Stinger closure imminent

Stinger Welding employees were told that their jobs in Libby would be eliminated soon, the company’s vice president has been relieved of his day-to-day duties, and a financial group temporarily running the company’s operations is trying to determine the market value of Stinger’s remaining assets. 

Those were the latest signs that the embattled bridge-building company is getting ready to close its Libby branch and go back to Arizona.

Several parties with ties to Stinger Welding held a meeting Tuesday to discuss the possibility that the Libby branch would close by the end of February. 

The meeting involved John W. Boyd, the senior managing partner of MCA Financial Group in Phoenix, Thomas Fisher, president of Fisher Sand & Gravel, Paul Rumelhart and Brigid Burke of the Kootenai River Development Council, Port Authority Chairman Jim Mayo and Director John Konzen. 

“It’s a tough, fluid situation,” said John W. Boyd, the senior managing partner of MCA Financial Group in Phoenix, which has been managing Stinger since it entered receivership Jan. 18.

“(Stinger) is an active case. We’re still trying to educate ourselves about its assets,” Boyd said, stopping short of saying the company that has been building steel bridge structures in Libby is on the cusp of closure.

However, The Western News has learned that Steve Patrick, Stinger Vice President of Northwest Operations has been paid through Friday (today), and the company will close in the coming weeks. 

“Yes, I have been paid through Friday,” Patrick said Thursday. And, while Patrick would not comment on whether he had a job beyond Friday, Boyd did.

“He has been paid,” Boyd said. “His job will be different (after Friday). If he is needed, it will be on a consultant basis.”

Before Patrick’s departure, he conducted a meeting of employees in which he informed workers of the demise of the Libby branch, stating there are job offers for any employee who wanted to make the move to the company’s other plant in Coolidge, Ariz.

One welder, Tyler Goff, corroborated the meeting in which employees were offered Arizona jobs, but he said he was not entertaining the offer.

“I have a wife and family here,” Goff said. “No, I don’t think so. No, not now. Not really. I got places I can go.”

Goff, who has been at Stinger since 2010, said he learned welding for the Stinger job through the Job Corps.

“I really wish it would stay open, but it doesn’t sound like it,” Goff said.

Goff has done carpentry and tile work, and he thinks he will find work when Stinger closes.

“I’ve done other stuff. I’ll find something here in Montana,” he said.

Meanwhile, Lincoln County Presiding Commissioner Tony Berget, who is privileged to information about Stinger, advised fellow commissioners about the proceedings.  

“You already know Stinger is in receivership,” Berget said. “Apparently, in two to three weeks, we are told it will close. We’re told a Montana contract awarded to Stinger has already been moved to the Arizona facility.

“We don’t know everything, but apparently, even the facility in Arizona is in jeopardy.”

Lincoln County, through the Port Authority, has invested $3.2 million in the facility where Stinger has been building its steel spans and bridges since 2010.

Virginia Sloan, a spokeswoman for Sen. Jon Tester’s office, expressed disappointment in the pending closure.

“From our standpoint, we’re extremely disappointed it didn’t work out,” Sloan said.

Libby Mayor Doug Roll said the demise of Stinger will lead to criticism, but he said all business ventures are a risk.

“We’ll probably take some criticism for this, but what do you tell a company when it comes offering jobs? No, we don’t want you because you might fail,” Roll said. “I don’t think so.”

Stinger and the Port Authority, through Rumelhart and the Kootenai River Development Council, have had a contentious four-year relationship. Initially, they were partners in bringing Stinger to Libby, but in the last year, that relationship has been strained culminating in a lawsuit in October. 

Then in December, the face of Stinger, CEO Carl Douglas, was killed in a plane crash on nearby Swede Mountain.

Stinger also has been named in federal liens for delinquent taxes.

More recently, Patrick has written a guest editorial that appeared in another newspaper and conducted an interview with a Flathead County publication that was critical of Lincoln County’s lack of support for Stinger.