BREAKING NEWS

Like a snowball rolling down a mountain, acquisition activity in the gases and welding industry has been moving swiftly and powerfully since the first of the year. Across the board, GAWDA members with large, small and mid-sized distribution companies are selling and buying.

Scott-Gross Company (Lexington, KY) acquired Welders Depot of TN in Loudon, TN, marking its first location in the state of Tennessee. Scott-Gross retail stores are located in Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, and gas distribution is coordinated from regional distribution hubs in Arkansas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas. Scott-Gross is the parent company of Thoroughbred Industrial Cylinder Exchange, a national gases exchange and purchase program available at retailers everywhere.

AWISCO President Lloyd Robinson did a three-peat with the acquisition of The Welding SupplyStore (Branchville, NJ), its third in the last 12 months by Maspeth, NY-based AWISCO. Former owner Stephen Kotcher remains as branch manager. With the purchase of Gas Arc in West Orange, NJ, and Associated Gas in Patterson, NJ, AWISCO now has seven locations.

(from left) Account Manager Ernie Olsen, Branch Manager Stephen Kotcher and Sales Manager Dennis Bicocchi are ready to serve AWISCO customers in Branchville, NJ.

Then there is Airgas, Inc., which scored another three-pointer by acquiring a non-GAWDA member and two GAWDA member companies: Pima Welding Supply, an industrial gas and welding supply distributor in Tucson, AZ, and Smith Welding Supply & Equipment of Ferndale, MI and its affiliated company, Bayer Welding Supply. Pima’s sales in the 12 months ending June 30, 2007 totaled nearly $5M. The purchase includes an industrial cylinder fill plant and a retail store. The business was owned and managed by Randall Gephart whose father, Dean, purchased the business in 1976 and operated it until his death in 1990.

Smith and Bayer had combined annual sales of $16M in CY 2006. Its central industrial gas fill plant in Ferndale, MI supported branches in Wixom, Clinton, Detroit, and Auburn Hills, plus a location in Warren operating as Bayer Welding. Founded in 1917, Smith Welding Supply has operated in the Detroit area as a family-owned business for three generations. Irving Sparage, grandson of founder Jack Smith, has operated the business for the past 28 years, and will join the Airgas team.

On the West Coast, Airgas acquired Pacific Diazo Products (PDP), a distributor of aqua ammonia, anhydrous ammonia, and related products and services headquartered in Colton, CA, with a production and distribution facility in Fontana, CA, and two distribution locations in southern California and Arizona. PDP had more than $9M in sales in CY 2006.

Valley National Gases (Washington, PA) acquired Wolfenden Industries, a distributor of industrial, medical and specialty gases with three operating locations in northeast Ohio. VNG also completed its acquisition of Portland Welding, first announced in late December 2007. Portland has annual sales in excess of $30M, 11 operating locations and 130 employees throughout Maine and New Hampshire. VNG now operates 92 locations in 18 states, with 10 production and distribution centers in the eastern U.S. In February 2007, VNG was acquired by New York-based private equity firm CI Capital Partners LLC, whose principal, Joost Thesseling, says, “The acquisition of Wolfenden Industries is Valley National’s fourth since CI Capital Partners’ acquisition of the company, and brings total acquired revenue to $43 million, an almost 20% increase over fiscal year 2007 revenue.

INDUSTRY BEAT
(what people are talking about)

Arcos Opens DC in Houston (Mount Carmel, PA) • Arcos Industries is opening a 20,000 sq. ft. warehouse and distribution center in Houston, TX, which will enable the company to facilitate deliveries in the Southeast and Southwest and improve response times to the West Coast. Located at 14820 Tomball Parkway, the new facility stocks the company's complete line of high alloy, stainless and nickel electrode products, as well as Select-Arc's line of flux cored and metal cored carbon steel, low alloy, stainless steel, nickel alloy and hardsurfacing electrode products.

Bill Kimla

Kimla Named ALNET Associate Director (Houston, TX) • Bill Kimla has been appointed associate director of Air Liquide America L.P.'s ALNET Distributor Network, where he will be responsible for the nationwide execution of the ALNET distributor strategy, working with the team of ALNET distributor sales managers located across the country. Kimla joined Air Liquide in 1991 and has held a variety of commercial positions with the company throughout its Midwestern and Northeastern U.S. operations. Prior to joining the ALNET team, he was responsible for managing the company’s bulk gas sales along the central Gulf Coast. Kimla will be based at Air Liquide's U.S. headquarters in Houston.

Price Increase on Acetylene and High Pressure Cylinders (Mechanicsburg, PA) • TW Cylinders, a division of Taylor-Wharton International, announced price increases covering all acetylene and high pressure cylinder product lines, effective February 11, 2008. Scott W. Boyd, vice president of sales and marketing, says, "Sustained escalation of steel surcharges, fuel and component parts costs continue to exert upward pressure on our pricing structure. Lingering global increases for oil and other fossil fuel commodities have had a persistent impact on manufacturing costs. In addition to the energy-related rise in costs to operate our factories, the costs to transport raw materials and component parts to our facilities and ship finished products to our customers continue to inflate." Price increases average approximately 2.6% for acetylene cylinders and 5% for high pressure cylinders. Boyd also pointed to sizeable increases in the brass and copper markets as significantly impacting the costs of the brass valves supplied with a majority of cylinder products.

Edward Haberern

Acme Cryogenics Hires New Key Account Manager (Allentown, PA) • Edward Haberern was appointed to the position of key account manager at Acme Cryogenics. Haberern has been in the high purity chemical and gas component industry for the past 21 years and was previously employed by Fab Operations Services, a division of Applied Materials.

OTC Adds Staff (Tipp City, OH) • OTC DAIHEN Inc. recently hired Lisa Humphres as special projects coordinator. Luke Kadota joined the company as a sales advisor for northern region sales, replacing Harry Onguchi, who was reassigned to the company's Nagoya branch in Japan. Jason Robinson was hired as a field service technician, and Keith Shaver as southern corporate strategic accounts manager.

Linde Strengthens HCL Supply Network (Murray Hill, NJ) • The Linde Group is making a series of investments and capital upgrades to strengthen its North American subsidiaries' anhydrous hydrogen chloride (HCL) supply network. Anhydrous HCL is a key chemical for manufacturing processes ranging from semiconductors to pharmaceuticals and cotton fabric. Linde will upgrade two facilities in Lovington, NM, and Phoenix, AZ, and has entered into an agreement to purchase high purity anhydrous HCL from a new manufacturer in Baytown, TX, which is expected to come online in May 2008. HCL from Texas will be railed to Linde's Lovington facility for further purification. The HCL is then repackaged into tube trailers and iso-containers for delivery to customers throughout the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean. HCL from Lovington is trucked to Linde’s Phoenix plant for repackaging into cylinders and ton containers. An expansion project underway in Phoenix will increase plant capacity by 35%, enabling Linde to fill, store and ship over 3,000 additional cylinders to customers.

President of Mexico Dedicates Air Products’ Joint Venture Facility (Lehigh Valley, PA) • Mexico's President Felipe Calderón, along with Tabasco Governor Andrés Granier, dedicated the new Air Products and Grupo Infra 90 million standard-cubic-feet-per-day nitrogen facility near Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico on January 10. The gas turbine and steam-driven facility injects nitrogen into Pemex Exploracion y Produccion's Jujo-Tecominoacan oil fields for enhanced oil and natural gas recovery. Engineering and imported equipment for the new facility was provided by Air Products. CryoInfra supplied local equipment and construction, and will operate the plant.

OKI Bering Donates $100K to Help Relieve Welder Shortage (Miami, FL) • The American Welding Society (AWS) received a $100,000 donation from GAWDA Supplier Member OKI Bering to help relieve the nationwide shortage of welders. The donation was granted to the AWS Foundation Welder Workforce Development Program, launched in 2006 to address the critical need for recruitment and specialized training of entry-level welders while supporting welding workforce needs for selected companies. So far, the foundation has raised $2.6 million as part of a $10 million capital campaign. OKI Bering's donation will be granted over a five-year term that began in 2007. The funds are earmarked for the development of a welding industry career Web site. In addition, over the next five years, OKI Bering will direct all of the company’s surplus inventory materials to welding schools across the nation. It is expected that the total inventory to be donated by OKI Bering will amount to over $1 million.

GAWDA NEWS

GAWDA U ONLINE – Training For Your Staff

GAWDA is proud to announce the development of GAWDA U ONLINE. In cooperation with NORCO and GTS, Inc., GAWDA is developing a low cost and easy to use online training system that will allow you to train and test new employees while keeping current employees trained and tested on the latest safety and compliance issues.

Demonstrations of GAWDA U ONLINE will be conducted during the Spring Management Conferences in Chicago and Miami. The first training programs available will focus on the training that is necessary for new employees during their first 90 days on the job. Future versions will expand this training to safety and compliance programs as identified by GAWDA’s consultants.

GAWDA U ONLINE will only be available to GAWDA members. Enrollment is slated to begin on March 15.

Young Executive Partnership Program

Young Executive Chair Lloyd Robinson and Vice Chair Richelle Smith-Brecht wish to extend a special thank you to the GAWDA members who contributed to the Young Executive Partnership Program. Their support will provide funding for educational programs and networking opportunities for GAWDA’s Young Executives during the Spring Management Conferences in Chicago and Miami and the Annual Convention in the Bahamas.

WORKSHOPS, WEB CONFERENCES & SEMINARS

Zap The Gap! How to Solve the Multi-Generational Puzzle
Presented by Meagan Johnson
Webinar held on Wednesday, March 12, 2008
1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. (Eastern)

Education from the Comforts of Your Office! This live training session is simple to access. Visuals are delivered via the Internet, and audio is delivered via telephone. (Participating sites also receive hard copy of visuals.)

What You Will Learn: If you think you have heard all there is to hear about the four different generations in the workplace, you have not heard Meagan Johnson’s hilarious spin on how to attract, train, market, manage and retain people from every generation and not strangle someone in the process. You get to laugh while acquiring tools you can use immediately to improve your multi-generational relationships with clients, customers and co-workers.

Presenter: Meagan Johnson will be one of the speakers at the Spring Management Conference in Miami on Monday, April 21. This is your chance to preview her presentation and share her ideas with staff that are not able to attend the SMC.

Visit this page for more information and to register.

The GAWDA Connection is distributed on the 8th and 23rd of each month to all GAWDA members as a membership service of GAWDA, the Gases and Welding Distributors Association, 100 N. 20th Street, 4th Floor, Philadelphia, PA, 19103-1443. Neither GAWDA nor Data Key Communications, LLC, their officers, directors, members and staff are responsible for contents or opinions other than those concerning Association activities.

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