Kenai Supply Inc.: poised for growth.

• Author: Phelps, Jack E.
• Position: The new 49ers - Company Profile

This Kenai company is grabbing a large share of the wholesale plumbing and heating market.

Pipes and valves are the heart of Kenai Supply's business, and have been since 1953, the year president William "Bill" Wells started the original company, Kenai Plumbing and Heating. Since then, the company has grown into a statewide supplier of building materials with outlets in Anchorage, Wasilla and Homer as well as Kenai. A Fairbanks yard served the North Star Borough for four years but closed this July, primarily because the company could not reach agreement with the landlord, according to a company spokesman. Tough competition from large retail chains in a relatively small population center also contributed to the decision.

Headquarters for Kenai Supply is on a sprawling gravel pad above Kalifornsky Beach Road on the Kenai Peninsula, across from the intersection with Bridge Access Road. The K-Beach Road location is corporate headquarters as well as a wholesale distribution center and a re-supply point for the Homer store. About 30 of the company's 80 employees work there, including about 15 people who comprise the office staff.

According to Wells, the company moved into the Anchorage plumbing market in 1970 when he acquired the property on Arctic Spur Road. Wells' eldest son Kevin first started developing the Anchorage market in the summers while a student at the University of Washington. He would fly up for a day and sell, then fly back to Kenai and drive a tractor-trailer rig back up the next day to deliver. Sometimes the procedure would be repeated twice a week.

In 1969, after graduating from college, Kevin established a full-time outlet in Anchorage focusing on the plumbing and heating market. Later, the company built a large stand-up concrete warehouse on the corner of Arctic Spur and Arctic Boulevard. That property was sold three years ago and now houses Arctic Wire Rope and Supply Inc. In 1979, the company expanded Anchorage operations into the underground utilities market selling the American Darling line.

In recent years, Kenai Supply's most visible location in Anchorage has been on the corner of International Airport Road and Minnesota Drive. But the decision was made this summer to terminate the lease on that property and run utilities operations out of the Arctic Spur Road office. This was in keeping with a decision to focus sales mainly on the building trade.

"In Anchorage, originally we dealt just with the trade," says Bill Wells...