Distributing building materials and supplies to general contractors and construction development sites in the Pacific Northwest involves a lot of moving parts.

Some Spokane-area construction materials suppliers are growing year-over-year despite considerable risks and challenges involved in the transportation of goods in the construction industry.

Executives at three Spokane-area companies say the industry requires foresight into upcoming market conditions, tracking supply trends, and fuel cost predictions weeks or months in advance in order to grow.

"Distribution is always challenging," says Jeff Witzmann, sales manager at the Spokane branch of Steeler Inc., a Seattle-based steel stud manufacturer and distribution company. "When we're bidding projects, it's a matter of figuring out where we should be for the metal price six months to a year down the road."

Reece Ham, vice president at Spokane-based Leslie Enterprises Inc., which does business as Dupree Building Specialties, says one challenge is that sales are subject to the health of the construction industry in Eastern Washington.

"We're dependent on buildings being built or renovated. If all the general contractors are busy and have projects, then we're going to be busy with projects," Ham says.

Sheryl Rasmusson, president at Spokane Valley-based Kilgore Tec Products Inc., a contractor and wholesale building materials supplier, concurs and says there's an ebb and flow that guides development the Spokane and Tri-Cities markets.

"It's highly driven by government funds being funneled to ... and driven by infrastructure (projects) that we're doing," she says. "We're seeing a pattern of money that's driven based on who's in office."

Kilgore supplies and installs niche building materials to contractors, such as translucent wall panels that are designed to bring natural lighting through a building's exterior envelope.

"We're one of a handful of manufacturer distributors across the U.S. that handles that particular product," she says. 

At Kilgore Tec Products, Rasmusson says business has been good this year and sales are up 31% so far in 2024. By the end of the year, she says the company could likely reach $5 million to $6 million in sales.

Kilgore's work can be found in some notable Spokane-area structures, such as the Spokane International Airport, in west Spokane, and Providence Medical Park, in Spokane Valley.

"We're also working on several Idaho Central Credit Union buildings on the South Hill and one in Airway Heights," she says. "We're doing a Darigold project down in Pasco, and we have several things for Fairchild Air Force Base."

Kilgore Tec Products is located at 11319 E. Carlisle Lane, in Spokane. Kilgore has 20 full-time employees and is involved in 50 to 75 projects annually, Rasmusson says.

Ham says some of the distribution challenges that Dupree contends with include the rising cost of freight, restrictive transportation regulations, and safe product delivery.

"Freight damage is a daily issue," he says.

On the other hand, some areas of distribution are improving as more manufacturers are embracing technology by shifting to an online quoting fulfillment system to make it easier for distributors to build quotes and coordinate deliveries, says Ham.

Dupree distributes Division 10 Specialty products, which include bathroom and toilet accessories, fire extinguishers and cabinets, and other construction supplies. 

In addition to the specialty products, Dupree also provides custom building components such as movable partition walls, coiling doors, and fire doors, he says.

As a wholesale building materials supplier, not all products are transported by Dupree. The company often works on the logistics to get products from manufacturers to construction sites or delivered to Dupree's facility through common carriers.

Ham adds, however, "If we're installing it, we typically haul it with our trucks and trailers that are driven by our installers."

Dupree Building Specialties has 20 employees including 10 installers who work out of a 7,600-square-foot facility, located at 1035 E. Cataldo, in Spokane.

Currently, Dupree is committed to keeping up on and adapting to evolving industry trends, such as ordering products per project.

Faster manufacturing processes have allowed Dupree to stop ordering and holding large amounts of stock at its facility. Instead, Dupree stores just enough product for each construction project the company is involved in, which is a notable shift from how the business operated in the early 2000s.

"We stock very little from what we used to stock," says Ham. "Manufacturers are producing things as fast as possible so lead times have come down. Technology has been a large part of that, and now most of our products are ordered per project. Twenty-five years ago, we stocked more, but it was advantageous to have it on the shelf."

Current lead times at Dupree typically range from 48 hours for standard products up to 16 weeks for custom orders, he says.

In the future, Dupree will focus growth opportunities to service and maintain previous installation jobs, he says. The company also will continue "making sure we're at a fair price and showing up when we say we're going to show up."

At Steeler, Witzmann says the company's manufacturing division is continuing to produce commonly used steel products, but for the most part, production occurs per job.

"We can pre produce most of the common items that sell, but from there it's just a matter of producing what's being ordered by the customers, by the job," he says. "So far, we've been able to stay pretty consistent with the supply coming from our manufacturing (division)."

The company transports its own manufactured steel framing products, in addition to drywall materials from other manufacturers, which are then delivered to general contractors and subcontractors in the Pacific Northwest. 

"Out of Spokane, we distribute everywhere from the Canadian border down to the Omak valley, all the way into northern Oregon, and all the way over to Missoula, Montana," says Witzmann.

Driver retention has been a top priority for Steeler, which has six full-time employees in Spokane, he says.

Steeler has a fleet of boom trucks, forklift trucks, and noncommercial trucks that deliver products for schools, banks, retail shops, government buildings, data centers, and dams.

Sales haven't fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels yet, which Witzmann attributes to unfavorable weather conditions and the high cost of financing construction projects.

"Nobody wants to borrow money to build when interest rates are up," says Witzmann.

Last year, Steeler's Spokane branch generated $5.8 million in sales, which is down 9.4% from $6.4 million in sales revenue recorded in 2022, says Witzmann.

The Seattle-based manufacturing and distributing company operates 13 locations in Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Montana, and the Canadian province of British Columbia.

Steeler will look for opportunities to open new locations in Washington state in 2025.

"Washington still has more room; the Tri-Cities is a hotspot," Witzmann says. "But, there's no crystal ball. All you can do is go by what has happened in the past or keeping track of the trends and what's happening in the markets."