. He was a good friend of one of my old bosses back in Providence, R.I., in the old Grinnell days.
He and Frank thought it would be a good idea for Grinnell to be involved in that group as a valued key vendor for them on all the leading commodity products that Grinnell produced. Of course we all agreed, so not only was Watt the first group of that sort to form (to my recall), it most certainly was the very first group of any kind that we (Grinnell) became part of and in their system. Today as Anvil, we are still with that group (many of the same members) by virtue of Affiliated Distributors. So, I suppose you could say that I hold Frank Capalino (a good man and friend) responsible for our connection with the company in the story that I am sharing with you today!
Why? Because the man I am going to interview is David Capalino! There is a bit more to the story before I get to the interview itself: You see, there were two brothers in the Capalino household by the name of David and Billy. Let’s refer to them as Dave and Bill. In the very early 1980s their dad told his close friend at Grinnell in Providence that he would like for them to get into the business somehow, and wondered if we could hire them in one of our locations. Long story short, I was running the West Coast for Grinnell in those years, and we had a huge location in Los Angeles, and one in Milwaukee. Long story short, Dave went to work for our branch manager (Charlie Clark) in Milwaukee and Bill went to work a short time later for me and our branch manager in LA (Bob Hamelin). All of our locations in those years had fabrication shops and did lots of work for and with fire protection contractors. Dave became a sales guy for Milwaukee and Bill did the same in LA.
Fast forwarding to the late 1980s, Dave left Grinnell in Milwaukee to join an unknown company (to me anyway) in Florida. We hated to lose him, but when opportunity knocks — well, you know the rest of that line. I left my post in the West to work in a more national role, as that “opportunity thing” knocked for me at that time also, but still with Grinnell. As the years moved along, for all practical purposes I lost track of the Capalino brothers until about four months ago when yet another successful buying group — The DELTA Group — announced their newest member coming on board, and it was headed up by a gentleman by the name of Dave Capalino. Hummmmm I thought, that name sounds pretty familiar. Little did I even realize what I was about to get myself into. What a wonderful surprise!
The new DELTA member is a company by the name of Quality Fabrication and Supply, located in Sanford, Fla. And its senior VP & general manager is one Dave Capalino — our Milwaukee sales guy David Capalino! I saw Dave briefly in late March at his first DELTA meeting and a few days later talked on the phone to set up a day for me to make a visit to Sanford to see his business and hear about all that has gone on with him and the story of Quality. Anvil has been selling to Quality for a long time and they are a great account. They are covered by the fire protection division of our company, which is why I really had not called on them and been connected with Dave.
I’m happy to have his story to tell, but also very happy to have Dave back in the list of names that I have called “friends!” So, to all the faithful readers of The Wholesaler & the “Corner” each month, just grab a cup of coffee, sit back, and read about this month’s wholesaler that has a very interesting story to tell.
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Martin: Dave Capalino, it so very good to be sitting here with you and putting this story together! So this is what happens to old Grinnell Supply Sales fire protection salespeople. Very nice slice of the pie down here Pal. After the DELTA meeting, when I figured out who you were from the past, I was really excited to get this done — and thank you for the time to actually make it happen. Tell us if you will about Quality, and who had the vision that made it come to be. When did you join Quality?
Capalino: This is a pleasure for me also John, and so good to be in touch with you again. It was a long time ago, but I do know that my Dad did have an excellent relationship with you guys back then, and had it not have been for him helping us get those jobs, things could have been different I suppose. By the way, thanks a lot for those nice words about my dad. He was a good man. If you didn’t know, Bill is gone now also, so I’m pushing on to keep things going in the wholesale business I guess. It is what I know along with how to fabricate and then sell a piece of pipe! It is still fun by the way as your job is, or neither of us would still be around, huh?
Anyway, back to your first question. Quality Fabrication and Supply was started in 1988 and may have been one of the first technology-driven or created piping fabrication and supply companies in America. It was during the late 80s and contractors, specifically Fire Sprinkler Contractors were installing computer aided design programs or CAD for short. This technology was changing and greatly improving piping system design. It also greatly enhanced the ability to prefabricate piping systems. Although companies were prefabricating at the time, they were for the most part employing inefficient methods and equipment. Additionally there was more sophisticated fabrication equipment coming on the market, automatic circle welders and plasma cutting machines. New production threading equipment was becoming available.
All of this was great, but came at a very high capital expense. It would take someone with courage and the vision you spoke of to make this dream a reality. That man was Joe Wiginton, president and CEO of Wiginton Fire Systems. Joe realized that it was not a wise business decision to make this investment and expect to fully utilize and create a return just to serve his own contracting business. Joe’s vision was to found Quality Fabrication and Supply to serve not only his company but many other Fire Sprinkler Contractors with the very best fabrication, materials and service in the industry. Super idea and correct at time in so many ways, but he knew he was going to have to find someone capable of pulling the trigger on the “Vision,” and get it done!
I joined Quality in 1989 after spending nine years at Grinnell Supply Sales. I knew it would be a challenge to make Quality a success, as we were owned by a contracting firm. We needed a strategy to go with the vision. The initial strategy was to simply convince other companies that they we’re not efficient at fabrication. It was not their core competency. Their core competency was in sales, design and installation. This new business model was coming and it needed to be considered. Our strategy was somewhat simple, it’s not all about what you pay for pipe and fittings, the question was; what is your installed cost for a sprinkler system? If I can reduce your installed cost and improve your bottom line and make your company more profitable how important is it who owns Quality Fabrication & Supply? One by one we convinced companies to close their shops or greatly reduce capacity and buying fabrication and supply from one source became the business model of choice. Today very few companies maintain shops and most fabrication is provided by specialized fabrication companies.
Martin: Great Dave! What a solid answer to get started with. You know, for three decades at least (70s, 80s and 90s), I must have been in and out of fabrication shops for fire protection a thousand times and while some were bigger/smaller than others, they all did it the same old way — by hand completely and little welding or grooved, until the whirly bird welder came along with thin wall approved pipe. Hearing you talk about the technology behind your shop, then seeing it today when we walked thru, simply blows me away. Readers, it is really a sight to see!
So Dave, did you join the company in 1989 as general manager for Joe Wiginton to give the company what it needed, or did you work your way up to where you are today — at the top?
Capalino: I was actually hired as a sales territory manager for the west coast of Florida. I was promoted to director of sales in 1994 and then to vice president of sales and operations in 1997. My position today is senior vice president and general manager of the company, which I have been since 2003.
Martin: Thanks Sir. It is very obvious that you have been great for the company and the company has returned the favor. Now, how about giving us a snapshot of the company today, including territory, facilities, management team (including their backgrounds and responsibilities), number of employees, etc.
Capalino: Today Quality is a Florida-based employee-owned (ESOP) company with our main 100,000-square-foot plant and warehouse in Sanford, Fla., and a satellite supply depot in Pompano Beach, Fla. We do enjoy a national and international footprint. We ship to select clients across America who mainly serves the cold storage industry. Quality has direct relationships with contractors in Puerto Rico, Brazil, as well as Trinidad and Tobago. We have partnered with U.S.-based contractors to provide fabrication for hundreds of projects throughout the entire Caribbean basin and Central America.
We have continued over the years to add technology to our fabrication process. We move pipe through the plant now (as an example), with industrial magnets attached to remote control bridge cranes. We have added pipe positioners to make our mechanical fabrication the most efficient in the state. We have a pipe storage rack that can accommodate up to 18” pipe that moves off of four levels to a hydraulic lift to a power conveyor and into our plant while it is never touched by human hand. We have a fleet of five delivery trucks all fork lift equipped. We have an AutoCAD program to produce spool drawings for our mechanical fabrication. We have an ERP software platform from Oracle to manage our business.
The two people I rely on the most on my management team are Chuck Lake, senior vice president of plant operations, and Debbie Bien, vice president of purchasing and material management. Chuck has 30 years experience in building and managing fabrication plants and is the one responsible for the incredible technology we use to move and fabricate pipe. Debbie has been with me for over 20 years and came from an Aerospace background. She brought Quality into the 21st century for inventory control, procurement and material management. We currently have just fewer than 60 associates on the Quality team.
Martin: Sounds like you are blessed indeed with a great staff. Long-time employee folks in companies today like Chuck and Debbie are really a plus for anyone. Stability is hardly the right word— life-long quest to be the best sounds good to me. Congrats for having them on your side! Next I have a two-part question:
A. How are your sales divided among fire protection sales/fabrication, and mechanical contractor sales/fabrication?
B: I spoke earlier about the DELTA Group. Can you share with me what brought you to that need, and what do you think of the decision looking back. Good? Not good?
Capalino: John, you remind me of that statement about inquiring minds — they just need to know! I like that, so allow me to cover then as you asked. Quality currently has four outside salespeople who all have responsibility for both fire and mechanical sales and one has a particular responsibility for export sales. We also have three inside sales people and four that do stock-listing (individuals who take blueprints and create manufacturing documents).
As for the DELTA question, I can’t tell you how exciting it is to be a member. First it’s an incredible group of independent entrepreneurs, so just spending time with them and comparing notes on common industry and market issues is invaluable to me. Obviously we have been very established in the fire business for some time. The great benefit to me is DELTA’s ability to help me grow my mechanical business. I clearly could not have grown that business to the extent that I have without my DELTA association, even before I became a full-blown member. Having said that, hopefully my buying power in fire protection will help other members in DELTA to more effectively compete in that market. A great win/win for all.
Martin: No surprises in those answers Dave, especially in the one about DELTA. They are certainly PVF savvy in many ways, and a great customer group for the Anvil folks as well. Now, are there any special or major projects in your area that you have been involved in that are a particular source of pride? This could be from a fabrication point of view or supply, or both?
Capalino: Yes sir, there is since you asked. Perhaps the largest project in Florida right now is the new Veterans Hospital, Clinic and Central Energy Plant. This is a 1.2-million-square-foot project in Orange County. Quality is fortunate enough to be providing all the fire sprinkler fabrication as well as the chill water piping on the mechanical side. It’s being built on a 6-acre site with a budget of $665,000,000.
Martin: Dave, in this business of fabrication being so big for you, have you had to change the focus of your business or do anything differently over the past 12 to 18 months? Could you describe the market conditions in your area currently, and have you or do you see an improvement going on now or when?
Capalino: We have had two major changes in the past 18 months. One was the consolidation of our two fabrication facilities. We simply had more capacity than the available market could support, so we consolidated fabrication to our largest plant.
The second was to complete our mechanical fabrication shop and put a laser focus on growing that business segment. It is our fastest growing business segment and I expect that to continue for the foreseeable future.
Our market conditions have improved. We stayed fairly strong through the end of 2008, but 2009 and 2010 have been the toughest business environment I have ever experienced. My expectation is for continued improvement through the end of 2011 and a better 2012.
Martin: You are not alone in a lot of your thoughts above concerning business conditions, but your swing to a “focus” on mechanical fabrication is very timely I’d say. Good plans and thoughts. How have your customers’ expectations changed over the past two to three years and if so how has Quality adapted to those changing needs/wants?
Capalino: As you and I both know, John, you can’t be order takers in this business and survive any longer. You have to bring real world solutions to real world problems. You have to attempt to be experts in your clients business and train your people to act as much as consultants as salespeople.
I think the biggest change has been exactly that, my clients expect me to be well versed in their business, the national codes, local codes and specification even the requirements of the different Buy American Acts.
Martin: Okay Dave, do you have Quality on any annual plan that spends so much budgeted monies on special events/activities for sponsorships aimed at building of relationships and loyalty?
Capalino: Yes we do, John. We are a member of the American Fire Sprinkler Association, Debbie Bien is a board member on the Manufacturers and Suppliers Council of AFSA. We’re members of the National Fire Protection Association. We are members of the Florida Fire Sprinkler Association We are actively involved in ABC and routinely sponsor their events.
Martin: That’s a lot of fire councils and associations. I know of them all as we too belong to all of them as vendors to the fire protection industry. Due to making a key focus drive on the mechanical market as a whole, I wonder if you have ever thought about joining the MCAA (Mechanical Contractors Association of America) and ASA (American Supply Association).
Capalino: Funny you should ask, John. I have membership literature on my desk right now for ASA and I’m considering joining. As for MCAA I haven’t put much thought into joining right now, only so many hours in the day and dollars in the budget if you know what I mean.
Martin: I sure understand the hours in a day and dollars in the budget statement, clearly I do, but I would tell you that I think it would really be good for you to be involved in ASA and at some point MCAA. I’ll take time here to plug them both along with another group called NAPHCC. The ASA will expose you to every vendor you ever wanted to know reference PVF products, and all the major national chains, and large independent and regional and local wholesalers across the U.S. Educational tools, marketing support, training, and help in Washington, D.C., reference legal issues that plague our industry, etc. — all available to you and your company via ASA. Yes, there is a lot of plumbing stuff going on there, because ASA by past history is most of the times thought of as a plumbing association, but not true. There is a pretty large division within the association called IPD (the Industrial Piping Division). When supported, all benefits of ASA as a whole are available to people in the IPD group as well. There you will find pipe people, welding fitting people, etc. It is worth the time. It is in Las Vegas September 12 through the 15 at the Bellagio. I’d encourage through your leadership that Quality become a member and attend this meeting. It indeed is well worth it, especially if you get involved.
Now, MCAA is the union contractor base of this country, with something like 1,500 dues paying members — very strong and very influential in today’s contractor world. Again, Anvil along with every other major vendor around the U.S. supports this group very strongly! You sort of have to see it to believe it. The other one I spoke of is the NAPHCC, which is on the same order of MCAA except they are mostly the non-union influence in this country, and more plumbing than PVF. When you have time, I’ll review benefits in more detail with you, okay? For now, let’s finish this Q&A! Just a couple more questions.
Okay. Can you describe the leadership Quality such as accessibility to customers and employees and hands on activity by the owners?
Capalino: Sure! I have always believed in empowering employees, I want every customer to know when they are talking to a Quality associate they are talking to a decision maker. I also want them to know and have comfortable access to every senior manager in the company including myself. So many companies are so bound up in bureaucracy today it takes forever to get an answer or decision. I’d rather take care of the client as soon as possible and internally if it was a mistake we try to learn from it and get better and move on.
Martin: I like that answer a lot. I get tired of punching buttons five and six times in a company to get a person that tells me that I need another department for that answer! This is a great answer. Now Dave, last question. With so many sources of competition in the marketplace, how does Quality attempt to differentiate itself?
Capalino: John, I think some of my previous answers provide some ideas as to how we go about differentiating ourselves but I would like to make one last point. To my customers, it really comes down to execution, the blocking and tackling we do every day. We manufacture several thousand pieces of custom pipe each day, hundreds of custom hanger assemblies, hundreds of lines of loose material. We custom pack and tag each sprinkler and mechanical system with all the components required, labeled, bundled and delivered and we do it better than anyone in the industry. We indeed are very proud of the way we handle customers.
Martin: Buddy, we could not end on a better note. All the custom packing, bagging, labeling, and delivery ready for assembly would sure break a tie for me in a close bid situation. Readers, if you ever need any special fab and don’t do it yourself, call Dave. You’ve got a great company Dave, keep it up! I’m pleased and I sure know Frank Capalino & your brother Bill would be. See ya down the road.
Capalino: Well thanks John, and it is our pleasure to have you and The Wholesaler have this interest in us. So thanks for giving me the opportunity to share with your readers my pride to be part of the Quality Team.
That’s it, readers. Time to put the book down, pick up a pencil, an order pad, and go sell and re-order something. It’s fun being back for all of you this month. Take it easy in the heat, see ya next month, and don’t forget to check out my wine tip of the month below. As Larry the Cable Guy most likely would say after reading not only the wine tip, but also the feature article this month in “Martin’s Corner” introducing Quality Fabrication and Supply, and I quote: “at’s a goodin’ right tere!”
See ya this coming October at “Martin’s Corner!”
Take care & Blessings, John.
Starting in our industry in 1968 at Anvil International (formerly Grinnell Company), John Martin has been with them over this 43-year span through at least five different owners! Currently serving as vice president of national account sales for Anvil’s rather successful mechanical products division, he has worked in every phase of the company from warehouse to sales (inside and outside) to the ever popular branch manager’s job in the 1970s and 1980s. He served as regional vice president for their West Coast units, and since about 1990 in this national role with contacts and customers/vendors coast to coast. Martin also traveled all over Asia in the 1980s as their acquisition guy for steel pipe used in their west coast branch locations at the time! Currently also, he is responsible for Anvil as their lead person at ASA & MCAA, and is identified as Anvil in all the wholesale industry buying/marketing groups, In these capacities he has not only received numerous industry and association awards for his service, he has set on several boards/executive committees within these industry and associations as well. He was quoted currently as stating the following, “I’ve been blessed and had fun and been productive for my entire career, but I believe the most energizing time or times in my life have been (still is today) working with all the folks at Anvil and seeing the young ones in the field ‘get it’ on almost a daily basis — meaning learning our company and understanding how to meet the customers needs in today’s upside down world. Anvil is a great place for me to be right now.” He can be reached anytime at jmartin@anvilintl.com or his cell phone at 303-588-9806.