Cable Technology expanding

Cable Technology Inc. is on the move and its destination, alas, is not the Flathead Valley.

"We've been in the position for a couple of years where we've needed to expand our building space," said Ed Buttrey, president of the formerly Creston-based company. "We've become a world-class company that needed a world-class facility to continue our growth."

Buttrey said he located that facility in Great Falls last summer after receiving a call from that city's economic development agency. The new building will have 33,000 square feet and will cost the same as what Buttrey has been paying in Creston for significantly less space.

Cable Technology has operated in the Flathead since 1997. Until recently, the cable and wire harness manufacturer occupied four buildings in the Creston Center business park.

Buttrey said he had hoped to remain in the Kalispell area.

"We had this deal we thought was set with the city of Kalispell - at the airport - but basically the price got too high and the lease term got too long. We were going to build a new custom building. That deal finally fell through in the June-July time frame this year."

Kalispell city manager Jim Patrick, who said the city gave the negotiations "our best shot," identified the Great Falls move as simply a business decision on the part of Cable Technology.

"We tried to work with them, but it came down to a business case they had to be comfortable with," he said. "My understanding was that it worked financially better for them to move to Great Falls.

"What we had to do was pass along our costs and even though we could reduce the

cost of construction and the cost of occupying a building, there were some commitments they didn't want to make and, once again, it gets back to the business case."

According to Creston Center owner John Pollard, Cable Technology was the business park's largest single tenant. The 15-acre project has 26 buildings and is 90 percent rented.

"I've already leased one of the buildings Cable Technology is moving out of," Pollard said. "And another party is interested in another of their buildings."

But Buttrey said his company is not going to quit the Flathead entirely. It will continue to lease one of its Creston Center buildings - the largest of the four at 4,000 square feet.

"We've going to leave a presence here in the Flathead," he said. "We've got a number of very valuable employees that are not able to move and we want to keep them employed.

"We will leave behind between 10 and 20 employees and we'll take around five with us. We've already got 10 hired in Great Falls and we'll keep hiring in batches of 10. Eventually we could have as many as 300 employees."

The Great Falls facility opened Oct. 10 and Buttrey expects the move to continue for nine months. Company headquarters has already relocated there.

The sales, inventory and engineering will done out of Great Falls, which will in turn send kits to the Creston facility for assembly and shipment to the customer.

The prototyping work and some specialized product will be built in the Flathead, while the larger-quantity manufacturing runs will go out of Great Falls, Buttrey said..

"We'll keep the [Creston] facility going as long as it's economically feasible."

Buttrey explains his company's expansion needs by saying Cable Technology currently has more work booked than it could have possibly handled at the Creston facility.

"We've basically doubled our sales every year we've been in business," he said. "We did have a downturn in 2003, but we recovered and had our best year ever in 2004. We've really been constrained with the size of our facility - that's what's really held us back."

Cable Technology's largest customer is General Dynamics.

"Most of the work we do for them are missile air force, marine and army-type programs. We also service 14 different industries and our biggest ones are aerospace, military and space - anything shooting up on a rocket."