Rather than endure a change in ownership with an area pipe manufacturer, co-workers and minority shareholders Jim Massengale and Bert Bridges decided to start their own venture.
In March 2011, United Poly Systems LLC was formally born, though it would be just after Christmas when the company began filling orders. Once up and running, the polyethylene pipe production ran nonstop, 24 hours a day for 11 months. Other than breaks on Thanksgiving and Christmas, the 36-employee company is pumping out pipes for customers in the gas, oil, telecommunications and utilities industries.
Massengale, a 30-year manufacturing veteran with expertise in operations, teamed up with Bridges, a 15-year pipe sales and marketing specialist, after nearly 12 years of working together at Bore-Flex Industries in Mountain Grove. Massengale left a month after a January 2011 buyout of Bore-Flex, and Bridges parted ways with the company in March of that year to open shop in Partnership Industrial Center, 4707 E. Kearney St.
Pumped up The pair already are embarking on a new chapter.
This month, the owners are breaking ground on a second facility – a roughly $5 million, 50,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Minot, N.D., that is expected to produce $25 million to $30 million in annual revenue.
“Oil and gas is probably stronger there than anywhere in the country right now,” Bridges says. “It has been part of our business plan to expand in that region.”
According to the North Dakota Petroleum Council, the drilling rig count – a key barometer for measuring oil and gas activity – reached 200 in the state in 2012. That’s up from 10 in 2002. The state’s oil and gas industry produced $2.06 billion in taxable sales last year, an increase of 44 percent compared to 2011.
The new United Poly Systems plant is expected to be on line in six months and employ 35 to 50 within 18 months of production.
“It’ll be very similar to what we’ve got here in Springfield,” Massengale says. “One of the reasons we started here first is both of our families are here. We stuck local, but our intentions have always been to get out into the Dakotas.”
While construction of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline has garnered much speculation in recent years, the owners say it’s a nonfactor for their second location.
“The products we supply wouldn’t go across states like the Keystone would,” Bridges says. “The Bakken Shale up there is producing quite a bit of oil and gas. We supply a lot of products into the Dakotas as it is for infrastructure – power, utility, electrical, telecommunications – but the oil and gas is really what’s driving us there.”
United Poly Systems produces pipes for oil companies Whiting Petroleum Corp. and Continental Resources Inc. (NYSE: CLR), as well as distributors such as MRC Global Inc. (NYSE: MRC), Dakota Supply Group and Graybar.
High pressure One of its customers that helped the dream of United Poly take shape is St. Louis-based Pittsburgh Pipe, which provides steel and plastic pipes for general contractors such as Springfield-based Killian Construction Co.
Pittsburgh Pipe president and owner Joe Bergfeld says Massengale and Bridges sat down with him in early 2011 when they were formulating their business. Bergfeld says he believed in their ability to produce quality products at a competitive price so much that he considered using his own funds to grab an ownership stake in the company.
“They know what they are doing, and they are doing it in the right way,” Bergfeld says. “Our company has grown as their company has grown.”
Bergfeld says plastic pipes comprise about 25 percent of his business and his two primary providers are United Poly Systems and Dura-line Corp., the company that bought Bore-Flex when Bridges and Massengale worked there.
At United Poly’s 48,000-square-foot Springfield plant, crews heat raw plastic material called resin to 380 F and form the pipes through an extruder before they are cooled in a series of water enclosures and cut to size. Because it is a closed-loop system, very little water is wasted, Massengale says.
“I probably use more water at my house,” he says, adding that extra plastic material is recycled in-house, as well.
Pipes are tested twice every eight hours to ensure they meet or exceed industry standards. The company manufacturers pipes from 3/4-inches to 16 inches in diameter for customers across the country, but mostly within a 700-mile radius.
The owners decline to disclose revenues, but say they are investing in the municipal utilities market, where they’ve served customers in the St. Louis area and in Fort Smith, Ark. A $2.5 million new production line is on its way to produce high-pressure pipes that can replace the largely steel-pipe infrastructure many communities have in place.
“Our products are heat fused, so there is no leakage and they are not corrosive like steel,” Bridges says. “We expect growth in the municipal water market.”[[In-content Ad]]
