Tucked away off industrial way near mill district in Ameritech Machine Making

roll steel Parking a car is challenging, but even more difficult is findingdesk space in its cramped offices, or moving steel beams that weighseveral thousand pounds around the shop by forklift. The heavy industrial company makes the equipment thatsteel-processing companies use to reshape steel into othercomponent parts, fabricates steel for commercial and residentialcustomers, and makes ornamental guardrails for custom homes, saidRon Cook, president and co-owner. Klamath Falls-based Jeld-Wen Inc. is one of Ameritech’scustomers. It has other customers around the country and in Mexicoand Canada, Cook said. Jeld-Wen will use a machine made by Ameritech to make the piecethat holds the rubber seal on the bottom of its metal doors, Cooksaid. Many of the pieces of equipment, including Jeld-Wen’s, aredesigned in-house, Cook said. "They ask, ‘Can you build us a machine that doesthat?’” he said. “It’s a little unusual fora fabrication shop to also have a machine (design) shop. Typically,companies would have that job outsourced.” Earlier this year, the company drilled 280 holes in each of a pairof 10,000-pound beams before shipping the beams by truck toAnchorage, Alaska, Cook said. Ameritech will more than double its building size when it relocatesto a 26,000-square-foot facility in Redmond by early fall. The $2million project also will shift the company to a more efficientoperating system, Cook said. The new building will have an overhead crane, saving time andmoney, and the workspace will be without columns, which will alloweasier movement of materials, he said. The company, which has posted 40 percent to 50 percent revenuegrowth each year the past three years, has seen its Central Oregonorders drop off, particularly orders for ornamentalsteel-fabrication work, Cook said. He and co-owner Gordon Woolsey decided to move to Redmond due todifficulties finding affordable land in Bend, where land priceslast year were roughly $5 to $7 per square foot higher than inRedmond, he said. "For a small company like ours, the land prices make a hugedifference when you’re talking about a limited budget,”he said. Redmond also offered incentives through its Enterprise Zoneprogram, which allows qualifying businesses to receive discounts orwaivers on building permits, fees and system development chargesbased on how many new jobs they create.