Spokane Rock Products Inc., the 2-year-old supplier of concrete and rock whose Portland-based parent moved to Spokane earlier this month, now is embarking on a significant expansion push, both in facilities and employment.


The company is spending about $3 million to upgrade its Airway Heights facility, add a ready-mix concrete batch plant there, and buy a fleet of 10 mixer trucks, says John Hjaltalin, executive vice president of the parent company, Eucon Corp.


The batch plant, which is being built by Airway Heights-based Washington Equipment Manufacturing Co., should begin operation early next month, and Spokane Rock has begun seeking additional workers. The new batch plant and additional trucks are expected to enable Spokane Rock Products to double its sales in ready-mix concrete, Hjaltalin says.


Next, the company plans this summer to open a similar facility in Post Falls, where Eucon has owned a piece of property for nearly 25 years, he says. That planned facility and the mixer trucks the company expects to buy for it together will cost another $3 million, he says. The Post Falls operation would serve Kootenai County and the eastern portions of the Spokane Valley, he says.


With the upgraded West Plains facility and the planned new Post Falls location, Spokane Rock is expected by year-end to double its current employment level to 80 workers, Hjaltalin says.


The company, which entered the Spokane market in 1999 with the acquisition of a 170-acre gravel pit near Airway Heights, already has been aggressive in its expansion here. Soon after arriving, it bought the 140-acre Bodes Ready Mix operation in Elk, north of Spokane, where it has invested about $1.5 million and now operates a concrete batch plant and a fleet of 11 concrete-mixer trucks. It also has acquired or leased pits in Chattaroy and near Millwood.


Spokane Rock Products now serves parts of Spokane, Stevens, and Pend Orielle counties, as well as handling road projects outside the area.


Eucon Corp. moved here this month from Portland because company officials believe the Inland Northwest will be its center of growth in coming years, Hjaltalin says. The move added five corporate positions in Spokane, including Hjaltalin. The corporate offices are temporarily located in the Tapio Center business park, but Eucon has an option on some property in southeast Spokane and hopes to build an office building there perhaps later this year.


He says the company believes there is demand in the Spokane-area market for another competitor in the concrete business, which now is dominated by a single player following the acquisition of CPM Development Corp. and Acme Materials & Construction Co. by an Irish conglomerate in recent years. Hjaltalin believes there is only a handful of other suppliers here, whoexcluding the new expansion by Spokane Rock Productstogether operate fewer than two dozen trucks.


We just feel there is an opening for a good, family-owned business to move in here, he says.


Another new player to the concrete business here, Knife River Corp., also is planning two concrete plants and a fleet of mixer trucks (See story page A3.).


In addition to concrete, Spokane Rock provides a host of rock materials for road and building construction. For out-of-town projects, the company often gets its materials from one of about 30 pits that Eucon and its subsidiaries own or lease throughout Eastern Washington.


In addition to Spokane Rock, Eucon owns Atlas Sand & Rock, a similar company in Lewiston, Idaho, that employs about 35 people; and Mainline Rock & Ballast Inc., in Sprague, Wash., which employs seven people and primarily provides rock for railroad track beds. It also is in the preliminary stages of forming a rock and cement company in the Tri-Cities that will be called American Rock Products and is expected to employ 20 to 30 people, Hjaltalin says.


Eucons president and majority shareholder, Neil DeAtley, lives near Lewiston, and represents the third generation of the DeAtley family to run the company. Other DeAtley family members operate related ventures in the Pacific Northwest.