River City Fabrication stays busy despite economy
<p>Welders Ivan Kuhnhausen, left, and Luke Greensides, both also managers for River City Fabrication, secure support beams to the end of a tank used for fire retardant Thursday during an on-site job near the Post Falls shop.</p>
<p>Shannon Horn shows a small metal sculpture that was reproduced on a larger scale using River City Fabrication's computer-aided design system.</p>
POST FALLS - There is no recession for at least one Kootenai County manufacturing company. As far as Shannon Horn is concerned, business is on fire.
Horn and wife Laura own First Response Fire Rescue, which has provided equipment to 122 firefighting airbases, and recently expanded the fabrication business to provide a variety of retail, commercial and industrial services.
"We have a lot of equipment, like high-tech laser cutters," Horn said. "We want to provide something different than what's out there to the local market."
To do that, they expanded to the building where it all began, their original shop at 6000 E. Commerce Loop in a small industrial/commercial complex just south of Seltice Way near the eastern end of the city.
The new business, called River City Fabrication, is adjacent to the four-acre site with two large buildings where massive fire retardant tanks up to 25,000 gallons and a wide variety of other equipment is manufactured and distributed.
"It is like NAPA Auto Parts for the fire industry," Horn said.
With 20 employees in the main, 30,000-square-foot facility, and four more in the RCF 6,000-square-foot shop, the company now offers their specialty line, metal railings from wrought iron architectural pieces to industrial applications in a variety of styles.
In the same shop where massive, quarter-inch sheets of steel are rolled into 12,000-gallon tanks, precise plasma cutters and robotic welders can be used to provide volume production of more intricate items.
Computer-aided design programs can copy small items into larger metal sculptures, and the company's art division can reproduce them in any quantity.
"If you bring in a picture of something, we can cut it out," Horn said.
Less exotic pieces such as fuel tanks are also in their repertoire, and diamond plate steel adorns some of the walls in the new showroom as an example of the material the company can work with.
Truck service bodies can be built to specification. The company already has one of its own, used to provide field repairs to heavy equipment and other applications that require mobile service.
Stainless steel, aluminum and soon titanium are materials that RCF's experienced design and fabrication team can work with.
Horn declined to elaborate, but said a significant food-grade contract is pending.
"It is steady, even though the economy is down," he said. "Being more diversified is helping keep us going."
The company goes through 20 to 30 tons of steel a month, said Luke Greensides, auto CAD designer and welder.
The showroom is gradually being filled with examples of RCF products, with 50 different styles and colors of powder coating. A display of art designs is gradually being added.
Information: 930-4576 or www.rivercityfabrication.com