Tag Archives: structural steel fabrication

New Estimator Has Joined the Albina Team

The last few years have been sensational for Albina Co., Inc. We have seen a great deal of change in our industry and have been fortunate to recognize growth in our capabilities, capacity and in both our shop and office team members.  We are excited to introduce the newest member of our Estimating / Project Management team, Joseph (Joe) Daniels. Joe is joining Aaron Hughes, Mark King, Brad Lund, Stuart Hasman and Brian Smith in Albina’s Sales department. Joe has many years of experience in the steel and fabrication industry and has worked in Albina’s shop, as an Ironworker, since July 2014. Joe has developed an outstanding reputation at Albina and will be a welcomed addition to our outstanding sales and estimating team. Joe possesses a comprehensive work ethic and will service Albina’s customers just as you have grown accustomed to from the other members of our team. We are confident Joe’s commitment to quality and integrity will make him a valuable resource as our company and your business continue to grow. You can contact Joe or any of our other existing sales staff with your estimating and technical needs at 503-692-6010. Joe’s email is jdaniels@albinaco.com. Thank you for your continued support.

Joe Daniels joins Albina Co., Inc. Estimating Team
Joe Daniels

Happy Father’s Day

I’m proud of my hard work. Working hard won’t always lead to the exact things we desire. There are many things I’ve wanted that I haven’t always gotten. But, I have a great satisfaction in the blessings from my mother and father, who instilled a great work ethic in me both personally and professionally. –Tamron Hall

Father’s Day is upon us! Father’s Day is particularly important to me as I lost my father, Bill, over 8 years ago, and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about him or get a reminder of him while at work. It can be a phone call from someone in the industry who used to work with him, it can be an old quote I see come across my desk with his name on it, it can be my daily rounds through the shop where I can still see him problem solving with a machine operator on a particularly challenging job. Whatever it may be, I always remind myself that I am a representative of the Smith Family and the steel bending business that my grandfather and father helped to build. Jaime and I have been building on their values for many, many years now and feel great about where we have been able to take the business. All three generations have worked in both the shop and office during our careers. A fourth generation spends their summers pulling weeds, washing windows and doing database entry in their spare time. We have four generations of family who believe in the steel industry and believe in the value of hard work. I have no idea if my son and daughter will be interested in taking over the family business some day, but if they do, I am confident that they will work hard, be honest and carry on the traditions we have lived by for the last 80 years! I am a proud business owner and a proud Father. Happy Father’s Day to all you Father’s out there! 

Bill & Brian Smith-2001

Utah District Courthouse Spiral Staircase Graces Cover of A2Z Manufacturing Magazine in June!

Check out the cover spot and three page feature article on Albina Co., Inc. in the June Rocky Mountain Edition of A2Z Manufacturing Magazine. Pages 18-20! We had such a great time working with Linda and Kim to highlight and showcase all of the amazing curved steel projects we have done in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Some projects featured in the article include:

Sun Valley Music Pavillion in Sun Valley, ID. 220,000# of pipe rolled ranging from 10" Sch80 to 10" XXH
Sun Valley Music Pavillion in Sun Valley, ID. 220,000# of pipe rolled ranging from 10″ Sch80 to 10″ XXH
Custom Signage at Entrance to Yellow Stone National Park Attraction "Buffalo Bill Cody Stampede Park"
Custom Signage at Entrance to Yellow Stone National Park Attraction “Buffalo Bill Cody Stampede Park”
Ellie Caulkins Opera House Denver, CO. 210 lengths 1-1/2" x 1-1/2" x 3/16" angle rolled to numerous compound radii
Ellie Caulkins Opera House Denver, CO. 210 lengths 1-1/2″ x 1-1/2″ x 3/16″ angle rolled to numerous compound radii

NOW HIRING: ESTIMATOR/PROJECT MANAGER

Candidate must have extensive steel fabrication and estimating (bidding) experience (a minimum 5 years’ experience). It would be ideal if the candidate has actual shop fabrication or bending experience as well. Candidate must be well connected in the bending and fabrication industry and have a strong reputation for customer service. High-level ability to use Geometry, Trigonometry, AutoCAD and computer based Excel spreadsheets.

Duties include: Read & interpret shop drawings to come up with bending and fabrication estimates. This candidate is responsible for all levels of the bid process as well as post-bid project management. Work with a team of estimators and project managers to initiate improvements in our current bid process and develop new standards / rules for estimating bending and fabrication.

Compensation DOE. 
This is NOT an entry-level position.

Please email or fax your resume Attn: HR Director: dwilson@albinaco.com or 503-692-6020 (fax)

Feature Article in the Portland Business Tribune

Albina Co., Inc. is drawing a lot of attention locally and nationwide as we celebrate 80 years in the steel bending business. Our story is one of the unique ones as we span three generations of Smith owners! Check out the article on the Portland Business Tribune website. 

Albina Co., Inc. is a Proud Member of the USFA (Utah Steel Fabricators Association)

We recently joined the USFA (Utah Steel Fabricators Association) to assist in the effort to support and improve the steel fabrication industry in Utah.  USFA members are comprised of steel distributors, steel processors,  steel fabricators, and providers of many products and services related to metal fabrication. This is an exciting opportunity to network with other folks in the steel industry and to help strengthen the educational core in Utah’s steel industry.

Albina Co., Inc. Celebrating 80 Years in the Steel Bending Industry!

Albina Co., Inc., located outside Portland, Oregon, has been providing customers with innovative, quality curved steel services and products since 1939. A family owned and operated, third generation business, run by Brian Smith, specializes in structural steel, tube and pipe bending, plate rolling and fabrication. Albina produces virtually any metal component that needs to bend or curve without the use of pre-formed fittings. Albina has provided curved steel for many high-profile buildings, stadiums and structures in the United States and Canada. Albina was the steel bender of choice on the recently completed Amazon Spheres in Seattle,Washington.

Albina is an industry leader in research and development and in 2018, purchased an MCP30 by Davi, the first type of bending machine in the United States with a “iRoll” smart camera system, allowing operators to view the part being bent compared to a radius template on the control screen.  The machine has the ability to “learn and remember” how different materials bend, where the rolls need to be positioned, and how much spring back is associated with a bend / material.

Brian and Jaime Smith by the Davi Machine
Brian and Jaime Smith by the Davi Machine

Albina also purchased a Bend-Tech Dragon A400 Plasma Cutter, a commercial grade CNC tube cutting ,engraving, and marking machine with the world’s most powerful CAD/CAM software. Other new equipment included new welders, jib cranes, induction heating coils, an electric forklift and 40 sets of tooling.

Albina was an instrumental player in the development of the first ever Design Guide of its kind in the United States offering information on the fabrication, design and detailing of curved members. Design Guide 33 “Curved Member Design” was released in October 2018 by the AISC Bender/Roller committee and is an invaluable resource for the industry!

Front Cover of Design Guide 33: “Curved Member Design”http://www.aisc.org/curvedsteel

Albina not only has one of the newest, most technologically advanced machines on the market, Albina also has one of the oldest, custom made bending machines ever created! In honor of the 80th Anniversary, Albina created a museum on site, called “The Smith-sonian”, honoring the family name and housing one of the first ever pieces of equipment that Albina owned and used to bend materials. Brian’s grandfather built the“Model-T” bending machine in the early 1940’s utilizing the transmission and differential from a “Model-T” Ford. This machine was used until the 1990’s to bend various materials such as pipe, tube, and square and rectangular hollow structural steel. “The Smith-sonian” is ready for visitors. Cheers to 80 Years!

The Smith-sonian Is Open for Visitors! 

Steel Spiral Staircase at the Ritz Carlton in Sunny Isles, Florida

Albina worked on a custom spiral staircase for the Ritz Carlton in Sunny Isles, Florida. This high profile spiral staircase was for a great customer out of Florida. When a top of the line luxury hotel needed top of the line bending, Albina was contracted. Yes! We shipped from Oregon to Florida to service the needs of our customer!

Albina bent TS 16″ X 4″ X .500″ WALL A500 GR B down to a 12’ inside radius (for the stringers and the landings). All bends were to AESS standards. Click here for images of the spiral staircase and the newly renovated hotel.

Meet Brian and Jaime Smith- “Responsibility Equals Accountability Equals Ownership”

“Responsibility Equals Accountability Equals Ownership. A sense of ownership is the most powerful weapon a team or organization can have.”
-Pat Summit, Former Tennessee Women’s Basketball Coach

We live in “what used to be” the beautiful city of Portland, Oregon. We used to take our kids down to the waterfront and spend the day playing tourist in our own city, but those days are long over. Our daughter ran a race downtown recently and we were in shock at the state of our city…garbage everywhere, human excrement on the sidewalks and in the flower beds, it was embarrassing. Yet most people were content to walk over the trash, to turn a blind eye to the sad state of what used to be one of the most beautiful cities in the country. Our take was that our communities have lost their sense of responsibility, accountability and ownership. We don’t have the solution to change these things, I wish we did, as I know many areas of the country face the same challenges.

However, we can make a promise to you that we run our organization like we run our family. We treat our facilities like we treat our own home. We are respectful, responsible and safe in how we operate and we also understand that our ability to perform directly reflects on you and your company when dealing with your customers. We are accountable to our customers and vendors. We keep our word and we do what we say we can do, when promised, and to your satisfaction. We value our employees and our facility and we take great care of the people and property around us. We take great pride in our responsibility of servicing you and great pride in the ownership of Albina Co., Inc.

We recently went on a family trip to Kona, Hawaii. We work extremely hard and we play extremely hard! We zip-lined for the first time! All of us went upside down and no hands over spectacular river gorges, water falls and lava tubes! The next day, we swam with dolphins in the wild and also came upon a pelagic manta ray measuring 8 feet wide that had never been spotted in the Hawaiian waters! The kids had the amazing pleasure of naming the manta ray “Freedom”!

We Have An Elevator Speech About Steel Bending!

Brian and I found ourselves in an elevator with Phil Knight, the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Nike, Inc., and we stood there in silence, when all we wanted to do was give him a 2 minute “elevator speech” about everything that is wrong with youth sports these days and how we wanted to partner with him to create a fun and positive environment for all kids involved in youth sports. We choked! But the good news is, if we were standing in an elevator with world-renowned architect, Frank Gehry, we would have a 2 minute elevator speech about Albina Co., Inc. and steel bending to blow his socks off!

Albina Co. is a small family-owned steel bending company founded in 1939. We are located in Tualatin Oregon (just south of Portland) and are able to service the entire United States and Canada from our single location!

If you have the opportunity to do business with Albina Co., Inc., I KNOW you will not be disappointed. Albina Co., Inc. is unique from other bending companies for a number of reasons:

•We have a full range of state of the art bending equipment allowing us to provide our customers with a one stop shopping experience for bending. We can bend any type of material (pipe, tube, plate and all structural members) and virtually any size of material (from the very small to the very large).

•When processing a job, generating a quote, or providing bending consultation we are looking to be part of YOUR TEAM and not just a vendor. Our staff is made up of experts that are not satisfied with “good enough”; our staff strives to exceed your expectations.

•For every job we process a knowledgeable project manager is assigned as your point of contact for the duration of your project. This project manager will always treat you with honesty and integrity and provide you with timely and accurate information.

•Every order we process will be confirmed back to you and it will be reviewed by two members of management (production and QC) BEFORE we start production. This ensures that the most accurate information is delivered to the shop for processing.

•We have developed our own custom in-house management software that helps us service you during every aspect of your project. In addition to our in-house management software we also offer bending calculators on our website to assist with complicated bending computations such as spiral bending math.

•Our customers are our best sales staff- we frequently hear from our customers that bent materials provided by Albina are in better condition, less distortion and dimensionally more accurate when compared to previous experiences with competitors.

We would love to partner with you on your next project. Do not let distance be a deterrent, consider us your “local” bending partner and see how working with Albina Co. is unmatched by other bending companies.