Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008

Open house provides opportunity for public to view plant

by Clarke Davis

Neal Spencer served as host to the community at large for an open house at Ernest-Spencer Metals Inc. Jan. 24.

The company president welcomed about 80 people to share in a catered meal and then gave tours of the plant.

Located west of Meriden, the metal fabrication plant has just completed a $1.5 million expansion.

Having moved to Meriden from Topeka in 1993, the plant has doubled its revenue in the last five years and is now grossing $30 million.

Now the largest custom metal fabricator in the Midwest, Spencer expects to be doing $50 million worth of business five years from now.

“That’s our goal,” he said. “Right here in Meriden, Kansas.”

Spencer gave the credit for the growth to the quality of people they can hire in Jefferson County.

The latest addition to the plant added 40,000 square feet for a total of 150,000 square feet.

The plant is equipped with all the latest robotic and laser cutting devices to meet today’s requirements.

Spencer said the plant builds anything from steel ranging from 3 inches thick to 1/16th of an inch.

“We can also handle the big stuff,” he said. “We’ve built things up to 60,000 pounds and 50 feet long.”

The company employs 170 people. There are 125 working at Meriden.

The company has a powder-coat painting and blasting plant at Ottawa and a number of construction crews in the field throughout Kansas, Colorado, and Nebraska.

A couple of things they manufacture that the public would recognize are the canopies for Sonic drive-ins and the small personal excavators that are sold through Home Depot.

Ernest-Spencer has also joined with the Jefferson West school district to sponsor an adult welding class.

Neal’s great-grandfather started the company in 1922 in Topeka.

It began as a company that built wooden feed mills and then branched into metal. A large sector of its business is still building portions of feed mills, cattle feed yards, and ethanol plants.

The previous company president, Brad Spencer, Neal’s father, died last June.

Neal and his wife, Cora, have two daughters, Elsie, 2 1/2, and Layla, 1.

The Jefferson County Economic Development Commission co-sponsored the dinner catered by Scott Stanley of the Apple Market grocery.