American Alloy
Spokane, Wash.
Job count: Added 1 welder
American Alloy got a small, $5,000 stimulus contract to manufacture aluminum stands for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It finished the two-week job in the fall.
"We cut the material, welded the material, machined them together and delivered them," says Garret Guinn, owner of the Spokane, Wash., sheet metal company.
The 3-year old company has 30 full-time employees who work in a 32,000-square-foot industrial space. The stimulus project wasn't a game-changer for American Alloy, but it did bring one new one employee onto the company's payroll.
"I could have done the job and not hired another person," Guinn says. "Instead of running everyone overtime, we decided to bring another person on."
That worker has remained with the company, which has found enough new work to keep him busy.
"This contract was probably $5,000 -- it was nothing -- but it was enough to say, 'Ok, I can justify that person,'" Guinn says.
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