Dec. 22—CLARKSVILLE — GHK Truss is investing around $1 million in new equipment, building improvements and more to keep up with growing customer demands.

The Clarksville company was founded in 2008 by lifelong friends Mike Harlowe, Mike Gilley and Jim Kulaga. The three founders grew up on the same street.

A truss is a web-like roof design of wood or steel that uses tension and compression to create strong, light components that can span a long distance.

In 2008, they opened their company at 521 North Clark Blvd. in Clarksville with the vision of exemplifying quality and servicing the structural components market in the area.

“We thought there was some opportunity here and we never looked back,” Harlowe said.

Despite starting the company during the 2008 housing market crash, the first year of GHK Truss was successful.

The reach of the company is primarily local, serving Southern and Central Indiana, North and Central Kentucky as well as the Greater Cincinnati Metro area.

“We will do an occasional far-reaching project,” said Kulaga. “We might go to Illinois or Tennessee. We’ve done some really distant projects out of state. Those went as far as Michigan, South Carolina, even a couple jobs in Florida.”

Throughout the 15 years they have been in business, their customer base has grown significantly. With the expansion, the company will be able to handle the influx of customers better.

Their customer base is largely made up of wholesale lumber companies that sell building packages to a contractor. GHK designs and provides the trusses for the companies.

“We really try to strive to be a strong value proposition to our customers,” Harlowe said. “They’ve come to appreciate us as a brand name and they’ve asked us to do more.”

“They’ve also come to trust us,” Kulaga said. “They also look at us as problem solvers. Things don’t always go smoothly or you have incomplete plans and issues come up and we’ll be there to take care of the customer.”

Story continues

With the expansion, they will be adding on to their manufacturing building, bringing in new equipment and more staff. The biggest component they will be bringing in is a new component saw system.

It will be installed in the first quarter of next year, they do not know the exact date as of yet. They will also be adding an additional truss assembly table and a saw for cutting floor webs.

This expansion will also increase their lumber storage capacity and it will make them more efficient on production.

“We’re doing something right and customers keep on asking us to do more,” Gilley said. “It’s a combination of the quality and the service and maybe price too. But I think the customer relationships that we’ve developed over the years and how we serve as people is what’s driving this need for expansion.”

“We’re a service-based organization, we’re a relationship driven organization, we try to keep the relationship to our customers transparent and we just strive to solve problems for them,” Harlowe said. “It’s very validating when our customers are asking us to do more.”

The company is expected to add 15 jobs with its expansion, and that has netted GHK Truss up to $175,000 in incentive-based tax credits through the Indiana Economic Development Corp.

“Indiana’s entrepreneurial ecosystem has a significant impact on the state’s economy and our local communities,” said Ann Lathrop, chief strategy officer of the IEDC. “The continued success and growth of Indiana-founded small businesses like GHK Truss is critical to our future and to creating more quality job opportunities for Hoosiers.”