Photo by Adam Vogler
IBT employee Justin Huntington prepares a box of Koyo bearings for shipment to Massachusetts.
IBT opened up in its new location last week, after spending a full week evenings, plus Saturday and Sunday, shuttling boxes and equipment across Funston Street.
The company had outgrown its building at 1925 W. Sixth Ave., and has moved into 1923 W. Sixth Ave., in the former Sunflower Nook building.
“Good thing we didn’t move across town,” said Jimmie Carpenter, manager of Emporia’s IBT. “We had 30 years’ worth of stuff stored in there.”
Photo by Adam Vogler
A shelf full of Timken products in the IBT warehouse. Timken is the last American manufacturer of ball bearing steel.
Then he laughed. “Probably some stuff we hadn’t seen for 20 years.”
About six or seven IBT employees from some of IBT’s 50-plus other locations came in to help with the move, and it wasn’t a moment too soon. They set up shelves and moved smaller items during the evenings, then concentrated their efforts on finishing on the last Saturday and Sunday in June.
“We had just outgrown that facility,” Carpenter said. “We were just cram-packed in there and we needed more space. ... We liked the (Sunflower Nook) location because it’s still good Sixth Street frontage and good visibility.”
IBT is a “full-line industrial distributor,” he said. The company sells everything from safety supplies to motors to electronic circuit boards and programmable logistics communications devices, and is a gold mine of nuts, bolts, O rings and other small parts that keep machinery running.
Photo by Adam Vogler
IBT Senior Account Manger Phil Schutter behind the counter of IBT's new facility at 1923 West Sixth Ave Tuesday, July 8. IBT provides a variety of services including ball bearings, lubricants and safety equipment for local companies.
The company serves a “large, large agriculture base” in this area, and other individuals walk in routinely to purchase parts and make their own repairs.
The store’s primary business, however, is serving manufacturing companies and other businesses. The territory runs to Council Grove and Herington on the west, through Emporia and east to Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Plant and Burlington, with accounts in LeRoy and Eureka, “and of course, every small town between Madison, Hamilton, Olpe, along with over to about Marion on the west edge,” Carpenter said.
IBT is a private, family-owned businesses that has expanded its offices in nine states to include on-site warehouses in larger companies’ facilities, such as Schwann’s, Tony’s Pizza, L’Oreal, and others.
“We are into an integrated supply, where we’ll go in and run, like maybe an integrated warehouse for them,” Carpenter said. “If we don’t have a branch location in the immediate area, we will actually put somebody in there. We will run like a parts crib for them. If they need something, they come to us.”
That portion of the business — called ISG — is in addition to the 50-plus store locations, he said.
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