Checking out Our Neighborhood

Thriving community centers on Iowa Street

by Christopher Key

Once again, Business Pulse is boldly going where no publication has gone before and reporting on a business community that has not previously been identified. Iowa Street, where we do business, has long been identified as Auto Row, but the business community encompasses a lot more than car dealerships. For the purposes of this story, we’re defining the district as running from Iowa to Alabama Streets and from the freeway to Woburn Street.

Most of the area is zoned light industrial. Technically, it is part of the Roosevelt Neighborhood as defined by the city. The main business district, however, occupies just a corner of that area. So we’ll modestly call it Our Neighborhood.

It hasn’t been all that many years since this area was considered to be out in the country. A number of farms were located here, including the first incarnation of Joe’s Garden, now situated in Sehome. The area began to change when Brooks Manufacturing bought property here in the 1930s.

The company actually started as the Ralph Thorn Pipe and Tank Company back in 1915. They originally made wooden staves for tanks before metal became easily available. The Brooks family acquired the firm in the 1930s and Mimi Ferlin’s grandfather purchased the present site.

“My family had been in the wood business for years,” she said. “We had a sawmill out in Glacier for a long time. Because we were out in the county in those days, Dad used to let the circus pitch its tents here,”

After a major fire pretty well destroyed the business in 1944, the company rebuilt and focused on making crossarms for utility poles and railroads. Mimi’s husband John runs that part of the business now.

“We continue to supply the utility industry both nationally and internationally,” he said. “About five to ten percent of our business comes from export. We currently have about 60 percent of the market share for crossarms. Secondarily, we also make products to support big transmission lines. Our sales are in excess of $15 million.”

Because the company treats its product with pesticides, it is heavily regulated.

“We use structural grade timbers from coastal Douglas fir,” John said. “That wood comes from an area stretching from Redding, California, up into Canada. We’re seeing some changes now because the raw material is being restricted. Sawmills are closing. The utility industry is changing. They’re using other materials in some instances, or putting utilities underground.”

That approach, John pointed out, is ten times as expensive as putting utilities on poles.

“As utility companies restructure, they’re no longer keeping two years of materials on hand,” he said. “They try to make poles last twice as long, effectively cutting our market in half. In order to survive, we’ve had to become the most efficient. In 1986, there were 12 manufacturers competing with us. Now, there are just four. We’ve invested heavily in new technology to make us the best and most modern facility. Our share of a shrinking market continues to grow.”

As pioneers in this business neighborhood, Brooks Manufacturing has taken its responsibilities seriously.

“In a way, we’re a well kept secret,” Mimi said. “Brooks set the tone for the area as light industrial. Auto row developed separately from this side of Iowa Street. The city grew around us and we put a lot of effort into being good neighbors. We made significant investments to keep odors under control with a vapor recovery system and restructured our storm water system. A used car dealer who is no longer here complained about sawdust getting on his cars, so we invested $150,000 in sawdust recovery.”

Brooks Manufacturing is a good neighbor in other ways, as well.

“We contribute to the YMCA, the boy scouts, scholarships at Western Washington University,” Mimi said. “We have a strong sense of community involvement.”

The manufacturing part of the company has 43 employees, some of whom have been with the firm for 30 years or more. Brooks is a union shop.

“It’s becoming more difficult to find employees at the moment because we’re drug free,” John said. “This is very hard work and you have to be safe. Our jobs involve material handling and operating machinery.

Random drug testing on a quarterly basis causes some difficulty in hiring.

“The work ethic isn’t there anymore,” John said. “The expectations of workers have changed. Now, they are more concerned with how much time off they have. There’s not the commitment there used to be on the part of employers or employees. People have a lot more options beyond 25 years and a gold watch.”

In order to attract workers from a limited pool, Brooks offers competitive salaries and full benefits.

“We also try to be a family to them,” Mimi said. “We’re a team. We have barbecues here three times a year. Our people take pride in their work. We can’t compete with heavy industry for family wage jobs, but we do pay more than most.”

At a very visible building called the white house, Mimi and three other employees manage the real estate arm of the company. That part of the business involves taking care of rental units and doing projects like some condos on North State Street.

“The plant occupies about 12.5 acres and we’re restructuring the property so that the excess can be put to use for things other than manufacturing,” John said. “If and when we have to quit producing crossarms, we have to think about what to do with this property.”

One of those uses will be storage units, which the Ferlins expect will be in demand by neighboring businesses.

“This area is close to town and the freeway,” John said. “It will be taken over by more service oriented businesses gradually. Not that much land is zoned for industrial use, so industrial and manufacturing businesses are diminishing. We’d like to see more effort to support and grow our industrial base.”

Overall, the Ferlins are pleased with the way the district has developed.

“There’s not much cohesiveness among the businesses in this area,” Mimi said. “Maybe we need to communicate and get organized.”

John Hendricks likes to completely take apart four wheel drive trucks and put them back together again with a few improvements. He turned his hobby into a business that has found success on Auto Row. Northwest Off-Road Specialties, Inc., interestingly enough, does very little of their business with the dealerships.

“We started next door in 1978,” said Marilyn Hendricks, who owns the business along with her husband. “John said I shouldn’t quit my job at Hawley’s. It was three days before our first sale and it has just mushroomed from there.”

John is from the San Diego area and worked for years as an airline mechanic.

“He got involved with the industry because all the guys he worked with had four wheel drive trucks,” Marilyn said. “He started as a customer of many of the vendors we do business with now.”

John helped finance the business by working on the Alaska Pipeline for two years. They, they hired a mechanic and lived off their savings until the business took off. Over the years, they have narrowed their focus to Toyota trucks and to mail order.

“Only about five percent of our business is in state,” Marilyn said. “The rest comes from elsewhere as a result of our catalogue. John writes every word of the catalogue and takes the photos. We changed from all 4x4s to just Toyotas in 1984 and have innovated many products. We stopped doing installations so we could concentrate on the mail order business.”

John is an inventor who developed many specialized tools for Boeing. If need be, he designs a new product and contracts to have it manufactured. Then, he sends it back until it’s perfect.

“There’s heavy competition in this field,” John said. “There are hundreds of businesses involved with 4x4s. Four or five major firms specialize in Toyota, like we do. There wasn’t any business like this when we started. We saw the market coming for off road vehicles and planned the business that way. Then it really took off in the 1990s.”

One of the ways they gained credibility for the business was through many vehicles John built for export. They also took one of John’s beautifully tricked out trucks camping and got an amazing amount of attention.

“There’s really two markets now,” John said. “There’s the truck market, then there’s SUVs. We specialize in vehicles that actually go off road. It’s more than just dress up accessories. We carry suspension components, headers, lots of parts for people who want to put V-8 motors in Toyotas. Our customers put performance before appearance.”

The business now has 12 employees.

“It’s difficult to find good sales help, but easy to get people for the office,” Marilyn said.

A rapidly changing industry presents constant challenges.

“Company founders are not passing their businesses on,” John said. “We have to search the whole world for new products. It’s tough making long term commitments with suppliers. We don’t deal with warehouses or middlemen. Our purchasing power is based on buying factory direct. And, of course, we have our own exclusive products. That’s a real profit center.”

Northwest Off-Road Specialties puts out one catalogue a year that is read by 16,000 people per day.

“It’s a fallacy that customers buy by price,” John said. “Quality and availability are what drive this business. Inventory is critical. When these guys are working on their trucks, they want the part now. Everybody’s in a rush. We do lots of air shipments and it’s tough on inventory control. We now have two full time shippers.”

John and Marilyn have seen plenty of changes in the neighborhood in 25 years.

“We were the only people here for a long time,” Marilyn said. “Now, the area is filling in. Proximity to the auto dealers and the freeway make it a good location. It’s a good area. People come to look at cars and see us.”

When they started, they did a lot of dealer setups on vehicles, basically building custom trucks. They don’t have time for that anymore. After surviving the pipeline explosion in 1999, they have quit making plans and let the business steer them wherever it wants to go.

“It’s not easy for a husband and wife to work together for 25 years,” Marilyn said. “We learned to leave the arguments at work. John focuses on sales and I do the bookkeeping.”

They used to advertise in 4x4 magazines before the Internet passed them like they were sitting still.

“We have a Web site, but don’t actually sell on the Internet,” John said. “Customers have to call us because we frequently find they need some direction with technically complex problems.”

Their business goes to about 120 factories, most of which are here in the US.

“We got our foot in the door early with these manufacturers,” John said. “We’ve continued to place bulk orders for 25 years and those doors have stayed open. It’s hard to be in this business if you’re not buying in quantity. Warehouses just can’t compete.”

The business carries parts for Toyotas going back to 1979.

“It’s amazing who buys vehicles these days,” John said. “Eighty percent of SUVs are leased to women. We tried to focus on Land Cruisers for a while. It turned out that 80 percent of them were driven by women and leased. That means no aftermarket sales.”

John and Marilyn think it’s a pretty good place to have an automotive business.

“All of a sudden, there was a lot of traffic,” Marilyn said. “Those Iowa Street improvements didn’t hurt.”

How do you spell stress relief? A lot of people in Whatcom and Skagit Counties spell it Northwest Hot Spring Spas. Dan Hyatt started the business in Burlington nearly 20 years ago. There’s been a location on Iowa Street for over 13 years and both are franchises of Hot Spring Portable Spas.

That company started 26 years ago in Vista, California, and now has over 500 dealers worldwide. Jody Vincent has been managing the Bellingham location for six years.

“The national franchise had a lot on influence on this location,” she said. “People know where auto row is and can find us easily. The rents are great.”

Gary Rohweder is the other sales associate in the store. He and Vincent have known each other for 20 years.

“This is a somewhat competitive business,” Vincent said. “But it’s a good, friendly competition.”

The northwest in general, according to Vincent, sells more hot tubs than any other region of the country.

“Originally, it was more of a fad and only rich people had them,” Vincent said. “Now that the benefits to arthritis and fibromyalgia patients are becoming known, it’s not just a fad anymore.”

The health benefits of hydromassage for stress relief are well documented.

“It helps make people’s aches and pains go away,” Vincent said. “It helps you get a more sound and restful sleep. Some people can’t exercise except in water. The original tubs just had four jets, but the modern ones can hit lots of points. It can even help carpal tunnel syndrome.”

Hot tubs have become more reliable and efficient over the years.

“Twenty years ago, it might cost $60 to $80 per month to keep a tub hot,” Vincent said. “Now, it’s more like $15 or $16 a month. It’s much more affordable for the average person. The initial cost hasn’t changed much, but operating costs have. They’re much more sophisticated and user friendly. Maintenance only takes about 15 minutes a week, once people get the hang of it.”

One of the revolutions in hot tub maintenance was the introduction of simple test strips that replaced more complex water testing systems.

“Most of our customers are happy with where we are located,” Vincent said. “We surveyed our customers about this a while back and every one of them said stay away from the Guide. We’re looking at remodeling our space soon.”

In addition to in ground and above ground pools, the company offers saunas, gas grills and accessories.

“We also service existing pools and spas,” Vincent said. “We have four people on our service crew, all of whom work out of the Burlington office. That is really more like a regional center.”

Tim Donnelly and his wife started Special T Striping and Sign out of the back of a Toyota pickup in 1979. They went around to auto dealers to provide striping services. That eventually led to the sign industry, which utilizes many of the same materials. Their son Alan runs the striping business and his brother Dave handles the sign business.

“Our first storefront was on Ohio Street in 1985,” Alan said. “We purchased our first sign computer in 1986 and moved here to the Pacific Street location in 1987.”

They purchased the building they occupy and added onto it in 1990.

“In 1997, we added two more buildings, totaling 6,000 square feet,” Alan said. “Wer’e really into auto accessories now, more than just striping. That and our sign business generally balance out at about 50/50. We run two businesses out of one company by keeping the employees and management separate. Dad has the vision; Dave and I handle the day to day operations.”

The businesses employ 13 people.

“It’s not hard to hire good people,” Alan said. “We’re very specialized and have to hire skilled people. That’s not usual for this type of business. It’s a family atmosphere here. We treat employees with respect and always remember what they bring to us.”

All of the family members get along well.

“We’re all friends, as well as family,” Alan said. “You have to separate work life from family life to a certain extent.”

The proximity to Auto Row was perfect for their business and the cost of the property was relatively low, being a bit off the beaten path.

“As we’ve grown, traffic along Pacific Street has grown,” Alan said. “That gives us more of a retail presence. Drive by is not a big factor, but our customers come and find us. The majority of them come to us by referral from dealers or other customers. About 70 percent come that way and 30 percent from advertising.”

Alan’s auto accessories business is a lot more than just striping.

“We do window tinting, power and manual sunroofs, leather interiors to replace cloth,” he said. “We have mobile video, alarm systems, remote start, running boards, rear spoilers, pickup truck canopies, endless aftermarket products.”

One of the advantages to locating in the neighborhood is easy access to the freeway.

“We get a lot of business from Skagit and Island Counties and have to transport vehicles to and from dealers,” Alan said. “Maybe we don’t get a lot of drive by, but when people come in we can give them a lot of individual attention. We deliberately set up our showroom with desks where people can sit down and talk to us one on one.”

Dave’s sign division will do anything except electrical. A lot of the business is focused of vehicle and boat lettering.

“The community is changing,” Alan said. “Businesses are buying property on Pacific and Queen Streets. Old houses are giving way to business uses. A lot of the businesses coming in are auto related, for obvious reasons. We’re constantly evolving, adding new products and services.”

That last sentence pretty well sums up what’s going on in Our Neighborhood. We’ve now got everything from espresso stands to a tanning salon. What else could we possibly need? Well, a good lunch spot, say in the Iowa Business Park, wouldn’t hurt.