By IAN ROSS
Infrastructure work on bridges, dams and canals has been a huge leap forward for a North Bay fabrication shop.
Steady work at Central Welding and Iron Works Group has meant two major shop expansions within the last year at the 52-year-old company worth a combined $4.6 million.
At their main building on 1811 Seymour, they've now expanded to a 75,000-square-foot shop with a new 20,000-square-foot addition.
Known as the bridge shop, it's mostly dedicated to piece work for Ontario highway bridges and dams on the Trent-Severn Waterway and big spillways in Alberta.
Erik Thomsen, vice-president of operations, says they haven't joined the industry's rush to the Oil Sands project, but there's plenty of bridgework available in southern Alberta.
Besides performing the fabrication in North Bay, the company will send their crews travelling out to a job site, doing the delivery, painting and erection. "We offer the full package."
Originally founded by Mac Yetman, Central Welding was purchased in 1983 by Stephan Thomsen, Erik's father. The company is a partnership between Stephan and his wife, Gail.
Back then, it was only a small five-man shop on Fisher Street doing light fabrication work, such as stairs and hand railings.
Central Welding began its bridge fabrication in the mid-1980s for highway four-laning projects and rehabilitation work across Ontario.
Some off-shore contract work in the Caribbean for a lift-bridge in St. Martins led to the construction of the bridge shop in 1985.
Four doors away at 1891 Seymour St. is their structural steel fabrication shop, a new 18,000-square-foot building. It's a fully automated machine shop, outfitted with the latest in computer-controlled machinery including CNC drills, a fully automatic welding machine, wheel abrader, three-quarter inch plate rolling machine and three-inch shear for doing structural steel.
The new additions represented a total investment of more than $4 million and resulted in 10 new jobs to boost their current workforce to 77.
While the structural shop is geared to the mining industry, making pieces such as ventilation doors, the company will be doing the steel fabrication work for the new One Kid's Place treatment centre in North Bay as well as working on a hospital project in Iroquois Falls.
Thomsen says there are some projects brewing in Toronto. If they come to fruition, it could mean the need for more employees.
"There's a couple of big jobs in Toronto of over 5,000 tonnes and if that happens we would need more guys for sure."
He says the company is always looking to recruit skilled North Bay ex-pats with the offer of a good pension plan and an aggressive benefits package.
The Ontario government's re-examination of the state of Ontario's bridges and other infrastructure has led to a lot of activity, says Thomsen, "contrary to what people think."
"They're doing a lot of studies and we are doing a lot of rehabilitation work."
He's expecting similar projects in the near future.The company's work is already on display on highway overpasses across northeastern Ontario.
Their crews assembled the steel box overpass at Mississauga Road and Highway 401. Many of the overpasses on Highway 400 from Major Mackenzie Drive to the 401 were Central Welding jobs.
They've also worked on highway on-ramps on the Gardiner Expressway and in bridge reconstruction in Toronto.
Closer to home, they've performed jobs on the new Highway 11 bridges at Burk's Falls and Huntsville.
Thomsen is most proud of a massive project involving two railway spans of 240 tonnes each, which were lifted into place at Finch and Morningside Avenue in Toronto. His four-man crew worked with the general contractor and a crane operator to put the bridges into place in record time.
"We demolished three temporary steel spans, and brought the two spans in and erected them, with the general contractor putting in the ballast and track within 36 hours. That was pretty amazing."
