Building Stairs Is A Fun Business For local Company
by Scott A. Sumner
Thunder Bay Business
When you think about the stairs we climb each day, I will now remember local company Tangent Stair Manufacturing Inc.Owner Sam Pollari started the company in 1991, after being in the house building business. “ I was asked to do stairs for a couple of house builders and started doing that in my garage at home. Soon we got more and more volume and eventually Beaver Lumber asked me to build stairs for them. Then I moved to a bigger building and
that’s how we started,” said Sam Pollari. “ I have an engineering background and an apptitude for this type of work. I went to Confederation College and the University of Western
Ontario taking engineering but found I liked the practical aspect of working with my hands. It is very therapeutic. Sometimes it gets a little overwhelming when I have so much work but I enjoy coming in every day.”
Tangent Stair Manufacturing is currently bidding projects in Virginia , Winnipeg and Regina and has completed work in California and Florida, every state in the US according to
Pollari. “ Local Contactors such as Bruno’s Contracting like our prices so we go to the house, measure it and build the stairs. I liken it to trusses when before they did the roof on site and now they use trusses. Working on the stairs in my shop is a better environment for the end product,” noted Pollari. “ There are no other stair companies between Winnipeg and Toronto and the North Pole and Minneapolis. We are it. Going back 5 years 70 % of our work was
US when the dollar was low but things have changed. I have a web site and get calls from all over the world. Last year we were looking at a large job in China in which I was going to partner with a Ottawa company.”
“ It is fun to come to the shop and produce the work. I was more administrative for while but am now getting back in touch with wood. Spending some quality time wood you might say. It doesn’t talk back to you,” smiles Pollari. The company has some unique equipment like the vacuum press which works on atmospheric pressure. It pulls the air out so you get 15 psi x 144 per square foot. You can apply a finish that way to a plywood. Sometimes Tangent can just ship the stairs to their clients and other times has to go to the site to assemble everything.
“ I like it here in Thunder Bay. My family is here and we have loyal customers. There are many opportunities popping up right now,” said Pollari who is working about 78 to 80 hours per week and will cut back to 50 to 60 when more staff is hired.“ I like to golf. My buddies kidnapped from the shop a while ago and put me in a black car to Strathcona for my first time ever golfing and I loved it. The next day was at Whitewater which was beyond me.
Pollari informed me of newly accepted bids in western Canada and the US. This Thunder Bay company is growing.