by Teresa Zumwald, Zumwald & Company

When a longtime customer asked Ray Buzzetto to source some unusual materials – and then fabricate and deliver custom products in the name of homeland security – he said yes.

“Unusual is what we do,” says Ray, president of Carmel Winwater (N.Y.).

Even so, this job was unlike anything Ray had ever seen from his customer. Northbrook Contracting Corp. needed to build specialty pipe bollards to encircle the skyscraper at 388 Greenwich St., the global headquarters of Citigroup 10 blocks north of the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan.

Engineers had designed the bollards to protect the building and citizens from a vehicle-ramming attack. That’s important, since during a natural or manmade disaster or a terrorist attack, the Citigroup skyscraper can transition into an emergency command center for the New York City Police Department, Ray said. “The customer called me because we’ve known each other since 1985, and we’ve built a lot of trust over the years. So I said, ‘Give me some drawings, and I’ll get you some prices.’”

Nothing on the shelf

Calling the bollards “reinforced” is an understatement: Most were specified at 7.5 feet tall and 11 inches in diameter, with a pipe thickness of 1.25 inches. The bollards had to be welded to thick steel plates, larger than a double doormat, and anchored in the ground with rebar and concrete; even the bollard insides had to be filled with rebar and concrete. Like an iceberg, more than half of every bollard would be below ground, with each fabricated bollard weighing about 3,000 pounds.

All that is a far cry from the waterworks, LED lighting, utility, municipality, landscape and general contracting supplies that Carmel Winwater typically sells. So Ray immediately called Dean Lucas at Newburgh Windustrial (N.Y.) to discuss the job.

Dean’s company could round up the specialty pipe and handle the pipe cutting, fabrication and certified welding; Hudson Valley Windustrial, a metal distributor in New York, could supply the steel plates, bars, tubing, angles, beams and channels needed for the bollards.

“Some of the required materials were standard – but many others were not,” said Hudson Valley Windustrial President Mike Owens. “But like Ray and Dean, we’re in the business of saying yes to customers.”

Dean worked with Mike to quickly pull together a quote and gave it to Ray, who in turn submitted a bid to his longtime customer. Together, they won the job.

“This is a great story of one Winsupply company calling on the expertise of another Winsupply company to get an order,” Dean said. “All three of us worked together, and we all made money on the job. Mike and I would not have had this opportunity if it hadn’t come through Carmel Winwater.”

We all had that ‘can do’ spirit that is Winsupply.

Mike Owens

Each took a piece of the pie

Once the job began, everything went according to plan. Miraculously, even the specialty pipe Dean finally located from a Texas supplier made it out of Houston before Hurricane Harvey struck in August 2017.

“Our sourcing ability was excellent,” said Dean, whose team then built a few prototypes that were inspected, measured and approved by Ray’s customer.

Once the bollard building began, it took two of Dean’s employees about four weeks to fabricate 170 bollards and get them shipped to the job site, where building renovations were in progress. More bollards will be required this summer since rehabilitation of the building continues.

“We have a leg up for the next phase since Ray’s customer was very happy,” Dean said.

Ray said it would have been difficult to find a competitor that could have done what he, Dean and Mike did by working together.

“Knowing what Dean does in his shop and what we do, our customer had the confidence to work with us on the order,” Ray said. “It’s all about product knowledge and expertise. We got it done extremely fast, and everything went extremely well. And we shipped everything right to the job site.”

Ray, Dean and Mike say the takeaway from the job at 388 Greenwich St. goes well beyond the materials and fabrication.

“If you have a really good customer like Ray’s who calls you for something special, he’s ready to place an order,” Dean explained. “But if you say, ‘We can’t help you with that’ because it’s not on your shelf, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Instead, pull together with some other local companies to get an order outside the box and each take a piece of the pie. Everyone wins.”

Mike agreed. “That’s the difference between us and the big box companies. We all had that ‘can do’ spirit that is Winsupply.”