Tool business expands in Q-C

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By Deirdre Cox Baker | Saturday, January 27, 2007 1:06 AM CST | () comments

Mike Fangmann, CEO of Evolution Power Tools, talks about the company’s present operations at the Hitech USA location at 5567 Carey Ave., Davenport. A $2.5 million expansion is planned by the company in the Eastern Iowa Industrial Center in north Davenport. The new facility will employ 50 people. (Kevin E. Schmidt/QUAD-CITY TIMES)

An ambitious Davenport firm hopes the Rage power saw will be all the rage for home do-it-yourselfers as it announced plans Thursday to consolidate and expand its business operations in the Eastern Iowa Industrial Center, in Davenport.

Evolution Power Tools LLC, will build a $2.5 million, 50,000-square-foot facility just north of Interstate 80, near the Northwest Boulevard interchange, to design and distribute the power saws and other power tools across the nation. It will employ 50 people, an increase of 36 jobs.

The announcement was made Thursday at a news conference hosted by Thom Hart, senior vice president of the Quad-City Development Group, speaking among a dozen beaming economic development officials.

“In the last month, we have had a number of good announcements about jobs in this region,” Hart said. “Companies are coming to realize, the Quad-Cities is quite a success story.”

News of an existing business providing a good jolt to the local economy is becoming typical. “About 80 percent of new jobs to an area come from existing companies,” Hart said.

Evolution Power Tools is a 20-year-old family-run company with locations around the world.

Mike and Kathleen Fangmann, Davenport, own the United States operation, and the new Davenport facility will be headquarters for the North, South and Central American ventures.

The company currently has 14 employees working out of three separate places in Davenport. “We’re very excited to stay here,” Mike Fangmann said, noting the Interstate 80 location is premiere for the distribution aspect of the business.

The 36 new employees will include a range of jobs and salaries, Kathleen Fangmann said. Yearly salaries of $35,000 to $50,000 are expected for regional sales managers, accounting personnel and a computer/Internet technology employee. Others will be paid in the $12 to $15 per hour range, including merchandisers, shipping or warehouse employees, quality-control technicians and service repair workers.

Power tool development and design is done in Davenport, as well as all trucking and warehousing activities. Planned expansion will include sales and distribution of tools through welding supply stores and retail hardware stores, including majors like Home Depot.

The company’s Rage power saw, which cuts through both wood and steel, is key to future sales expansion and can be found in Home Depot outlets. Mike Fangmann said the new location will support the expected saw sales boom and several new employees will be sales staff for the tool.

“This is a multipurpose saw, a high-end power tool,” Mike Fangmann said. It is used by both professional contractors and those involved in home improvement and woodworking projects. “It’ll go through nails,” he added.

The company’s blades come from Japan and power tools from Taiwan, with some of the work done in this country. A product that will soon be introduced is a device that attaches to boots and allows workers to climb I-beams without a ladder, Mike Fangmann said.

The company president said the Davenport operation is about five years old. In the first year, he hoped to have products in 1,000 stores with $1 million in sales. Instead, Evolution Tools got its products into 6,000 stores and had $6 million in sales, spearheaded by Jim Mullin, sales manager of the firm’s steel division.

The firm believes the addition of woodworking customers offers a much wider customer base, Mike Fangmann said.

The new facility will face Interstate 80 in the southeast corner of the Eastern Iowa Industrial Center and will overlook a pond. The office and warehouse center has about 14 acres of land with room for expansion, Kathleen Fangmann said.

“We hope to start this as soon as possible,” she said, with a goal to finishing the structure by the end of 2007.

Company officials hope to hire serious, hard-working individuals, Mike Fangmann said. “We have a big, important job to do,” he said.

“This is another indication of Davenport’s position as a top-tier Midwestern community,” Mayor Pro-Tem Ian Frink said of the expansion.

Deirdre Cox Baker can be contacted at (563) 383-2492 or dbaker@qctimes.com.