Robert Cohen counts 2009 as probably the toughest of his 27 years as president of Soo Foundry & Machine.
"Every sector was hit, there was no rock you could hide under."
But learning to tread water in troubled economic seas is nothing new for this family-owned business in a city dominated by the peaks and valleys of the local steel industry.
This year the company unveiled a new 7,200-square-foot fabrication shop, built with a roof 55-feet high and equipped with 20-tonne and 50-tonne cranes.
It’s this kind of capacity that will enable them to take on big industrial jobs such as the massive 45-tonne slag pot from Essar Steel Algoma sitting inside the shop last month that was trucked in to repair a Liberty Bell-like crack stitched down its side.
Management timed the completion of the building just as the markets crashed last year but they made the commitment to keep going and stick to their original plan. Between 25 and 30 employees were laid off but in the last couple of months many have been called back.
"We really reached outside of our comfort zone to build this," said Cohen, who declined to give a price tag on the investment for competitive reasons.
Cohen said it’s this kind of capability that few other Northern Ontario welding and fabrication shops would have, especially with deep-pocketed foreign owners at Essar Steel Algoma who are keen on re-investing in the steel works.
"We think it’s an opportunity for us to do work for them that was never done in Sault Ste. Marie before, because the scope of the projects are so large and heavy, they would have to send these jobs into the States to get done."
The second generation family-run company has garnered a solid reputation for more than 50 years. Soo Foundry’s long-time commitment to keep growing in hard times while running a safe shop was recognized this fall when the company was honoured with two Sault Ste. Marie Chamber of Commerce awards in October.
With a workforce of 40-45 machinists, welders, millwrights and hydraulic technicians (supplemented by 20 to 30 part-timers) they offer machining, profile cutting, welding-fabricating, hydraulics and field services to a multitude of clients in the steel, hydro-electric, forestry and general industrial sectors.
Soo Foundry’s origins goes back to the turn of the last century as Northern Ontario’s mining, forestry and the city’s fledgling steel industry began to blossom.
Beginning as Northern Foundry, it was a long-time fixture on the Sault’s working waterfront. Repairing propellers and shafts on Great Lakes freighters that backed up to their doorstep was a big part of the business.
Wilfred and Jack Cohen (Robert’s uncle and father), who were in the scrap business, bought the company in 1958 and manufactured a variety of products, such as manhole covers which are still found in parts of the city today.
As the coal and repair docks on the St. Mary’s River disappeared and were filled in to become the Station Mall, the Roberta Bondar Pavilion and the Civic Centre, the company moved to its current site in the city’s north end on Drive-In Road.
The main building went up in 1982 and their structural footprint has steadily expanded over the last 25 years to a 40,000-square-foot full service machine ship filled with CNC machines, a welding shop and hydraulic repair facility.
The Cohen family got out of the foundry business in 1978 but they decided to keep the company name.
"The foundry market is tough," said Cohen. "There are big environmental rules and big overseas competition where labour is much cheaper. Unless you’re really big, you can’t succeed."
Robert became president in 1982 when his dad passed away. It was right in the midst of a huge recession when Algoma Steel was laying off thousands from its 12,000-person workforce. "We really had to think about what we wanted to do in the future because business was really bad."
Soo Foundry, like many Sault machine and fabrication shops, was heavily reliant on the steel plant (now Essar Steel Algoma) in good times and bad.
It wasn’t easy to diversify because of the Sault’s relative isolation and its distance from major markets. Quite a few of the company’s competitors became casualties.
"It was more survival than diversification back then," said Cohen. "We had ideas but it was hard to put into force because Algoma was downsizing."
They watched their spending and diversified by getting into the steel warehousing business and hydraulics, eventually acquiring Northern Fluid Power in 1998.
Through the 1990s, their hydroelectric work really expanded and continues to be strong today including mechanical jobs such as repairing turbines for energy clients from British Columbia to Newfoundland.
These days, the alternative energy business remains a growth area. It’s an under-appreciated segment of the local economy, said Cohen, but there are a good complement of companies located in the city spearheaded by Brookfield Power, operators of the Prince Wind Farm on Lake Superior, just west of the Sault.
www.soofoundry.ca
