The history of Valley Design began as all businesses do – with an idea. When founder and current CEO, Butch Isensee, was working at a nearby furniture manufacturer in the 1980s, he oversaw the wet finishing in their engineering department. It was with this position that Isensee first came across powdering coating. Intrigued by this finishing method, he attended a seminar on powder coating at the University of Madison-Wisconsin where the idea of Valley Design truly came to life.
In 1986, Butch Isensee and then-partner Tim Bremseth purchased a small body shop in Fountain, Minnesota. At this time, there were less than 20 powder coating companies in the state, providing an opportunity for their small, part-time startup to thrive. Taking that opportunity and the new (to them) equipment, they began offering powder coating services on contract, painting metal fabricated parts for other manufacturers. At this time, much of the powder coating process was completed manually by Butch and Tim (and their wives), who were only working nights and weekends as their schedules allowed.
A year later, as volume increased and Butch and Tim quit their day jobs to work full time, the first full line was installed – the batch line. This line no longer required the process to be completed by hand. Instead, small runs were able to be prepped, covered in the powdered paint, and rolled into the oven to be baked, increasing the number of products that could be powder coated at once and decreasing the time it took to do so.
By the end of the decade, they added a large addition to the body shop to expand the production of their powder coating services even more. Even though business was thriving, they often ran into issues in regard to production and turnaround. With powder coating services occurring near the end of the manufacturing process, they heavily relied on the timeline in which the metal fabricators could get the products to them. If part deliveries were delayed, the paint production was rushed and the next in line to receive the product often placed the blame on Valley Design. To resolve this problem, Butch and Tim added their own metal fabrication to their in-house services, improving the overall production efficiency, quality control, and on-time ship dates.
During this time, Valley Design began to manufacture and powder coat store displays for big companies such as Lee’s, Bugle Boy, and New Balance before slowly introducing the fabrication of metal table bases to sell to people Butch and Tim already knew in the furniture industry. This opened the door to the industry we serve today.
With the increase in our services as well as their demand, we found ourselves growing exponentially and in need of a larger space that could process larger quantities at a time. During the 1990s, Building 1 was built, shortly followed by Building 2, each with another powder paint line installed which allowed for medium and large powder coating runs.
By the turn of the century, it was clear our direction turned to table bases. What started as a small powder coating operation housed in a 2,000 square foot auto body shop had grown into a well-established table base manufacturer offering in-house metal fabrication and powder coating services with multiple lines and two buildings in operation.
Today, we have expanded into 113,000 square feet of manufacturing and office space, employing a large team of engineers, fabricators, welders, customer service representatives, and have significantly grown the amount of table base products offered. But regardless of how much we have grown, we continue to exhibit the values of a small business by ensuring our products are of the best quality, delivered on time, and backed by the finest service in the industry.
The history of Valley Design is deeply rooted in powder coating. It inspired the idea that would open our doors, its demand allowed us to grow and thrive, and it has stayed a key component in our company as we shifted our focus to manufacturing the high-quality table bases we sell today. To learn more about our table base products and powder coat finishes, contact us and see how we can become a partner at your table.