New fabrication company expands into new facility
<p>Alpine Precision owners Nate Grotjohn, Dave Friss and Nick Friss held an open house on Friday to showcase their new facility. (Bethany Rolfson/The Western News)</p>
<p>Matthew Sweet (blue shirt) watches a fabrication cleaning machine with Rhet (orange shirt) and Callie Donnelly (pink shirt). (Bethany Rolfson/The Western News)</p>
On April 1, a local company moved from their former location on Farm to Market Road into their brand-new building, which allowed the company to expand, hire new employees and further strengthen their company.
Alpine Precision Inc. hosted an open house on Friday afternoon to celebrate their new facility and to give the community the opportunity to take a tour and meet the crew.
Alpine Precision is a manufacturing company, specializing in CNC precision machine parts made from aluminum, stainless steel and exotic plastics. It sells to fortune 500 companies around the world.
“This was a long time coming,” Dave Friss, founder and co-owner of Alpine Precision Inc. said.
When Dave, Nate Friss and Nick Grotjohn decided on purchasing the plot of land to construct a brand-new building two years ago, Dave sold one-third of the company to Grotjohn and another one-third to Nick.
“I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t for Nate and Nick coming along with me,” Dave said. “If they weren’t on board, I wouldn’t have done it.”
“They approached me a couple years ago and we didn’t know where it was going,” Grotjohn said.
Dave has been working in parts since 1977. From 1985 to 1993, he owned his first company, which he sold to his parents. In 1994, he started Alpine Precision Inc. According to Dave, Nate and Grotjohn have been with him for 10 years.
“We are so very happy to have them in Libby,” Pamela Peppenger, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce said.
According to Dave Friss, the company only hired local contractors for the new building.
“That went above and beyond what we wanted to do,” Dave Friss said. “We wanted to keep the money in the community.”
Alpine Precision recently hired two new part time employees, one maintenance worker and one machine operator.
The company is currently working on becoming International Organization of Standardization (ISO) 9001 certified, which, according to Dave, means they would be more structured in their sales
For some industries, ISO 9001 certification is a legal or contractual requirement, so once Alpine becomes certified, it can do business with more major industries including aerospace, medical and many more fortune 500 companies. The company is also working on becoming AS9100 certified, which would allow them to sell parts to the military.
“It’s him bringing an industry to Libby, when Libby is industry starved,” said Janelle Campbell, who attended the open house on Friday. “If he’s going to go ISO certified that’s going to bring a lot more industry diversification to Libby.”
Alpine Precision Inc. is located at 34991 off of U.S. Highway 2 in Libby.
For more information, contact Alpine Precision at 293-4907.
Reporter Bethany Rolfson may be reached at 293-4124 or by email at Reporter@TheWesternNews.com.