National World War II Memorial: Washington, D.C.

IN THE MEDIA :

Below is an original article from OREGON BUSINESS magazine, July 2002 issue. Article reprinted by permission.

WHEN THE WORLD WAR II MEMORIAL is unveiled in 2004 in Washington, D.C., it will be a testament to the veterans of that war and a substantial addition to the tourist map for visitors to the nation's capital. The memorial will also put a small bronze foundry in a remote Oregon timber town on the nation's artistic map. 

In February, Valley Bronze in Joseph formed a joint venture with Stewart Springs Ltd., a project management, design and computer drafting firm that recently moved to Northeast Oregon. Together the team won a contract worth $1.7 million for work on the memorial. 

Their contribution includes 4,123 gold-plated stars (each representing every state and territory in the union) and two monumental bas relief medallions patterned after World War II victory medals, plus water fountains, decorative drainage grates encircling the memorial and the bases to anchor two 70-foot flagpoles. 

"It's a tremendous project for us," says David Jackman. "It's the biggest single contract we've ever gotten." 

Jackman says they would never have gotten the contract if it weren't for Janelle Stewart of Stewart Springs Ltd. Stewart had recently relocated her business from Washington, D.C. Stewart and her husband were tired of the urban rat race and looking for a slower pace in a kid-friendly scenic area. 

After researching on the Internet, they found Joseph, which is about as remote from the Beltway as you can get. Here's how to get to Joseph from Portland: You take I-84 east toward Pendleton, continue past La Grande (Pop. 12,000) and turn onto Highway 82, which winds 70 miles through canyons along the Wallowa River, past an occasional old farmstead and a trailer or two, through Wallowa (pop. 800) Lostine (pop. 200) and the country seat of Enterprise (pop. 2,020). There, nestled at the base of the Wallowa Mountains 70 miles from the nearest McDonald's in a county without a single traffic light, sits the one-street town of Joseph. 

Joseph (pop. 1,000) once depended on the timber industry to provide family-wage jobs. But as timber declines, Joseph is looking to a burgeoning art industry to pick up some of the slack. Today there are three bronze foundries -- Valley Bronze, Joseph Bronze and Park Bronze -- plus several retail art galleries and a small community of artists. 

To get a sense of the impact this new arts and crafts industry is having, consider that in 2001, foundry payroll in Wallowa Country was $2.4 million. The timber payroll was $3.4 million, down from a peak of $9.6 million a decade earlier. 

When Janelle Stewart came to Joseph, she brought invaluable experience growing up in her father's steel fabricating shop -- the largest of its kind in Washington, D.C. Beginning as a teenager, Stewart worked in virtually every aspect of the business: drafting, job costing and bidding, and project management. Chatting over the phone with her father last winter, he mentioned that contractors were looking for an art foundry to do some work on the WWII Memorial. Stewart realized that with her experience, she could go after the job. After learning that Valley Bronze had a 20-year history and a solid reputation in the fine arts industry, Stewart approached the company. 

"While we had the ability to cast a variety of metals, we certainly had no experience in bidding a job of this scope," says Jackman. He wanted to bid only the parts of the job that Valley Bronze had direct experience in; Stewart encouraged him to bid all aspects of the job he felt they could do. The strategy paid off. 

"Art foundries just don't get into this kind of work," says Stewart. "And the general contractors in Washington wanted to work directly with an art foundry." That gave the Joseph team an edge over the eight other firms -- all of them represented by brokers -- who were competing for the job. The deal was completed after a team from Washington visited Valley Bronze and was impressed by the size of the facility. Plus, Valley Bronze had recently expanded its scope to include architectural fabrication, completing a set of bronze doors for the Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes in Spokane that involved not only bronze casting but also fabrication, design, engineering and installation. 

"The key issues were scale, size and the ability to perform," said Jackman. "In many art towns, you're seeing more firms fragmenting -- one does this, one does that. Those businesses would not have been able to compete." 

As a joint venture, Valley Bronze will be responsible for all ornamental work, and Stewart Springs will provide shop drawings for all pieces, as well as handle scheduling, billing, coordination and general management of the project. 

"For the last couple years, we've been operating at about half capacity," says Jackman, who employs 35 people at Valley Bronze. "The fine art industry has been suffering with the rest of the economy, and there are now about three to four times more fine art foundries in the Pacific Northwest than there were 10 years ago. We may need to add a few jobs, but mainly this contract has meant job retention and getting back to a full production schedule. 

"Adding more of this type of work represents a tremendous growth opportunity for us," Jackman continues. "But we are still aggressively pursuing fine art; the two complement and enhance each other. This gives us a special niche in the marketplace. Now if an architect or designer is looking for someone to provide the turnkey operation -- drawings, the project management, the casting work -- with the joint venture, we can do it." 

Jackman sees the potential to double his volume of work over the next few years. Because of the high value of the product, Valley Bronze can afford to ship it anywhere, and still be competitive. "Now we have proven we can export our product anywhere in the country," he says. 

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