30 in 30: Custom Metalcraft posts $30 million revenues in 30 years of business

Owner: Dwayne Holden and Jerry Cowan

Founded: 1977

Address: 2332 E. Division St. 65802

Phone: (417) 862-0707

Fax: (417) 864-7575

Web site: www.custom-metalcraft.com

E-mail: cmcsales@custom-metalcraft.com

Products: Design and manufacture stainless steel processing equipment and bulk handling systems for both liquid and dry applications

2006 Revenues: $30 million

Employees: 200

Don’t be fooled by the shiny metal objects. Ideas and solutions to problems are the real products at Custom Metalcraft.

“We consider ourselves an idea company,” says co-owner Dwayne Holden, who left Paul Mueller Co. along with Jerry Cowan to start Custom Metalcraft in 1977. “That’s where the name came from. (Custom Metalcraft) was something special, different, that solved problems.”

It was the lure of entrepreneurship that called them.

“It was that challenge of being in business,” Holden adds. “Mueller is in the same industry. That’s what I knew. Everyone around me encouraged me to stay in the industry I knew. Everyone else in Springfield was doing (tanks) so we decided to go for the custom equipment.”

Thirty years later, the custom metal equipment company is a $30 million-a-year venture.

Custom Metalcraft designs and builds stainless steel processing equipment and bulk-handling systems for both liquid and dry applications. Products cover standard and custom bulk containers, processors, kettles, heat exchangers and various kinds of tanks, including portable tanks and wine fermentation tanks.

Custom Metalcraft has grown and expanded into many different industries – food and beverage, chemical, petroleum, and pharmaceutical – which Holden says helps smooth out an economic downturn in any single industry.

According to Kurt Hellweg, President of American Dehydrated Foods and International Dehydrated Foods, Custom Metalcraft did a lot of work for them early in the history of both companies.

“They built our first dryers and helped design many of our first cookers,” Hellweg recalls. “We were most impressed about their willingness to work with us to custom build anything we needed. They really rolled their sleeves up and worked collaboratively with us to get what we needed.”

Engineering genius

The company’s business is about 40 percent custom work, which puts a lot of responsibility on the engineering staff.

Holden praises Gerald Glass, an engineer, for also being instrumental in founding the company. Now semiretired, Glass only works on unique projects.

“He is literally a genius,” Holden says. “He could sit there and see a problem and sketch out a piece of equipment that would solve that problem.”

Glass has had a key role in training the engineering staff, an area for which Holden says it is difficult to find quality workers.

“It takes a good fellow with common sense – not necessarily a degreed engineer,” Holden says. “We are always looking for another one to expand that area because these people aren’t available every day.”

Talent growth

Since 2000, the company has made several acquisitions. Many of Custom Metalcraft’s acquisitions are about acquiring the skills and people to expand the company’s offerings.

In 2000, Custom Metalcraft acquired CMC Prep and Paint, a powder-coating facility in Nixa. In 2003, it acquired CMC Letco Industries, adding the ability to produce large process vessels using exotic materials, such as titanium. In 2004, Custom Metalcraft acquired CMC Tool and Equipment, expanding its machining capabilities.

Dwayne Holden says his job now is to grow the talent in the company and create opportunity for those who work there – including his two children, Drew, regional sales manager, and Nikki, who oversees winery products and manages TranStore, a portable tank line that dates back to 1983.

“The people make up the company,” Dwayne Holden says. “Within the company now, we have several different nice companies. We’ve been trying to change over to what we call profit centers, something slightly different than what Jack Stack did. It gives those younger people the opportunity to take over a certain area that they are interested in.”

Nikki Holden has made the most of her opportunity to study vineyards.

“That’s an industry we entered in 1993 and really began to fully pursue in 1997,” Nikki Holden says. “We’ve seen steady growth every year and it has been more exponential in the last three to five. Wineries have seen 100 percent growth in that time. I can tell you with certainty that now there is a winery in every state in the union, even Alaska.”

Wineries also highlight another aspect of Custom Metalcraft’s success – word of mouth.

“It’s definitely a very referral-based business,” Holden adds. “As you manufacture something for someone out there, they may have a friend who they went to college with that works in another winery in Napa Valley. Ours is definitely a business built on customer service.”