Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 23, 1994 TAG: 9401240255
SECTION: ECONOMY PAGE: EC-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Greg Edwards Staff Writer
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
\ David Barrows wonders what happened to those mild Virginia winters.
Barrows, 56, is a newcomer to the Roanoke Valley, having moved from Ohio last year with his company, Connex Pipe Systems Inc.
When Connex managers told employees about the move to Virginia, one of the plusses they mentioned was the Roanoke Valley's mild winters, Barrows grinned. A short while later, he was pulling on his winter parka to take visitors on a tour of the production building where blazing gas heaters were doing little to knock off the January chill.
An employee of the company since he was 19, Barrows has held a succession of jobs with increasing responsibility and now is one of five project managers who oversee $50 million in annual business.
A tall, friendly man, Barrows' enthusiasm for his work shows when he talks about it. Connex has been a good company to work for, he said.
"I wouldn't have been here as long . . . if it hadn't been."
Connex fabricates pipe systems for a variety of customers, including paper mills, chemical plants and steel mills. But the core of the company's business is the electric power industry, according to Gilbert Gardner, company president.
Four years ago, Connex was bought by the Whessoe plc of Darlington, England, a conglomerate with other U.S. business interests, including Coggins Engineering of Atlanta.
Connex doesn't make pipe. It takes high-pressure pipe made from a variety of materials - including titanium and stainless steel - and cuts, bends and welds it into pipe systems that can be more quickly and easily assembled on the job site. It's an operation similar to the prefabrication of wall panels and roof trusses in the housing industry.
Last year, the company bought the former Roanoke Bridge and Iron Works building on Stony Battery Road in Troutville and moved its headquarters operation there from Marietta, Ohio. The company, originally known as Dravo Pipe Fabrication Inc., moved to Marietta in 1952 from Pittsburgh.
In June, the manufacturer announced it would move to Virginia. It began production at the Troutville plant Sept. 9. The Ohio plant and another Connex facility in Pineville, N.C., have since closed.
For a variety of reasons, including a desire to reduce labor costs, Connex began looking for a new manufacturing site two years ago.
"We found the ideal building here in Troutville," Gardner said. That, "a good labor market" and the assistance of state and local government brought the company to the Roanoke Valley.
The company has built a 20,000-square-foot addition to the the 133,000-square-foot building it bought beside Norfolk Southern Corp. tracks. Another addition is planned.
It also has moved a huge 2,000-degree Fahrenheit oven - used to remove the stresses from welded pipe - to Troutville from its North Carolina plant. Gardner hopes to interest other manufacturers in the area in purchasing the services of the oven.
To provide office space for the company's managers and engineers, several trailer units were set up behind the plant. Eventually, an office building will be built on an adjacent hill.
On a recent visit, the offices and the plant were buzzing with activity.
Inside the huge metal-fabrication building, workers scurried back and forth as heavy cranes passed overhead and showers of sparks filled the air from a chorus of welding rods and grinding wheels.
Connex has 152 workers in Roanoke, including 86 hourly employees on the shop floor, Gardner said. With the closing of the Marietta plant the week before Christmas, another 50 workers will be hired at Troutville soon, he said.
Thirty-one engineers and managers moved with Connex from Ohio to Virginia. Another four employees came from the North Carolina plant.
The employees who moved to the valley with the company have "settled in well," and 95 percent of them have bought homes, Gardner said. They have found the local school systems to be good, he said.
The remainder of the company's work force was hired locally, filling such jobs as foreman, accountant, secretary, estimator, salesman, chief financial officer, human resources manager and purchasing agent.
The company is finding most of its welders locally, working with the Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 1491, Gardner said. Welding is a critical step in the manufacture of the pipe systems. Some welds, such as those on pipe for nuclear power plants, are X-rayed to check their quality.
The Troutville plant recently passed a Nuclear Regulatory Commission audit, a requirement for fabricating pipe for nuclear plants. Connex has had a long relationship with the nuclear-power industry, having fabricated pipe systems for the first commercial U.S. nuclear plant, which opened in Pennsylvania in 1955.
At one time, Connex had 500 employees at its plant in Marietta, a city of 15,000 on the Ohio River near Parkersburg, W.Va. Energy conservation efforts, a freeze in nuclear-power-plant construction and other factors led to a downturn in the company's business beginning in the 1970s.
Last year, Connex produced pipe systems totalling roughly 400,000 linear feet. Approximately 70 percent of the company's production was for projects overseas.
The company is now fabricating pipe systems for projects in Indonesia, China, Israel and Egypt.
Gardner says he sees a lot of potential for Connex to expand its business in the Far East, as countries such as China begin needing more power. Future employment at the Troutville plant will depend on the number of projects the company lands, he said.
Connex has about one-fifth of the $250 million worldwide market for fabricated pipe. Its two largest competitors in the United States are Power Piping of Pittsburgh and Shaw Industries of Baton Rouge, La., Gardner said.
As a project manager, Barrows is responsible for seeing that all aspects of a job are completed, from the technical drawings to customer billing.
Barrows' accounts include General Electric Co., American Electric Power, Bechtel Power and Taiwan Power.
Earlier this month, he was juggling 10 jobs. "That's why this paper is piled up," he said, gesturing toward his desk.
All of the plant's managers are trained in the quality management principles of the late W. Edwards Deming, Barrows said.
"One of the things we pride ourselves on is putting out a good quality product," he said.
\ CONNEX PIPE SYSTEMS INC.
A NEW NAME
The company: Connex Pipe Systems Inc. is one of the world's largest manufacturers of fabricated pipe systems for power plants and industry, holding approximately one-fifth of the worldwide market. Formerly known as Dravo Pipe Fabrication Inc., Connex is a subsidiary of Whessoe plc, an international conglomerate headquartered in Darlington, England.
Headquarters: Roanoke.
Roanoke Valley operations: Connex announced last June that it was moving its main plant and headquarters to the Roanoke Valley from Marrietta, Ohio, where the company had been located since 1952. The company purchased the 133,000-square-foot facility in Troutville that was formerly occupied by Roanoke Bridge and Iron Works and has since built a 20,000-square-foot-addition.
by CNB