Stinger production only weeks away
Canda Harbaugh/The Western News Work at the Stinger Welding site could be seen on Tuesday afternoon. The bridge manufacturer plans to hire 10 welders this month with the production set to begin around Aug. 3.
Bridge manufacturer Stinger Welding Inc. plans to hire 10 local welders this month to train and begin production in an alternative building while the permanent facility is being constructed.
Since the Coolidge, Ariz.-based company entered into a formal contract with the county last month to build a 100,000 square-foot facility that will eventually employ at least 200 people, pre-construction work has commenced and the company has been able to focus on production.
“It’s exciting to get into the operational aspect and get people hired and working after this long of a period of time to get the business side (secured),” said Doug Watson, general manager for the Libby facility.
Watson will have the job of narrowing down about 170 resumes to 15 for interviewing on July 21-22. From there, he will choose the top 10 that can perform specialized welding needed to fabricate bridge parts.
The first batch of welders will begin building expansion joints at the old central maintenance building on the mill site around Aug. 3. Whether or not they will build other parts is still under consideration.
“We are determining what we can do to help the backlog (in Coolidge),” Watson said.
Three truckloads of material and equipment will arrive in Libby as soon as the room at the temporary location is cleaned up and retrofitted for operations. It will become a two-shift operation and a few more welders may be hired, Watson said.
Workers for the past two weeks have been tearing out concrete foundations, kilns, steam tunnels and other structures from 80 years of historical use to prepare the base for the future site of the new building in the Industrial District.
The facility is still in the design phase, but if everything goes according to plan, it will be up and running by February next year.
“That’s our tentative target,” Watson said, “but it’s just hopeful thinking because not everything is in place to accurately predict that.”
As soon as the building is ready to go, Stinger will expand operations and hire more people. The company plans to hire 70-80 welders, along with laborers, forklift drivers, a quality maintenance staff and an administrative staff, among others.
“We’ll begin hiring people at a very rapid rate until we get up to the 202 people in our plan,” Watson said. “The bulk of the people will be hired in that February-March time.”
Watson said that 12 welders would be hired per month until the target number is reached.
Watson is also in discussion with the Flathead Valley Community College about the possibility of coming out with a training program that would include instruction on safety and the company’s specialized kind of welding.