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A door closes on window-maker – Viking Industries of Gresham plans to lay off 169 workers in December because Home Depot stopped carrying its product

Home Depot sneezed, and its West Coast vinyl window supplier got pneumonia.

CATHERINE TREVISON Oregonlive.com

Viking Industries, a 38-year-old Gresham maker of vinyl windows, will lay off 169 of its 323 workers in early December. The layoff comes because Home Depot stopped selling Viking windows and patio doors in West Coast stores. Instead, it switched to Jeld-Wen of Klamath Falls, which makes vinyl windows in several plants on the West Coast and elsewhere.

Jeld-Wen started making wood windows for Home Depot about 15 months ago and won the vinyl business earlier this year, said Joyce Richter, communications manager at Jeld-Wen. Because the vinyl windows are made in several places, she did not know if the Home Depot business meant additional employment at Jeld-Wen plants in Oregon.

Viking’s parent, privately owned Pella Corp. of Iowa, will now use the Gresham plant to make a Pella-brand window sold by North Carolina-based Lowe’s, another home improvement chain and Atlanta-based Home Depot’s archrival. The same Pella window is made at plants in Pennsylvania and Kentucky, said Pella spokeswoman Kathy Krafka Harkema.

Windows are a fair-weather item, sold to people working outdoors, she said. It can take as little as a week to build and ship one. The Gresham plant still serves other West Coast customers, but it won’t need more workers during the slow winter season.

"Over time, we’re confident we can grow our business," Krafka Harkema said. However, "in fairness to our people, we wanted to give them ample time to secure another opportunity."

Pella does not know if it will continue the Viking brand, she said.

As a privately held company, Pella won’t reveal the sales it lost when Home Depot switched brands, Krafka Harkema said. But the layoff shows the risks a company stomachs when it takes on a mammoth customer.

"If you concentrate your business on a few large customers, the rewards are obvious, and so are the risks," said Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, a national retail consulting firm based in New York. "It’s much easier, much more profitable, to service fewer customers and bigger orders. But there’s a saying: ‘You eat better, or you sleep better.’ You’re not going to sleep too good if half your business is with one customer."

A Home Depot spokesman declined to comment on why the home improvement giant switched vinyl window brands, although the company has been trying to improve its financial performance by centralizing purchasing and cutting down on the number of suppliers.

"I think it was strictly a decision that was made at the national level regarding complex relationships with vendors," said Viking founder Richard Alexander, who sold the company to Pella five years ago and is still Viking’s landlord. "It’s one of those things that happens at major chains. It doesn’t reflect on the quality of the products or the service."

Alexander and a partner founded the company with $60,000 in 1965. The company gained a reputation for energy-efficient windows and grew to be one of Gresham’s 10 largest employers.

When Alexander decided to sell the company in 1998, he chose Pella from several potential buyers.

"Pella represented the best fit for our employees," he said. "They’re a well-managed company that I think is very concerned about the well-being of their employees."

The layoff will affect all kinds of Viking employees, including production workers, managers and office staff. Most Viking employees are production workers represented by ironworker or glassworker unions, said Sue Bridwell, Viking human resources manager. People commute from throughout Portland for good wages and benefits, she said.

Viking told employees about the layoffs in two meetings on Monday, with employee-assistance workers standing by. The company had been forthright with employees, letting them know about Home Depot’s decision and its potential impact several months ago, workers said.

However, the layoff "was a very difficult message for us to communicate," Bridwell said. "Obviously it was very difficult for them to hear."

The Gresham plant had not laid off workers for at least five years.

The company is offering a severance package. It will work with the state and community college employment agencies to offer workshops such as resume preparation and interview techniques. Viking also plans a job fair for its workers in early November, Bridwell said.

Despite Oregon’s high unemployment, the company has already received calls from other manufacturers interested in hiring some of those laid off, Bridwell said.

Viking trainer Matt Wiles, 28, of Vancouver received a layoff notice but is undaunted. The company is extremely selective when hiring workers and has given him many new skills, from lean manufacturing to leadership, he said in an interview arranged by the company.

"Maybe I’m naive to think there’s plenty of jobs out there — the numbers tell me it’s not true," he said. However, "I feel comfortable I can step into the marketplace and find something."

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