Albina marks 80 years in business

Albina Co. Inc. is celebrating 80 years in the steel bending industry. Located outside Portland, Ore., the family-owned and -operated, third-generation business offers structural steel, tube, and pipe bending; plate rolling; and fabrication. The company, founded in 1939 and currently led by President Brian Smith, produces almost any metal component that needs to bend or curve without the use of preformed fittings.

Albina not only has new-technology machines, but also one of the oldest custom-made bending machines. To commemorate its 80th anniversary, the company has created a museum on-site, called “The Smith-sonian,” honoring the family name and housing one of the first pieces of equipment that Albina owned and used to bend materials. Smith’s grandfather built the Model-T bending machine in the early 1940s using the transmission and differential from a Model-T Ford. This machine was used until the 1990s to bend various materials such as pipe, tube, and square and rectangular hollow structural steel.