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In Warren, R.I., new millennial-owned manufacturer is latest to bring metal fabrication back to US – The Boston Globe
In the small town of Warren, R.I., siblings Kelly and Kiffin Ward recently opened Ward’s Manufacturing, a high-tech metal fabrication company.
Kiffen Ward is Ward’s mechanical and product engineer, while his sister Kelly Ward has helped grow the business from the ground up.
Kelly Ward spoke to Globe Rhode Island about Ward’s, and why these millennials are committed to bringing manufacturing back to the US — and their home state.
Q: What exactly is metal fabrication, and what do you specialize in at Ward’s?
Kelly Ward: Metal fabrication is where you create products by cutting, bending, and assembling metal material.
At Ward’s, we specialize in fiber laser cutting, press brake bending, metal engraving, and we offer part design consulting services. So we take metal sheets and can cut any design out of them, and then we can bend them into form. We can make whatever it is that the customer needs.
Are there many metal fabricators left in the US? If not, why not?
Much like other manufacturing industries, metal fabrication has been outsourced over the last several decades. And so what has happened is we get a lot of our metal fabrication from mostly China, as well as some other countries across Asia. Then the pandemic caused major supply chain disruptions, and the cost of shipping went up and lead times were extended so much so that many were unreasonable for the businesses that needed these metal products. On top of this, there’s been increasingly unstable geopolitical factors that have increased these timelines and the cost of goods and services.
What are a few examples of items Ward’s has done?
It’s a real range. We’ve worked on pieces of metal equipment that goes into a tractor or a robot. We can also make a custom metal sign for a small business.
What kinds of businesses or industries are your largest clients?
Our customers are very wide ranging, but most of them tend to be in construction and in the marine industry. So anytime you need a custom metal part that you can’t just get at Home Depot, you come to a metal fabricator like us. We’re serving across industries and for businesses across the US — not just in Rhode Island.
Is there a demand for domestic metal manufacturing?
Outsourcing has become more expensive, slow, and riskier than ever. There is a domestic metal fabrication market, but it’s not big enough to handle the domestic need.
What does the current market of domestic shops look like? What makes yours different?
A lot of the domestic shops that do exist are multigenerational shops that don’t have all the latest equipment, and these shops are also backordered and the lead times are long. In other cases, these shops are massive, and don’t handle more small-scale prototypes for a new tech product or new robotics. If you need something done that’s custom work, many of these shops cannot take on a small order for a single piece.
My brother, who is an engineer by trade, is also a design expert. He’s working in consultation with the customer, and can then build their product.
Who or what is your biggest competition?
If someone has a huge order and an extremely low price point per unit is important to them, then they will probably still go overseas. When we entered this market, we thought other metal fabricators in the area would be our biggest competition. But what we found is that they’re also backordered — even if they are only three to five years old. Many of those local companies have actually asked to partner with us so we can help supply them and take orders they cannot get to.
What kinds of metals are you working with?
We use mild steel (carbon steel), stainless steel, aluminum, brass, and copper are our five primary metals. If there’s a special request for another metal, we can look into those as well.
What challenges do you expect to face this year?
Our biggest challenge is going to be getting the word out that we are here. We have a lot of new customers from around the country already, but we really want to build a strong base of local support to fill up our capacity so we can partner with them and understand their needs, and help make design improvements.
Alexa Gagosz can be reached at alexa.gagosz@globe.com. Follow her @alexagagosz and on Instagram @AlexaGagosz.
New East Bay Bike Path bridges are open and ready for bikes
What’s it like to ride over the new East Bay Bike Path bridges? We sent a reporter to try them out.
I’ve long thought bike paths are among Rhode Island’s premier attractions, up there with the beaches, the mansions and the bay.
We like to knock government, but credit where it’s due, the state has done an amazing job building out an incredible pedaling network.
It’s clearly a priority.
At least I thought it was.
But they’ve just dropped the ball on what should have been a beautiful new stretch.
The plan was to finish a mile-long connector from the East Providence end of the Henderson Bridge all the way to the East Bay Bike Path.
There was even $25 million set aside to get it done.
Except WPRI recently reported that it’s now been canceled.
The main fault lies with the Trump administration, which is no friend of bike paths, and moved to kill that $25 million.
But it gets complicated, as government funding always does.
To try to rescue that money, the state DOT reportedly worked with the administration to refunnel it into a road project. Specifically, the $25 million will now be spent helping upgrade the mile-long highway between the Henderson Bridge and North Broadway in East Providence, turning it into a more pleasant boulevard.
That totally sounds worthy.
But it’s insane to throw away the bike path plan.
Especially for a particular reason in this case.
They’d already put a ton of money into starting it.
When state planners designed the new Henderson Bridge between the East Side and East Providence, they included a bike path.
It’s a beauty – well protected from traffic by a barrier, a great asset for safely riding over the Seekonk River.
The plan was to continue it another mile or so along East Providence’s Waterfront Drive, ultimately connecting with the East Bay Bike Path, which runs all the way to Bristol. Which, by the way, is one of the nicest bike paths you’ll find anywhere.
But alas, that connector plan has been canceled.
So the expensive stretch over the Henderson Bridge to East Providence is now a bike path to nowhere. Once the bridge ends, the path on it continues a few hundred yards or so and then, just … ends.
Too bad.
We were so close.
Most of the stories on the issue have been about the complex negotiation to rescue the $25 million by rerouting it to that nearby highway-to-boulevard project. But I don’t want to get lost in the weeds of that bureaucratic process here because it loses sight of the heart of this story.
Which is that an amazing new addition to one of the nation’s best state bike path systems has just been scrapped.
You can knock the Rhode Island government for blowing a lot of things.
The PawSox.
The Washington Bridge.
But they’ve done great with bike paths.
And especially, linking many of them together.
Example: not too many years ago, Providence bikers had to risk dicey traffic on the East Side to get to the more pleasant paths in India Point Park and on the 195 bridge to the East Bay Path.
But the state fixed that by adding an amazing connector that starts behind the Salvation Army building and beautifully winds along the water of the Seekonk River for a mile or so.
That makes a huge difference – and no doubt has avoided some bike-car accidents.
We were close to a comparable stretch on the other side of the river – that’s what the $25 million would have done.
But it’s now apparently dead.
Online commenters aren’t happy about it.
On a Reddit string, “Toadscoper” accused the state of being “complicit” with the feds in rerouting the money from bikes to cars.
And there was this fascinating post from FineLobster 5322, who apparently is a disappointed planner who worked on the project: “Mind you money has already been spent on phase one so rejecting it at this point is wasting money and also against the public interest … but what do I know? I only worked on the project as an engineer … I didn’t get into this to build more highways. I do it … to give back to communities and give them more access to their environment.”
Wow. One can imagine the state planning team is devastated. That’s not a small consideration. Good people go into government to make life better in Rhode Island, and it’s a bad play to take the spirit out of the job by first assigning a great human-scale project and then, after a ton of work, trashing it.
A poster named Homosapiens simply said, “We just accept this?”
Hopefully not.
The first stretch of the path over the Henderson Bridge is done, money already sunk.
What a shame to leave that as a path to nowhere.
It doesn’t have to happen.
Between Governor McKee and our Washington delegation, there’s got to be a way to get this done.
There’s got to be.
mpatinki@providencejournal.com
WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — Two people are dead and another person seriously hurt after a crash involving two vehicles on the highway in Warwick Saturday.
Rhode Island State Police said the crash happened around 1:34 p.m. on the ramp from Route 113 West to I-95 South.
According to police, a Hyundai SUV that was driving in the middle lane of the highway started to drift to the right, crossed the first lane, and then crossed onto the on-ramp lane. The car struck the guardrail twice before driving through the grass median.
The Hyundai then struck the driver’s side of a Mercedes SUV that was on the ramp, causing the Mercedes to roll over and come to a rest. The impact sent the Hyundai over the guardrail and down an embankment.
The driver of the Hyundai, a 73-year-old man, and his passenger, a 69-year-old woman, were both pronounced dead at the hospital.
A woman who was in the Mercedes was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital in critical condition.
State police said all lanes of traffic were reopened by 4:30 p.m.
The investigation remains ongoing.
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A federal judge on Friday tossed the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit aiming to force Rhode Island to hand over its voter information as part of the Trump administration’s push to acquire voter data from several states.
Rhode Island U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy wrote that federal law does not allow the DOJ “to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here,” siding with Rhode Island election officials. She added that the DOJ did not provide evidence to suggest that Rhode Island violated election law.
McElroy, a Trump appointee, wrote that she sided with the similar decision in Oregon. That decision ruled that the DOJ was not entitled to unredacted voter registration lists.
“Absent from the demand are any factual allegations suggesting that Rhode Island may be violating the list maintenance requirements,” she said in her ruling.
Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore (D) praised McElroy’s decision. He said in a statement that the Trump administration “seems to have no problem taking actions that are clear Constitutional overreaches, regularly meddling in responsibilities that are the rights of the states.”
“Today’s decision affirms our position: the United States Department of Justice has no legal right to – or need for – the personally-identifiable information in our voter file,” he said. “Voter list maintenance is a responsibility entrusted to the states, and I remain confident in the steps we take here in Rhode Island to keep our list as accurate as possible.”
The Hill reached out to the DOJ for comment.
The DOJ called for the voter lists as it investigated Rhode Island’s compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which allowed Americans to register to vote when they apply for a driver’s license.
The DOJ sued at least 30 states, as well as Washington, D.C., in December demanding their respective voter data. This data includes birth dates, names and partial Social Security numbers.
At least 12 states have given or said they will give the DOJ their voter registration lists, according to a tracker operated by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The department stated after it lost a similar suit against Massachusetts earlier this month that it had “sweeping powers” to access the voter data and that, if states fail to comply, courts have a “limited, albeit vital, role” in directing election officers on behalf of the administration to produce the records. The DOJ cited the Civil Rights Act as being intended to unearth alleged election law violations.
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