Sundance business makes its name globally

Two years after launching Straight Cold Rollin in Sundance, Josh Kammerer no longer quite fits the description “local business”. Today, he has clients based in states as far afield as Texas – and in countries as diverse as Haiti and Tanzania.

“It’s been a little bit of a rollercoaster, I didn’t quite expect it to do what it’s doing – but hey, who am I to complain about it?” he laughs.

Using a computer-controlled roll former, Kammerer designs the layouts and components for buildings in the software and then, in layman’s terms, “prints them out”. The individual components can then be snapped together.

The concept is a little like purchasing flat-packed furniture and assembling it at home, Kammerer says, except Straight Cold Rollin prints entire buildings in “smart parts” that can be put together on site.

“You’re not having to do all the cutting and the fitting, the machine does all that,” he says. “Literally you snap it and screw it together.”

The first building designed at Straight Cold Rollin was put together by four people, two of whom were high school students, he says, which just goes to show that anyone can do it with a little practice.

Earlier this year, through “advertising, cold calling and working my tail off”, Kammerer was able to link up with a man who lives in Wyoming but has been selling dormitory housing for sugar companies in the eastern region of Africa, including in Tanzania.

“They’re looking for 600 homes, so he brought it to me and we did the first one and flew over to Tanzania. We arrived the Wednesday night before the Thursday morning travel ban through Europe,” he says. “If I’d have waited one more day, I’d have been stuck in Europe.”

The client paid for a 10,000 lb package of building components to be air freighted all the way from Wyoming to Entebbe, Uganda and then driven around 400 km to Bukoba, Tanzania. Kammerer himself followed along behind and then spent ten days working with Tanzanian people who will ultimately be living in the buildings.

“I’m teaching them, essentially, how to take our product and assemble it,” he says. “We’re showing them how to do it so that, at some point, we’re just shipping the material and not having to go over there and train.”

The manpower is certainly available, he adds: “This one sugar company has more than 7000 people working for it, so if they did some big housing projects they can bring plenty of people to bear. We’ve just got to keep an eye on them, to make sure they’re putting the correct amount of screws in and assembling things correctly, so they don’t have problems.”

The trip was as much an experience for Kammerer as it was for the people building their own homes.

“We were way out in the bush – where they were putting the building together, there was no power and no water. It was interesting to see how these folks live. They were really excited and really good at assembling the product,” he says.

“We’re hoping that they’re going to open things back up in July or August so we can get back and finish our project that we’ve got going on over there right now, and then they were wanting to place an order for 50 more barracks building,” he says.

Thanks to the relatively small size of the industry, Kammerer says he has been able to build relationships including the “inventor” of the machine used to make the structures. It’s through these connections that the opportunity to gain a client in Haiti came about.

Last Thursday, Kammerer packed up a shipping container with “flat pack” buildings heading to Haiti, trussed up in bundles that can be broken apart and assembled once they arrive. It’s the first time he’s shipped his product in this way.

“That was a learning curve – it’s been a lot of firsts that last few years,” he says.

Straight Cold Rollin works with cold-form studs, colloquially known as metal studs. What makes the buildings so popular, says Kammerer, is not just the ease with which they can be constructed.

Cold-formed steel is popular with hospitals and other commercial buildings, he says, largely because it non-flammable. The material also has a galvanized coating that’s resistant to rust, as well as termites and water.

“We’re building 30,000 square feet of roof trusses for Dahl Memorial Hospital in Ekalaka, Montana,” he says. This project is in its final phase for Kammerer and is one of two hospital buildings his work now appears.

The company also has a structure underway in Weatherford, Texas, he says, and has recently bid a job in New Jersey. “We’re getting all over the place,” he says.

Where Cold Steel Rollin will grow from here is anyone’s guess, but one thing Kammerer knows is that he aims to persevere.

“Part of the reason I’m doing this is for my kids to have something to do,” he says. Both of his sons with wife Heather appear to be taking an interest in what has become the family business, and Kammerer hopes it will give them an opportunity for their future careers.

Learning the software takes months, if not years, he says. “It was a heck of an investment and kind of a blind investment,” he admits. But for many different reasons, he knows it was worth it.