July 26, 2016 Fastening Power

Volume 11 | Issue 3

Keeping it all together now has a different meaning for Armando Diana as he learns not all things are equal when fastening materials. Join him and Powers Fasteners in an education on anchoring products.

In an industry dominated by publicly held companies, family-owned Powers Fasteners has been manufacturing and marketing quality anchoring and fastening products for concrete, masonry, and steel for the past 75 years.
Now in its third generation with four Powers brothers – Jeff is president, Chris is chief executive officer; Fred is vice president of purchasing, and Steve is vice president of information technology – the core to the company’s success is having people who care about what they do on a daily basis.

This steadfast dedication is seen in Powers Fasteners’ outside field engineers being the first ones on a job site to help construction crews fasten to concrete, block, brick, steel and drywall every day. The company has 48 personal training vehicles that drive from site-to-site helping crews learn about the proper way to fasten using new and innovative mechanical, Adhesive and Gas Fastening products.

Powers Fasteners also offers next day delivery to every ZIP code in North America. With four factories and 27 warehouses, Powers Fasteners is the largest domestic manufacturer of quality concrete fasteners in the United States. Powers Fasteners continues to invest in its facilities, most recently relocating its corporate headquarters to a state-of-the-art facility in Brewster, N.Y. It is at this facility that Powers does in house training and testing on all of the products it currently offers.

This investment ensures Powers Fasteners maintains, improves and stands behind all of its products and also offers domestic certificates on many of the products that it sells. This coupled with a 24/7 work ethic embedded as part of customer service, has enabled the company double-digit growth for the last seven years.

“We are vested in being a supplier of quality fasteners sold by local people, with local warehouses, in every major market,” says Lenny Colasuonno, vice president of marketing. “Our customers are the users and specifiers of concrete fasteners and at every turn are Powers people making this vision become reality.”

Powers Fasteners sells a majority of its fasteners through distributors who belong to the Specialty Tool and Fasteners Distributors Association (STAFDA), a not-for-profit educational trade association comprised of distributors, manufacturers, and rep agents of light construction, industrial, and related products. STAFDA has 2,900 members from the United States, Canada, and overseas.

“We go to market with professional distributors who share the same vision as Powers,” which is selling innovative solutions to fastening problems,” says Colasuonno.

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Powers Fasteners offers the widest range of mechanical, adhesive, powder actuated, and gas fastening systems on the market and also specializes in plastic and hollow wall anchors, carbide drill bits, and roofing fasteners.

The company averages at least six new products a year aimed at providing better, faster, more reliable and economical solutions to every fastening problem. Manufacturing precision tools and fasteners for the professional contractor all begins with a knowledgeable staff of dedicated people. Powers Fasteners employs more than 300 people who are constantly thinking of better ways to anchor to concrete, masonry and steel.

Of course, most people don’t even realize the different configurations of fastening equipment, nor do they realize what’s involved in ensuring the buildings they enter and leave don’t suddenly collapse.

Enter Powers Fasteners, whose staff lives and breathes fasteners. From mechanical anchors to adhesives, Powers Fasteners’ products are highly respected and sought. Mechanical anchors like the Power Stud Anchor Wedge are used in applications such as anchoring heavy-duty pneumatic hoist machines that lift cars and trucks with a bracket on each side of the car while engineers and mechanics work underneath the vehicles.

The one-piece, wedge style Power-Stud anchor utilizes a pair of independent, interlocking wedges that provide consistent load capacities and prevent spinning in the hole while it is being tightened. As the anchor is tightened, the body is pulled upwards causing the tapered expansion section to compress the wedges against the wall of the hole.

That information is more than most people reading this article will care to know about a fastener, but because people need to work underneath a suspended vehicle to complete the manufacture of that vehicle, car manufacturers make it their business to know. When lives are at stake, companies have to be sure the products used in the manufacturing of a product are reliable.

According to Colasuonno, most fastening ideas come from the field. “What most people don’t realize is the unending numbers of different needs for fastening materials but Powers Fasteners’ employees live for that knowledge. Powers Fasteners engineers find different anchoring needs when visiting job sites and gain a better understanding of application needs,” he explains.

Take for example, jobs started in winter months: Because of cold-weather anchoring concerns Powers Fasteners developed cold-weather adhesive anchors to fasten materials such as stainless steel rods that would attach glass panels to the existing block building.

Other anchoring products include powder actuated fasteners
that can be used to install track for steel studs into the concrete floor and steel beams overhead throughout large or even small rooms. Powers Fasteners’ drive pins offer more column strength and higher load capacities because of a reinforced, tapered head and thicker shank diameters

STARTING OUT
Powers Fasteners prides itself on making products for domestic and international markets but its roots started as an international fastener distributor. Once known as the Rawlplug Company, it transformed into a fastener manufacturer not long after its founding.

The company has distribution facilities in Latin America in the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Venezuela, in addition to a European location (The Netherlands), one in Australia (South Victoria) and one in New Zealand (North Harbour Auckland). The company also has five distribution facilities in Canadian locations in Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec to go along with the 27 cities in the United States.

The company’s growth has come from new product innovations and employees that carry the same passion and vision as the company’s original owner, Frederick Powers Sr.

Powers Fasteners is vested in its future as a supplier of quality fasteners sold by local people, with local warehouses, in every major market. Not only are customers the users of the products but also specifiers of concrete fasteners. The company’s engineered products are manufactured to deliver consistent performance and cut labor costs and are available worldwide and recognized as conforming with the latest building codes and requirements.

Powers Fasteners’ products cover the full traditional anchoring range while offering innovation products that provide the architect, engineer and end user with aesthetic, high performance, labor saving fastening solutions and fast technical advice.

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