Partly cloudy skies this evening. Thunderstorms likely late. Low near 70F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 100%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected..
Partly cloudy skies this evening. Thunderstorms likely late. Low near 70F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 100%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected.
Touring the Gateway Extrusions Ltd. factory in the Union Industrial Park, big is a word that comes to mind over and over again — from the size of the plant to the size of the equipment to the size of many of the products.
Gateway Extrusions, a leading provider of quality aluminum extrusion and finishing services for building, commercial, industrial and transportation markets across the country, held an open house in September to mark a $15 million expansion of its factory and equipment.
It also marked the company’s 15th anniversary.
Thomas Ziegler, Gateway’s president of operations who was hired in 2006, noted how far the company has come in that brief time.
“We have doubled our workforce to over 130 employees since 2014,” he said. “We have added new customers, many of whom are right here in this region, and our annual production has doubled since 2015.”
Back in 2003, when Gateway got its start in Union, that kind of growth was never part of the plan, but it has become a driving force.
The company began as Crystal Extrusions when Crystal Window and Door Systems, then a small company based in New York, purchased the extrusion equipment from the shuttered Cupples Aluminum Products plant in Union.
The plan was to run the aluminum extrusions they needed for their own windows and doors, which were made in New York and Chicago, Ziegler explained. As a small company, it was difficult for Crystal Windows to get the extrusions it needed in a timely manner for customers.
“So they had to buy their extrusions way ahead of time and have their money sitting out there in inventory,” Ziegler said, noting, “There are no stock windows from Crystal. Everything is custom made, so they can’t stock and build windows.”
Crystal Windows already had its own vinyl extrusion presses at their window and door plant, so they came up with the idea to buy an aluminum extrusions plant and be vertically integrated for both vinyl and aluminum, said Ziegler. The problem was, they didn’t know anything about aluminum extrusion.
“They brought a few window and door people down here to try to run it, but that didn’t work,” said Ziegler. “For two or three years, they struggled.”
In 2006, the owner, Thomas Chen, an immigrant from Taiwan, decided to hire people with experience in aluminum extrusion. Likewise, Ziegler, who had 20 years under his belt working for Alcoa in plants in Florida, Mississippi and Georgia, was looking to make a change.
Alcoa was growing at the time, but for Ziegler, that didn’t sweeten the pot.
“I felt like I was just a number even though I was a general manager and very high in authority,” Ziegler recalled. “They had 120,000 people working for them, and there were a lot of layers. I had 500 people working in those plants, and it was very stressful. I wanted something better.”
Ziegler took a call asking him to come look at the Crystal Extrusions plant in Union. And right away, he felt it would be a good fit. The plant was in bad shape, he said, but it just needed someone with aluminum extrusion experience to get it going in the right direction.
“I saw an opportunity that to me was a gold mine for me, because I could clean it up and look like a hero,” said Ziegler. “It was very easy to come in and take all the low-hanging fruit off, and they were blown away right away.”
Ziegler’s move from Alcoa to Crystal Extrusions was followed by a few other people who made the same move. That added expertise at the Union plant continued to boost production.
Within one year, the company was running smoothly, providing all of the aluminum extrusions Crystal Windows needed. Slowly but surely, it began to grow. Ziegler approached the owner about beginning to sell to outside customers too, but he wasn’t interested at that point.
“I told him there’s money to be made. The building is just sitting here empty, because we had one shift then,” said Ziegler. “The ability to sell to the outside would bring cash into the company. But they were just not interested at that point.”
Five years later, they were. Crystal Extrusions added two outside customers and with that success, slowly began to add more. By 2014, the company was selling enough of its extrusions to outside customers that it decided to change the name to Gateway Extrusions.
Today only 30 percent of what Gateway Extrusions makes in Union is for its parent company, Crystal Window and Door Systems.
“They now buy most of what they need from another extruder,” said Ziegler. “What we proved to them is there is more money in extrusions than in windows and doors.”
Over the years, Gateway Extrusions has had as many as 200 customers. Currently it has around 125 active customers, said Ziegler.
Before the company began selling to outside customers, a crack in its 7-inch hydraulic press forced the company to begin planning for improvements. A crack in the housing of the press shut them down for a couple of weeks while they fixed it, and also sent the owner looking for a replacement. The old press, Ziegler noted, had been made in the 1940s.
Ziegler expected it would be a year or year and a half before a new press, once ordered, was operational, but Chen found a faster alternative.
“My years of experience said this was not going to work, but Chen stood his ground. Being from Taiwan, he still has a lot of connections there, so he went over and there was an extrusion press maker in Taiwan that he knew. They told him they would get a press here in nine months or less,” said Zieger.
It was unheard of. But they did it.
“I had never heard of a press made in Taiwan used in the States,” said Ziegler. “They come from Germany, Japan, or wherever. Nobody makes them in the States, so they all come from overseas somewhere. I was skeptical of a press made in Taiwan. I didn’t know what I was getting.”
Seven months after ordering the new 7-inch 1,880-ton MRI press, Ziegler and Chen went to Taiwan to see it. It was completely assembled and running.
It was shipped to the States in crates and required heavy equipment to unload and then to reassemble it at the Union plant. The manufacturer sent a crew over from Taiwan to reassemble it along with the Gateway employees.
Aside from the language barrier, there wasn’t much slowing down the assembly process, said Ziegler. The crew worked around the clock to get the press up and running, and in the end Ziegler was very impressed with the results.
“They got it up and going, cycled it quickly, and I was blown away,” he said. “The quality was very, very good.”
That led to ordering a 9-inch 2,750-ton MRI press so they could do bigger shapes. The new extrusion presses allow Gateway to manufacture aluminum profiles in lengths anywhere from four to 30 feet.
The company stocks hundreds of custom and standard dies, and has an engineering team that works with customers to design profiles that optimize cost-effective production.
The company changed from a liquid paint line to a powder paint line and from a horizontal painting system to a vertical one that can handle items up to 25 feet long.
Powder paint is much easier to use, more environmental friendly (no VOCs), not to mention better for the employees and for the product, but it wasn’t accepted in the States yet, said Ziegler. Chen, however, had seen it being used in his travels through Asia and Europe, so he decided to take a chance.
At that time, most of the products coming off of the line were going to Crystal Window and Door, anyway, so it was a risk they were taking on themselves, Ziegler noted.
The powder paint was more expensive though, and the company found it couldn’t be competitive unless it also switched from a horizontal painting system (which runs slower) to a vertical system.
“So we either had to take a loss when we painted stuff and make it up in extrusions, or we had to get better,” said Ziegler, noting there were only two vertical paint lines being used in the country at that time, and neither was very successful.
There also was a question of where they could set up the vertical paint line. Chen’s answer was to add a building.
With the new 9-inch press on order, a new building is going up and the vertical paint line is going in all at the same time, work at Gateway Extrusions was hectic and a struggle for about six months, due to space restrictions.
At the same time, the company was increasing its shipments and the number of employees it needed.
Trying to find people to hire was the next challenge, said Ziegler, who said, “We still have that problem today.”
The work environment is a factor — the plant is hot in the summer and cold in the winter. But if people stay on for a year, they tend to stay on for years, sometimes decades.
Factory jobs require a high school diploma or GED, and employees receive on-the-job training.
“It helps to come from an industrial background to have some knowledge and terminology,” said Ziegler. “We are very lucky to have the people we do have.”
Within the last year, Gateway has created an incentive program that provides cash bonuses to employees.
“It’s based on shipments and how many pounds we ship out versus our forecast,” said Ziegler.
This year, employees have earned bonuses of $250 the first quarter, $500 the second quarter and $600 the third quarter and are on target to earn another bonus for the fourth quarter. That adds up to tens of thousands of dollars that the company takes off the bottom line to reward the employees, but it’s worth it because it works, said Ziegler.
“People are motivated. They look at that board every day. If it’s not green, they want to know why. What are we going to do to get it there?” he said. “If we go in the red and I tell them we have to work a Saturday, you don’t hear the complaints, because it’s to their benefit.”
16 Million This Year, Forecast 18 Million for Next Year
The items made at Gateway Extrusions are all around you, but you may not notice them. They are in fencing, furniture, picture frames, chalkboards or whiteboards (the aluminum tray), light poles, railing systems . . . thousands and thousands of items.
The company has customers all over the country and into Canada, although the majority are within 100 miles of the Union plant, other than Crystal Window and Door Systems in New York.
“When we went looking for outside customers, we didn’t go far,” said Ziegler. “We went right around here . . . There is no other (outside) extruder in the state of Missouri right now.”
The future looks bright for Gateway Extrusions, which will ship around 16 million pieces this year and is forecast to ship 18 million next year. When he arrived in 2006, the company was lucky to ship 4 million a year.
“Our growth has been tenfold over the last two or three years because of the two presses and better paint line,” said Ziegler.
This year’s numbers have been helped some by the import tariffs put in place and the sanctions put on Russia, said Ziegler. They get the bulk of their extrusion log (which is how the raw material is shipped) from Dubai, but the tariffs haven’t hurt them because they were already under contract for a price.
“It could hurt us next year, if they are still in place,” said Ziegler.
The Russian sanctions have sent companies who were importing their extrusion log from Russia to find it elsewhere through spot purchases — in other words, not under contract, which means a higher price. Those manufacturers had to pass on the added expense to their customers and in some cases sent the customer shopping around for a new manufacturer.
“They come knocking at our door, so we grew really quickly,” said Ziegler. “Next year, it may not be that way, so our sales guys will have to go out knocking on doors again to try to get more business. But I don’t see that as a problem, because our quality is good, our on-time delivery is good.
Just underneath the name on the door at Gateway Extrusion’s office and plant at 704 W. Park Rd. in Union is the company’s motto: “Building Relationships.” That’s been the approach from the beginning, said Ziegler. It’s what the owners believe.
They want to build a relationship with customers that goes beyond just a transaction.
“It’s about understanding each other’s needs,” Ziegler explained. “What we can do for you and you can do for us.
“We want to be with that customer, like we are in their building with them. Even though we are 50 miles away, I want them to feel that they can ask us, call us, come here any time, and vice versa. If there is a quality problem, our guy gets in the car and goes there.
“It’s not just about making money,” he said. “It’s about building with them. We are growing because of that. We couldn’t do that if we didn’t have relationships with our customers.”
For more information on Gateway Extrusions Ltd., go to www. gwextrusions.com.
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