By Rachel Pritchett
NORTH KITSAP — Hardware Wholesale, 10-year-old mainstay in the
construction industry, is closing, victim of the recession.
Keith Oleachea, who founded Hardware Wholesale with brother Bryan,
was at the Foss Road store Wednesday. The mood in the office was
one of defeat and sadness.
The dozen employees at the store in Poulsbo and a second store in
Aberdeen will be out of work, joining more than 2,000
construction-related workers in Kitsap County who have lost their
jobs since the 2007 height of the building boom. In the third
quarter of 2007, there were 5,610 construction jobs in Kitsap
County. That had shrunk to 3,405 by the third quarter of 2010, the
latest quarter for which data is available, according to the
Washington Department of Employment Security.
“Don’t know,” a very subdued Keith Oleachea said when asked about
what he and his brother will do now.
Born in Aberdeen but spending much of their life in the Poulsbo
area, the Oleachea brothers built Hardware Wholesale from the
ground up. The two sites provides construction accessories — mostly
related to concrete projects — to 390 contractors throughout the
Kitsap and Olympic peninsulas. Typical accessories might by rebar
or tools to install concrete projects.
At the height of the building boom, they had 26 employees.
That, too, was the time they invested to expand the business. When
the housing market collapse, they were left “dragging around a lot
of debt” associated with the expansion. No bank now would take them
on to refinance, Keith Oleachea said.
The company prided itself on competitive prices for contractors and
also for service. It even held classes in Poulsbo for contractors
on how to make concrete countertops, how to make stamped concrete
walkways or how to correctly stain concrete. Keith Oleachea said
Hardware Wholesale was the only company of its kind on the
peninsulas. The company’s website said it was the No. 1
construction accessory supply and service company in the
Northwest.
The siblings also appeared to foster a brotherhood among
construction workers struggling now for a long time.
In March of this year, they set up a “Construction Survivor”
project to help support struggling workers and their families,
according to the Hardware Wholesale website.
“We are all in the industry together and when we think as a family,
stay unified and work toward a common goal, we shall survive.” a
statement on the site stated.
A fire sale of unsold equipment preceded the closing of the
business this week.
Hardware Wholesale
www.hardwarewholesale.net
Construction Survivor
www.constructionsurvivor.com
