Spring 2006 Issue - Special Report
Manufacturing 2006

Geomatrix Helps with Environmental Barriers

Long gone are the days when the redevelopment of an industrial site was simply a matter of making sure a planned facility met local zoning codes. Modern construction often means environmental impact studies, sensitivity to waterways, wetlands, and wildlife, and cleaning up hazardous waste left by a company that previously occupied the construction site.

Geomatrix Consultants, Inc. specializes in a one-stop approach to mitigating the barriers that can add time costs to a project. Geomatrix recently managed the clean-up of the former Rhone Poulenc site along the Lower Duwamish Waterway. The project required the use of vibrating beam technology to install a slurry wall to a depth of 80 feet below ground to isolate soil contaminants.

Many of Geomatrix’s clients are private businesses, but the Port of Seattle, King County and Sound Transit are among the public agencies that have worked with the firm.

Seattle Foundry Uses An Ancient Process

North Star Casteel uses an ancient process for casting some parts from steel. At its plant off Airport Way in south Seattle, molten steel is poured into a special mixture of olivine sand that’s mined near Arlington, Washington. Workers who perform the task receive special training.

“It isn’t like pouring wax into a mold,” said company manager and CFO, Kurt Gray. “The steel reacts with the sand. The worker has to have an understanding of that reaction as well as the properties of the molten steel as it pours around and into hollows and other spaces.”

North Star makes parts for heavy industrial companies including firms engaged in mining, cement making and the production of transportation equipment. The company weathered the recession that followed the 9/11 terrorist events but it has taken three years of good sales growth for the company to regain the sales level of 2001.

Mechanical Sales

Mechanical Sales, Inc. (MSI) is a company that few know of by name but from whom many benefit.

“Everybody needs heat and nobody wants to go with out hot water,” says company president Chris Jostol, referring to the end products that result from many of the systems that are designed and marketed by the family-owned supplier of residential, commercial, and industrial pumping, heating and cooling systems.

MSI adds self-designed and assembled intelligent control systems to make the basic equipment that they integrate into projects operate smarter and more efficiently.

Founded in 1971 by Ronald Jostol, MSI is now operated by his sons, Chris and Barry. Headquartered in Georgetown with offices in Spokane, Portland, and Anchorage, MSI employs about 30 people who work with mechanical engineers, contractors, and builders to design appropriate climate-control systems for a variety of projects in the region.

50 Years of Containers

Steve Tyner, founder and president of Western Ports Transportation, points out that 2006 is the 50th anniversary of the birth of containers – the rectangular steel shipping boxes that revolutionized maritime and overland transport of cargo.

“It was revolutionary,” he said. “Everyday we see not only more container traffic, but a greater variety of goods that are shipped in containers to make use of the intermodal system.”

The world of intermodal transfers is competitive and Western Ports is in the thick of it. Based in Seattle’s South Park neighborhood, the company is a freight shipment facility. Say a company in Marysville wanted to buy a container load of manhole covers from a company in Texas. They might call Western and Western would act like an intermodal travel agent who would line up all the details for the rail and truck portions of the trek from Texas to Marysville.

Western Port was founded in 1990 and like everything else involving containers, business has just kept on expanding. “We’ve seen growth every y ear since,” Tyner said.