Mr. Williams: Williams Industries is a NASDAQ national market stock, trading under the symbol WMSI. The company started as a small, private firm founded by my father, Frank E. Williams Jr., some 40 plus years ago. Williams was originally a construction company, but the business has grown since those first years back in the 1960s. We've transformed the company from what was originally a construction company to a much more diverse one, expanding our construction services and also adding manufacturing for the construction industry. We still have a construction services component that actually does on-site construction, but over the last 10 years, that business has gone from being roughly 70% of our business down to about 30% of our business. We like to think of ourselves as more of a manufacturer for the construction industry now than just strictly a construction services firm.
TWST: What's the distinction as far as margins in those two segments you
described? Is there a value-add component that brings in higher margins?
Mr. Williams: It certainly is a value-added component when we can go to
our customer base as a manufacturer and not only sell a product but also
sell that product put in place. The synergy and 'turn-key' aspects of
that definitely have a value-added component. I think the thing that we
felt was important in transforming our business from being purely
construction services to adding manufacturing was that the construction
industry is unfortunately very cyclical and very seasonal. We felt that
the additional positioning of Williams Industries as a manufacturing
company would smooth out some of that cyclicality and particularly
seasonality issues. While the months of November through April generally
are not brutally cold in the Mid-Atlantic area, there is a substantial
amount of inclement weather that hinders working on sites. We felt that
working in a controlled environment, such as a manufacturing plant,
lessened the impact of that seasonality.
Tickers included in this excerpt: WMSI
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