Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 3, 1993 TAG: 9310060319
SECTION: INDUSTRY RECOGNITION PAGE: IR-14 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BY JOANNE ANDERSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
These firms are actually classified as small businesses in the great scheme of things, and are dubbed "America's secret economic weapon - nimble, entrepreneurial and innovative" by Larry Light, corporate finance editor of "Business Week" magazine.
Creating low-paying jobs often is attributed to small firms, but Cognetics, Inc., an economics research company, reported that companies with fewer than 100 workers added more relatively high-wage jobs (those within the upper third of the wage spectrum) than low-wage jobs (those in the lower third of the wage spectrum) from 1987 through 1992.\
ACCO STONE COMPANY, BLACKSBURG
With quarries in several counties, including Montgomery, Acco Stone and its 20 local employees are busy crushing rocks right down to sand, depending on the size of screen used with the crushers. Obviously, the measurements of the holes in the screen determine the size of the final stones.
Acco's parent company is Salem Stone in Salem, which has been in business more than three decades. The firm also removes boulders from job sites and sometimes leases land and pays a royalty for the rocks.
Because asphalt stone is their biggest volume product, president Leonard Hill would just love to hear that I-81 is being expanded to six lanes.\
AMES TEXTILE CORPORATION - SYNTHETIC YARN DIVISION, CHRISTIANSBURG
Synthetic yarn, not the knitting kind, is made of nylon and polyester and delivered to Ames Textile's Industrial Drive plant to be given an S or Z twist. Then it is wound on tubes or pirns and shipped to another manufacturer to be made into something else, like a clothing label, for example.
The company, headquartered in Lowell, Mass., since its founding more than a century ago, set up shop in Montgomery County late in 1989. "The location is closer to our suppliers and customers, and we found a 52,000 square foot shell building that fit our needs," said John Vessey, plant manager. Good shipping and transportation channels also contributed to the location decision.\
BIG SPRING MILL, INC. MONTGOMERY COUNTY
Founded in the 1870s, Big Spring Mill receives raw wheat from the midwest and ships out all-purpose flour, wheat midlings and wheat bran. President David Long, whose grandfather and father took over the mill in 1935, explains that the grain is rolled, mashed, sifted, ground, re-ground and re-ground until the final product is acceptable.
In 2- to 25-pound packages, the flour goes to national grocery chains and independent grocers. Wheat midlings are sold to feed manufacturers, and the wheat bran goes to a firm that grows mold for products that run the gamut from feed to medicines to cleansers.
Long, who is often "as busy as a one-armed paper hanger," said the plant runs 22 hours a day with 28 employees and two shifts between 5 a.m. one morning and 3 a.m. the next.\
CUPP TOOL CORPORATION BLACKSBURG
Don't look for company founder Jack Cupp to leave his business any time in the near future. "I'm only 73, so I won't be retiring too soon," he declared. "Oh, I work every day, but sometimes I play golf half the day."
Cupp started his custom tool shop in 1967 when he grew tired of working for someone else. The 18 employees manufacture custom tooled parts in quantities from one to 100,000. Customers include Poly-Scientific, AT&T, ITT and several in aerospace and fiber optics industries.
EASTERN REPAIR & FABRICATION, INC., CHRISTIANSBURG
Building, retrofitting, repairing and modifying very large, very heavy machine tools is the major business of 13-year old Eastern Repair & Fabrication. The company employs about 20 people and conducts most of its work, along with a machine job shop, in 37,000 square feet on Scattergood Drive.
Its customers along the eastern seaboard include major companies in power processing (like power plants), metal fabrication, ships and automotive industries. The company is justifiably proud of its ISO 9000 approval by one of its Fortune 500 company customers.\
MACO TOOL, INC., CHRISTIANSBURG
According to Fred Cecil, vice president, Maco Tool "can make just about anything out of steel, aluminum, brass and copper." The 13-year-old company performs precision machine tooling for big industry customers, serves as a limited production prototype contractor and designs and builds some of its own products, such as fixtures and dollies.
The original Maco Tool company is located in St. John's, Mich.\
MILLWORK SUPPLY, INC., BLACKSBURG
Millwork Supply, which will celebrate its 10th year in business next spring, has built its reputation on speed and service. There's "a heavy emphasis on quick service," stated president and founder Robert Purdue. "Average time from receipt of order to shipment of product is three days."
Pre-hung doors are the products. Millwork purchases door blanks, casings and jambs. Both interior and exterior doors are then machined and assembled to create a pre-hung unit. The company is a wholesale supplier whose customers may be found across state lines and up to 250 miles away.
"Sales are directly influenced by new construction," said Purdue. So the number of employees varies between 18 and 25.\
NEW RIVER VALLEY WORKSHOP, INC., MONTGOMERY COUNTY
One of 50 vocational rehabilitation facilities throughout the state, the Montgomery County workshop manufactures wood pallets for manufacturing industries in the area. "You'd be surprised at the variation in pallet sizes," stated Bob Huff, executive director. "It seems each business needs just a little different size of pallet."
Of course, that's good for business and contributes to the demand for some 20,000 pallets manufactured each month by around 20 employees. The workshop is interested in establishing a pallet repair business, but here again the difference in requirements presents a challenge.
The workshop employees also perform grounds maintenance at Virginia Tech and subcontract packaging work.\
THE NEWS, CHRISTIANSBURG
Bringing the photo separation process in-house to complement the other photo reproduction procedures is the reason for enhanced picture quality in "The News," explained publisher Mike Blanton. This 124-year-old Montgomery County business merged recently with the News-Journal in Radford to create "The News," which serves Blacksburg, Christiansburg and Radford.
According to Blanton, who has been with the parent company, Worrell Enterprises, for 17 years, "The News" is a "microcosm of the area and will grow as the area grows."
There are around 50 employees working at "The News," which does subcontract job shop printing in addition to its newspaper production.\
PULASKI FURNITURE COMPANY - ACCENTRICS DIVISION, CHRISTIANSBURG
The 75,000-square-foot Accentrics Division of Pulaski Furniture is one of 11, soon to be 12, plants of the company. The 55 employees at this location assemble and finish furniture frames, and add springs and upholstery to make finished products, such as couches and chairs.
Bev Young, plant manager, explained that this facility creates "accents for the home" which can be coordinated throughout a house. For example, interior decorators may order custom furniture for their clients, or someone may specify a particular wood finish on three different rooms of furnishings.
The furniture is crated in Christiansburg and goes to a warehouse in Pulaski from where it may travel to Saudi Arabia, Germany, Canada or North Carolina or anywhere. Major department store chains and furniture stores are the customers.\
SHAWNEE LOG HOMES, MONTGOMERY COUNTY
It makes pretty logical sense that this 16-year-old company is housed in a log building with a log office. More than half of Shawnee's log houses are custom designed by its architectural staff, although the company publishes several house plans.
The average log home is around 1,500 square feet with four corners. That's one of the most efficient houses, but many 2,500-3,000 square foot homes are designed and manufactured, along with a few up to 6,500 square feet. Garages and utility log buildings can be as small as 800 square feet.
Shawnee has 40 franchise dealers in 15 states and covers the eastern United States.\
SISSON & RYAN, MONTGOMERY COUNTY
Originally founded in 1953 as a company for stripping coal in southwest Virginia, Sisson & Ryan developed into a landscaping business in just a year or two, supplying topsoil and seed along the interstate highway system.
When government regulations changed, the company shifted gears again and entered the road building business. The rock and stone aspect of road building became successful enough to stand alone, and the firm withdrew from road construction.
Sisson & Ryan is able to find rock for all its products, except New Castle sand, on its 231-acre quarry site west of Shawsville. The 40-employee operation makes sand, lime, decorative stones and all different sizes of rock for roads, septic systems, agricultural needs and drainage areas.\
SOUTHERN PRINTING, INC., BLACKSBURG
This family-run business started by Leo Southern in 1969 employs one of his brothers, a daughter, a son-in-law and a niece. Their customers can be found from Virginia to New York to California, and their services include printing magazines, college publications, football programs, brochures and other materials in black and white or any combination of colors.
The color press runs just about non-stop for two shifts, processing a myriad of hues from red, blue, yellow and black ink. About 35 employees contribute to the operation in a 21,000 square foot building in the Blacksburg Industrial Park.\
TURMAN LUMBER, CO., MONTGOMERY COUNTY
According to manager Truman Bolt, Turman Lumber purchases logs or standing timber to convert into different sizes of lumber for the furniture, pallet and railroad industries. Some of the big name furniture customers are Ethan Allen and Broyhill.
The company, along with its affiliate, Turman Sawmills, Inc. in Hillsville, operates logging, sawmill and dry kiln wood treatment operations. There are about 40 employees at the Mudpike Road facility.
One of the most important considerations in today's logging business, stated Bolt, is "practicing good forest management."\
UNIMET, INC., BLACKSBURG
The rain may fall mainly on the plain in some places, but it often falls on buildings, too. Much of that rain water or melting snow is channeled into gutters and downspouts and diverted from structures to prevent wood damage and erosion.
Unimet buys painted or coated aluminum in coils and re-shapes the material into gutters and downspouts that perform this water diversion. The firm supplies the raincarrying products to home centers and distributors anywhere east of the Mississippi River.
Unimet was founded by president Vladimir Saban as Maywood Manufacturing in 1973 in New York, and became Unimet in 1981. The company moved to Blacksburg because of its location, transportation availability to serve customers and the less expensive cost of doing business.
by CNB