Acquisition fuels growth of Santa Rosa manufacturer Pacific Shoring Products
The acquisition of a Texas manufacturer and increased regulatory scrutiny of construction-site injuries are contributing to the latest round of rapid growth for Santa Rosa-based Pacific Shoring Products.
The company makes systems that contractors use to protect workers from being crushed or buried from soil collapse during trenching and excavation projects. In mid-July, The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, said it would be doing more than 1,000 trench inspections across the country this year because of 22 workers who were killed in the first half of this year, up from 15 for all of 2021.
Founded in 2005 by Bob Pitts, Pacific Shoring Products was said to be the nation’s largest maker of aluminum trench safety products. Then in 2020 Pacific Shoring purchased Houston-based Xterra Trench Shields. Xterra had been founded just four years before but already had become a major U.S. maker of shoring products made from steel.
“Rather than being conservative during the COVID year, we were aggressive,” said Bruce Russell, CEO.
Aluminum has the advantage in being lighter in weight so small loaders or excavator machines can move them. But aluminum isn’t as strong as steel for holding back the soil and rock in a dig, Russell said. Depending on the composition of the ground at a site, aluminum shoring typically for project depths of about 25 feet and for jobs where the metal plates and supports aren’t in the ground as long.
The acquisition of Xterra boosted company revenues by one-third, ending last year “in the mid-eight figures” ($30 million–$70 million), Russell said. Currently, company sales are up 20% from 2021.
Pacific Shoring returned to the Inc. 5000 national fast-growth list this year at No. 3,666 with 139% revenue growth from 2018 through 2021, the magazine’s ranking metric. The company had debuted on the list in 2020 at No. 2,551 with 161% three-year growth.
With the Xterra acquisition, the workforce has grown to 109, with 43 in Santa Rosa, up from 28 locally in 2020.
The Texas factory and the addition of $500,000 in robotics at the Santa Rosa plant this year have helped Pacific Shoring better deliver on the company’s differentiating goal of same-day shipment of products to the North American construction rental companies that are the primary customers.
“With difficulty getting staff, it makes more and more sense,” Russell said about the new automation.
But with the supply-chain problems, three-week lead times from vendors turned into 10 months, which has greatly complicated forecasting and requiring more “safety stock” to respond to demand, Russell said.
Pitts retired in December 2019 with the acquisition by Salt Creek Capital, where Russell is an executive partner, and Huron Capital of Detroit. In February 2020, Pacific Shoring opened an East Coast distribution facility in Memphis, Tennessee, to deliver on the target of getting orders out the door more quickly.
Jeff Quackenbush covers wine, construction and real estate. Before coming to the Business Journal in 1999, he wrote for Bay City News Service in San Francisco. Reach him at jquackenbush@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4256.
