For the week of November 5 - 11, 2003

Rocky Mountain
Hardware unveils
new plant

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By GREG MOORE
Express Staff Writer

Rocky Mountain Hardware last week unveiled a new 23,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Shoshone that has the capacity to create 100 jobs there.

Rocky Mountain Hardware makes high-end cast bronze fixtures for homes and offices, which were on display Friday at its new 23,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Shoshone. Express photos by Willy Cook

Started by Hailey residents Mark and Patsy Nickum in 1994, the company produces high-end bronze architectural hardware. It now displays its products in 727 showrooms internationally, including two outlet stores in the Wood River Valley. That growth created a need for more manufacturing capacity, a company spokesman stated.

The company chose Shoshone for the site of the plant due to affordable land there, an available work force and a need for economic stimulation in the area.

During a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday, Oct. 31, Gov. Dirk Kempthorne praised the combination of private enterprise and the state’s Rural Idaho Initiative for making the plant possible.

"The Nickum family is the latest example of the entrepreneurial spirit," he said. "I just get more and more inspired by what’s taking place here."

Last spring, the city of Shoshone obtained a $141,000 Rural Community Block Grant through the Idaho Department of Commerce to extend its sewer lines out to the plant’s site, just east of town along the railroad tracks. Only $115,000 of the grant was used, though the city provided labor time, City Clerk Mary Kay Bennett said.

The grant program was developed in 2001 to help further the objectives of the Rural Idaho Initiative, a program begun at the recommendation of the Governor’s Task Force on Rural Development. In fiscal 2003, $3.25 million was allocated by the Legislature to help small communities build public infrastructure to support economic development and job creation. The grants were distributed among nine communities.

During Friday’s ceremony, Idaho Department of Commerce Director LeMoyne Hyde said the Rocky Mountain Hardware plant is exactly the kind of thing the grant program was designed to promote.

"I think it’s going to be a great boon to the city because we were so dead in the water," City Clerk Bennett said.

Only half the plant’s space will be immediately put to use. It now employs 25 people who have been transferred from the company’s 13,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Hailey.

"Hopefully, in the near future we’ll be hiring a lot more," said company salesperson Megan Nickum.

Rocky Mountain Hardware makes high-end cast bronze fixtures for homes and offices. A small item like door hardware sells for about $350. A display at the new 23,000-square-foot facility showcased a 3-foot, 400-pound bronze sink that retails for $13,500.

Rocky Mountain Hardware’s door and cabinet handles, faucets, wash basins and other products are made by first creating a wax plug, around which a ceramic mold is made.

The parts are cast at Blackfoot Brass in Blackfoot. Now that the new plant is opened, they are being brought there for initial finishing. Burrs are ground off and screw holes are milled.

The parts are then taken to the Hailey plant for final finishing, which includes tumbling them with gravel to smooth them.

Company vice-president and CEO Christian Nickum said during Friday’s ceremony that water used throughout the process is drained into settling tanks. He said the resulting sludge is filtered out and taken to a landfill, while clean water goes down the drain.

Shoshone City Council President J.R. Churchman said the city has had some job losses over the past three years of the current economic downturn but overall the agricultural-based local economy has been stable.

The activity has so far resulted in only two new homes being built in town for Rocky Mountain employees, but Churchman hopes the new plant is the start of a series of business developments that will diversify the economy.

"When you get a big one like that moving in, you get a bunch of other ones to move in, whose work revolves around the anchor business," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

 

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