Service Only a Family-Owned Business Can Supply
How California Tool & Welding Supply has evolved since 1976.
In 1976, Robert C. Craig (Bob Jr.) worked for his father, Bob Sr., at his welding supply company in Duarte, California. Bob and Rick Davis decided to set out on their own and opened California Tool & Welding Supply out of a wooden shed on a dusty sand lot with a few bottles of compressed gases, an oxygen cascade system, and a small selection of hard goods. But what they lacked in resources, they more than made up for in vision.
The motto of the fledgling business was, “We provide service that only a family-owned and operated business can supply.” And that creed remains the cornerstone of Cal Tool nearly half a century later, as the family’s third generation runs the company by those very same tenets.
“I think my dad and uncle recognized that there was a growing need for specialized tools and welding supplies, and having had that experience and that knowledge from working with their dad in his welding supply business, they really wanted to create something on their own,” says Melody Anderson, third-generation Executive at California Tool. “But they wanted to do it with a personalized touch and really wanted to get to know the customers and build those relationships. So, they created that motto and the model that we still have today. That is the hallmark of our company’s success now and all of us that are working here, family and otherwise, support that motto today. It is the cornerstone of our core values.”
Shortly after Bob Jr. and Rick started the company, Bob Sr. sold his welding supply business and joined Cal Tool. Together, the three partners began to build Cal Tool into the company that it is today.
Company Growth and Evolution
Today, California Tool’s corporate office still occupies the same “dusty sand lot” that Bob Jr. and Rick laid claim to in 1976, but the company has expanded to match their vision. The distributor has nearly 100 employees across its nine retail locations across Southern California as well as Las Vegas, plus it has an Acetylene Plant in Riverside, California, and it operates three subdivisions within Cal Tool: Serv-O-Tek, Elite Air, and California Plumbing Solutions.
In the early 2000s, Bob Jr. passed away, and Rick Davis left the company to open a cryogenics business. Then, in 2008, Bob Sr. passed away, leaving the company in the hands of the third generation: Chris Craig, Ron Myers and Melody Anderson.
“We were mostly just welding and fabrication businesses, up to that point,” says Anderson. “We had added Serv-O-Tek, our beverage company in the early 2000’s. But, after my grandpa’s death in 2008, we started seeing the need to keep branching out and adding to the company. We added Elite Air, our Specialty Gas Division, and started retrofitting and changing our fill plant and adding in new and automated equipment. In the last five to ten years, we’ve really started to ramp up our technology. The original owners set the groundwork for the Serv-O-Tek beverage line and we knew we wanted to build on that and do more specialized gases. But it wasn’t until we really started diving in with technology and realizing that there was a real need for better equipment and better processes that we started investing in that technology.”
Its most recent subdivision, California Plumbing Solutions, is able to design, supply and install both cryogenic and gaseous process piping. The company’s goal is to have cost-effective solutions while accommodating its customer’s project goals, large or small.
“Bringing in those different businesses and solutions in-house has allowed us to control the quality,” says Anderson. “Before, we were reaching out to other vendors and businesses to make those projects work. Now, we are hiring and doing that work ourselves. And it has allowed us to take our business to the next level.”
Customized Solutions
Branching out to be able to offer those more customized solutions is part and parcel with Cal Tool’s culture.
“We’re very solutions-oriented,” Anderson says. “When we go to build relationships with our customers, we’re looking for the solutions that best fit them. Because we’re more flexible and we’re able to do a little bit more research and look up the technology required and explore things that we may not be familiar with, especially if it seems to be in the best interest of the customer or the best solutions, we are more agile. We’re not stuck in that ‘one-size-fits-all’ mode. We have the ability to move a lot more quickly than a lot of the big corporate companies.”
On its website, Cal Tool lists a Mission, Vision and Purpose Statement that go along with its Motto. All of them emphasize the importance of establishing true relationships with customers.
Mission Statement – “By using our expertise in the atmospheric gas industry, we will offer our partners the most creative and safe solution to satisfy their dynamic needs.
Vision Statement – “To become the first choice for packaged gas and liquid cryogenic products in the Western United States.”
Purpose Statement – “By truly cultivating internal and external relationships we can connect the right products, people, and technology to allow our customers the freedom to focus on their business.”
“When we get feedback from customers, they really appreciate the emphasis that we put on building relationships,” says Anderson. “They seem to understand and value that we offer personalized solutions that are tailored and can meet each of our customers unique needs, regardless of their size. I think it does make a difference compared to bigger companies because they can’t operate like that. There’s too much red tape. We don’t have to go through that. We get to become the trusted partner who genuinely cares about the success of our customers business.”
Looking Forward
With a young and agile management team in place, Cal Tool is well-positioned to continue and even accelerate its success as it enters its second half-century. And it is already walking the walk, making heavy investments in technology in the last five years. And it isn’t slowing down anytime soon.
The company has an e-commerce website that it is debuting that will revolutionize the way its customers can do business with Cal Tool.
“Customers really want a comprehensive and valuable online experience, and they want to be able to select, compare and purchase products online, and we’re committed to providing that experience,” Anderson says. “And we want that experience to mirror what you get when you come into our stores. It’s going to offer the convenience of online shopping but also reflect the depth of knowledge and care that that we have in all of our physical locations and then customers will also have full autonomy of their accounts through the customer portal. We’re very excited about that.”
Anderson concludes, “I think we’re poised to continue to grow. And part of that is going to be by becoming a little bit more visible and more accessible to people. In the last 5-10 years, we’ve started adding our tagline, ‘So Much More’ to a lot of our marketing. We’ve started understanding that the ‘welding industry’ is so much more than welding. And we’re trying to showcase that. We’re content being the ‘hidden gem’ but also we feel that part of our value is that we can create these solutions. We want to build better communities, and we can’t do that if we’re not willing to put ourselves out there and be more visible. So, that will be a big part of our goal in the next 5-10 years is to give ourselves more access to more customers and educate the communities and our customers and all that we can do and all that we can offer.”
And, as they have shown time and time again, all that they can offer, is an awful lot.
