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 May 9, 1997 |
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May 9, 1997 |
Olympian Precast likes breaking the mold
BY MAUDE SCOTT As a sociology student at the University of Washington Judy Jewell would walk right past her father's and grandfather's precast stone work on campus buildings without giving it a thought. "I wasn't even aware. It was like: Concrete? So what?" Today Jewell owns Olympian Precast, a Redmond-based company which manufactures architectural precast concrete building components. Now she proudly points out the stone work three generations of her family have done on the university campus. She loves to talk about how techniques and tastes have changed from the gargoyles her grandfather cast for the Suzzallo Library in the 1920s to the wild colors and strange shapes architects ordered in the 1960s, such as her father's flying buttresses for the Art Building. Detail and refined forms are back in the 1990s, as shown in the precast stone pieces Jewell did for the new Physics/Astronomy Building. Laser cutters were used to incise the pieces with physics equations selected by students and faculty in the department.
"We like to be as innovative as possible," Jewell said. "We play with architects' ideas to see if we can do it. It's a creative process. We don't just do the same thing every day." In fact, since it was founded nine years ago, Olympian Precast has done 425 different jobs at its Redmond plant, everything from exterior building panels to columns and decorative caps. The firm recently completed a nine-foot by 18-foot curved wall made of black concrete for an art installation at Meadowbrook Pond. The project designer and landscape architect Peggy Gaynor said the Olympian crew was terrific to work with, allowing her to participate in designing the forms. They produced the finished piece, a sound reflecting wall, in half the time everyone expected. "It came out looking very simple," Gaynor said, "but it was very complex. If I ever come up with any wild ideas in precast concrete again I hope they'll work with me." In addition to architectural products, Jewell said her company also does "the gray stuff," more mundane projects such as the seat risers for the UW women's softball stadium. The list of current and past Olympian Precast projects includes Redmond Town Center, the Whatcom County Courthouse, the Regional Justice Center, Nordstrom stores, Pier 66, Microsoft's Augusta campus and shopping centers in the Northwest and Southwest. Olympian also worked on the U.S. Embassy in Rome because builders there were unable to find cast stone manufacturers in Italy. Despite that foreign job, Jewell said she has no plans to work overseas again. Though she has given tours of her plant to others wishing to set up similar operations in Asia, Jewell has her hands full with the busy market here in the Northwest. She is not concerned about offshore competition cutting into her market -- though Canadian firms, who benefit significantly from the currency exchange rate, are a constant pressure. "It looks low-tech, but it's not," Jewell said of her business. "There's a lot to be considered in building each piece. It has to be designed. Reinforcing steel has to be exactly where it's supposed to be. The mold work gets very complicated and the tolerances are not like an airplane, but if it's half an inch and you're off by an inch it's not going to work."
It's also a coordination nightmare to keep work moving in and out of the plant at a fairly steady rate to keep customers happy and workers busy but not frantic. Jewell can sign work in January that may not hit her shop until August. Delays or changes in other parts of a project require adjustments at Olympian, all making it tough to plan and meet today's fast-track building schedules. Olympian Precast tries to do every phase of its projects in-house because that gives Jewell the most control over timing and quality. Jewell's crew does the drawings, builds steel cages, cuts and shapes rebar, builds most of its molds and does final finishing to be sure products arrive at job sites on time and ready for installation. "Even though it's a craft, we try to consider it a manufacturing process," Jewell said, "to keep it as efficient as possible." Though Jewell studied sociology, not engineering, in college, she said that hasn't been a problem because she is skilled at hiring the right people to work for her. She has a crew of 40, including office and production. The operation is run lean, as evidenced by the fact that calls to Olympian Precast can be answered by Jewell, who takes a turn on the phones. Jewell said she most enjoys the collaborative part of her business, working with architects to come up with a way to turn their ideas into a tangible product that adds interest to a structure. "I like the fact that our industry changes with the ability of the architects that are out there," Jewell said. Ed Storer, a specifications writer for NBBJ, has used Olympian Precast on a number of projects and said the firm is great to work with during the design stage and delivers top quality products to the job site. Olympian is almost the only source for the precast samples architects need to specify concrete mixes, Storer said. Architects ask for "a rosy-brown concrete with a touch of gray" and Olympian comes up with samples until it gets one that works. "Our designs are almost always based on their (concrete) mixes," Storer said. Jewell's work also changes because of innovations that her crews dream up. She said Olympian pioneered the use of pre-fabricated tile-faced panels on the H Wing at University Hospital and is the only manufacturer she knows of that produces polished concrete columns which look like granite and are popular with retailers. Olympian is the only manufacturer using glass fiber reinforced concrete and has also developed a new technique called "stone cotta" to replace damaged terra cotta. Olympian's business volumes for 1994 and 1995 were under $3 million but Jewell said last year volume jumped to $3.7 million and she expects 1997 to be similarly strong.
She doesn't plan to grow the company much to keep up with increased demand because the work requires a lot of training to get proficient. Jewell said she may hire a few more people but she prefers to keep a stable workforce and avoid layoffs during slow times. Jewell, who is also president of the Puget Sound chapter of the National Association of Women in Construction, said people are sometimes shocked when they meet her to find she's not Olympian Precast's secretary. After the shock wears off though, "people are excited to know a woman who's involved in this end of heavy industry." Being a certified women-business enterprise sometimes helps but generally, Jewell said, she feels she's judged on her work. "Is the product that comes out of my plant good? Then they don't care who gives it to them," Jewell said.
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