rnest "Pop" McCartney knew a thing or two about steel. He joined it, bent it, reamed holes in it for forty years. He was a welder who spent the better part of his career at Bethlehem Steel. Along with his son Dennis, Pop rented a building on Quad Avenue in South Baltimore. The year was 1971. Between shifts at the steel plant, Pop opened his own shop. For help, he brought in coworkers, buddies really, who worked up at the Point. They brought their welding torches ready to work. The building had no equipment-just men. That's how B&B began: with some hard working steel workers doing small weld jobs looking to get ahead. Today, B&B Welding Company Inc is a fully automated multi-million dollar business. "Pop was like God. You put your faith in him," says Dennis. One thing Pop saw was the future. He intuitively knew that computer technology would transform the steel fabrication business. Throughout the 1970's Pop-a man who never completed high school-took computer classes at Dundalk Community College. In his 70's and in failing health, Pop continued to take courses at DCC. Says Dennis, "Pop kept saying you gotta get into computers. You gotta get into computers. Before me or almost anyone, Pop saw some opportunity to automate the business." Pop lived for finding smarter ways to do a job. He passed his curiosity for technology on to his son. Dennis lives and breathes this high tech stuff, and he's had the guts to invest heavily in automation. Says Denny, "We want to be the first with the newest toys." In the late 1970's, B&B purchased their first ironworker. B&B Welding would never be the same. The shop went from the labor intense burning and reaming of holes in steel to automated equipment, a Buffalo iron worker and a Mubea hole puncher. In 1983 Pop and Dennis visited the AWS Welding show. What they saw was a robot: "It probed three points on this intersection between two pipes, welding one pipe onto another. It was really wild," Dennis remembers. "Pop kept saying, 'This has got to be something for the future.' And I kept saying, 'Pop, we can't afford that.'" But in 1993, Dennis purchased the company's first robot. "The machine did something no man could do, day in day out." Tedious jobs became easy and profitable, and B&B workers quickly took to the robots. As Denny puts it, "All the equipment in the world doesn't do you any good unless you have a man to push the button." Pop never lived to see the automation of his company. He died in 1988. Today, B&B Welding is the most automated steel fabrication shop in the Baltimore area. All Dennis can say is, "Yeah Pop, you were right." In 1990, B&B purchased its first Peddinghaus angle master. "When we bought that first angle master," says Dennis, "we paid more for the machine than for the building we housed it in." That was a huge investment that paid off big time. "Pop always said you gotta put money back in the business to stay in the forefront." Imagine a 1950's work ethic with twenty-first century equipment-that's today's B&B. The guys work hard here. More important, they work smarter. That means staying ahead of the new technology. That means workers are encouraged to take classes at night. Since 1998, the company has invested 1.2 million dollars in capital equipment. In 1976, Pop sold the business to Dennis and his wife Peggy. "It was one of those deals where Pop got a paycheck every week," recalls Dennis. That's just the way Pop was. "Pop always said when you get older you stop working hard and start working smart." - Dennis McCartney   © 2001 B&B Welding Company, Inc. company | projects | facilities | contact