Eight decades of service –
Smith Welding Supply
[excerpt]

Pete Nofel, editor

Responding to a business environment in flux, this Detroit-based distributor uses innovative solutions to come out on top.

The story of Smith Welding Supply and Equipment Co., Detroit, began with cracked engine blocks at the Hudson Motor Car Co.

A welder from Pennsylvania who had cut his professional teeth welding for the railroad, had a technique for making welding repairs to the engine blocks. Jack Smith, a Romanian immigrant by way of Pittsburgh, developed a welding technique to repair Hudson's defective engine blocks. From those beginnings in 1917 Smith Welding was founded.

Jack Smith passed the business on to Ralph Sparage, his son-in-law.

Today, Irving Sparage is the third generation of owner / operator running the company.

The company has grown to the point where Sparage now runs a welding supply company with 50 employees at four locations around he Greater Detroit area, selling welding equipment, supplies, and gases. This privately-held corporation has had an annual growth rate of 20 percent over the past several years.

As a "rust-belt" city, Detroit has been particularly hard-hit. Steel and auto plants have either closed or cut back in the past several decades, taking a lot of industry-related business with them. Sparage has looked beyond the boundaries of the normal welding supply market to keep the 80-year-old business prosperous. That property has allowed Smith Welding to expand to four locations in the Tri-County area around Detroit.

Expansion has included buying welding supply businesses in the area to increase Smith Welding geographic coverage. Employees of the other firms have been integrated into the Smith organization and have added to the firm's depth of expertise.

Non-traditional markets
Smith Welding has survived, and grown, by looking beyond the traditional.

"When the recession hit here, I told our sales staff that when they call on an account and there's something you can sell, don't refuse it," Sparage said. He encouraged them to think of sales beyond those normally associated with welding.

"If we sell welding supplies to a customer, there's no reason we can't sell industrial items like maintenance supplies, brushes, protective clothing, and gloves," he said.

He also encouraged gas sales outside of normal markets.

"For instance, we sold nitrous oxide to dentists. By expanding our penetration of traditional customers we also began selling them latex gloves and surgical masks."

Smith Welding pushed beyond its frontiers.

"Selling to the home health-care industry has been a big boom for us. We supply medical oxygen to home health-care dealers," Sparage said. "We've chosen not to sell direct to the public because its easier to deal with one company that's selling to 300 customers rather than selling directly to the customer and getting involved with all of that billing and collecting. You sell for a little less, but it's easier to manage."

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