Mt. Lebanon's Lewis-Goetz devoted to core industries while branching out

The name on the wall and ownership of industrial rubber product supplier Lewis-Goetz has changed a few times since Ben Gooding Sr. started it as a hose company on Fort Pitt Boulevard in Downtown in 1935.

A devotion to its core customers in metals and mining, even when those industries struggle, remains a constant.

“While we're always looking to diversify, we haven't given up on coal or steel yet. We're a partner to these industries,” said Donald E. Evans, who joined Lewis-Goetz as CEO last year from another longtime Pittsburgh company, Koppers Inc.

Through acquisitions of rubber manufacturers and related product suppliers, Lewis-Goetz, based in Mt. Lebanon, has grown its footprint to more than 90 locations, serving other energy sectors, food companies and the pharmaceutical industry. Sales have grown to $435 million, from $340 million in 2010, and Evans set a goal of doubling the company's size in the next four years.

The coal industry's share of that business has fallen but still accounted for $23.7 million in 2014 and $17.8 million this year.

“We take the long-term view. We're trying to support process industries to be in business for a long time. We expect repeat business,” Evans said.

Employees understand the unique needs of customers' industries and work with them to improve processes with different supplies, he said.

“The main thing I deal with is ... when we need it, we need it now. There's a high sense of urgency,” said Burton Saunders, a project coordinator at Marathon Petroleum Co.'s refinery in Catlettsburg, Ky., which started buying gaskets from Lewis-Goetz several years ago.

“They respond to us real well,” he said, noting that many of the refinery's supplies meet special needs and can't be ordered off the shelf. “They get us what we need when we need it.”

The company looks to attract customers by being more than just a supplier. Rubber-makers produce 400-foot lengths of hose, and manufacturers fabricate thousands of steel fittings. Lewis-Goetz takes both of those products and makes the piece a customer needs for its particular machine or process.

At distribution facilities such as its large location in Findlay, Lewis-Goetz workers trim hoses and conveyor belts to required lengths, crimp fittings to their ends and cut custom-sized gaskets using two-dimensional printers.

“More than 80 percent of what we sell, we've touched and added value,” Evans said.

The approach has long been a part of the larger strategy of the company, which began 80 years ago as Gooding Rubber Co. The founder's son eventually sold the company to longtime employees Andy Lewis and Dave Goetz, who renamed it after acquiring several companies in the South and Midwest.

Acquisitions continued after the owners sold Lewis-Goetz in 2007 to the private equity firm Audax. In 2011, Netherlands-based service provider Eriks bought Lewis-Goetz, which shares its corporate office with the parent company's North American headquarters.

Having sister companies through Eriks allows Lewis-Goetz to connect customers to products outside its core, Evans said. The Pittsburgh division, the company's largest location, focuses on the core products, though: gaskets, rubber and metal hoses, hydraulic hoses and conveyor belts.

On a recent day in the Findlay facility, custom gaskets came off a press while a 13,000-pound roll of conveyor belt was loaded onto a flatbed and workers nearby tested and sorted hydraulic hoses for a mining customer.

“Lots of hoses we do go on longwall (mining) equipment,” said district manager Debbie Cimarolli, whose region recently expanded to Williamsport to serve gas producers in that region of the Marcellus shale.

Operations manager Chris Hankey said the work has changed in recent years: computers guide the gasket press to get the most items from a sheet of rubber, and new equipment crimps the fittings to the ends of hoses.

The face of the workers is more constant. The average employee has 13 years with the company. Jim Martin of McDonald, who was sorting hoses at the Findlay facility, has been an employee for 27 years.

“There's a core group that has stayed together,” said Scott Holquist, the company's east area vice president and an employee there for 32 years.

Evans said consistency is part of the company's Pittsburgh heritage.

“We are well founded in the longtime industrial markets ... here in the region,” he said.

David Conti is a Trib Total Media staff writer. Reach him at 412-388-5802 or dconti@tribweb.com.