GOTTSTEIN CONTRACTING CORPORATION

Ken Gottstein, the principal in the firm, started working in the industry in 1974. After a decade of working with many of the area's top tradesmen in all fields of construction, he opened his own company in 1984.

The company grew through the years and company leadership decided to work toward having a strong presence in the local industrial parks. By putting together Ken's knowledge of industrial construction and a management team with strong backgrounds in mechanics and fabrication, Gottstein Corporation was able to assemble a team of technicians that could tackle almost any industrial job possible.

In the early 1990s, Gottstein Corporation consisted of about five tradesmen working out of a 1,000-square-foot facility, providing local industry with welding, fabrication and basic plumbing systems as well as equipment installations. Growing customer bases and requests for newer services allowed Gottstein Corporation to relocate to a larger facility at 2,500 square feet and to add an additional 10 tradesmen to our crew.

With this new venture we were able to provide our customers with better and new services, including sanitary pipe welding, Victaulic piping systems, custom part fabrications and an array of general construction services as well as the services we already were providing. Gottstein had grown from a local mechanical contractor in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, to a contractor performing projects in New York, Connecticut, Maryland and New Jersey. As word about our services spread, we started getting calls from throughout the country about our services and this yet again prompted us to make another move, this time to our current location.

In early 2003, Gottstein Corporation purchased a 7-acre lot in Humboldt Industrial Park located in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. By the summer of 2003, construction had begun on our new 9,000-square-foot fabrication shop and account office as well as a two-story corporate office and tool room. By 2004, the new shop was completed and Gottstein Corporation was working out of its new location.

Armed with a crew of 25 technicians, we were ready to meet our customers' needs. Our customer base had expanded to include North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, California and Minnesota. In 2007, we added an additional 20,000-square-foot Resource and Development/System Integration facility building to our lot to provide our customers with a facility to troubleshoot their equipment before installing it in their facility to review any possible issues before suffering unnecessary downtime.

Due to high demand for our services in the western portion of the United States, we opened a West Coast location in Bakersfield, California. Our 3,000-square-foot fabrication shop allows us to provide all our customers in the West, Southwest and Northwest with the same services we offer in the eastern United States. Providing these services in the West has allowed our customer base to grow to states such as California, Arizona, Colorado, Texas and Washington.

In 2010 we added conveyor manufacturing to our company's extensive service list. With the help of several conveyor technicians, we are capable of making custom conveying systems to meet any facility's needs. As we are completing large-scale conveyor projects in California, Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio, this area of our company is bound for great success. As of 2011, we look forward to continued growth with concepts of opening locations in Chicago and Dallas, as well as adding new specialties to our extensive list. We look forward to doing business with you in the future.