1984. Apple releases the iconic Macintosh computer, the theaters were showing movies like Ghostbusters, The Terminator, and The Karate Kid, and in January, Stack Metallurgical opens their current Portland, Oregon location.
Stack Metallurgical started as “Stack Steel” in Seattle, Washington founded by owner Eugene Stack in 1932. Eugene’s son Harold started Stack Heat Treating in 1972, and opened a second location in Portland in 1978. Meanwhile, in 1974 Dave Ederer acquired Commercial Heat Treating, a company that had served Seattle since 1946.
By 1984, Ederer oversaw the acquisition of Stack Metallurgy and consolidated operations to Portland, a location that offered room for expansion beyond what the Seattle location had access to. Under Ederer’s leadership, the Portland location grew into a 72,000 sq. ft. facility, and the family-owned company continued to grow, adding operations in Salt Lake City, Utah and Spokane, Washington.
Today, Stack Metallurgical is a leader in the heat-treating industry in the Pacific Northwest, delivering services to the medical, gearing, tool and die, and aviation industries, while seeing significant growth in the space flight sector.
Variety Creates Flexibility
Four Vertical and Horizontal TurboTreaters, and a pair of classic VFS furnaces round out the six Ipsen furnaces operating at the Portland plant. Meanwhile in Spokane, a pair of restored Abar-Ipsen era furnaces run alongside a new TITAN. “Ipsen has been a staple at Stack and a good partner since the beginning. We’ve added three new Ipsen vacuum furnaces just in the 13 years that I’ve been with the company,” noted Kim Chaussee, General Manager at Stack Metallurgical Portland. The most recent addition was a 6-bar Ipsen TurboTreater installed in 2023.
“It’s fortunate that we have such a robust offering,” Chaussee explained. “What our flexibility has allowed us to do, as the political climate and the world changes, is to react to market demands as they rise and fall, while maintaining a healthy company. If demand for aviation is down, we are capable of meeting the rising demand from the space industry. When Covid affected travel of any sort, tool and knife demand spiked. Our product diversity has ensured that we stay productive.”
Service Flexibility Requires Skill Diversity
One of the challenges behind being able to run processes for a variety of customers is having a workforce skilled enough to handle changing recipes, fixtures, and pre- and post-processing across a variety of furnaces.
“Heat treating can be tribal knowledge oriented,” Chaussee explained. “One of our challenges is getting a wide variety of employees that understand and know how to operate each of our furnaces. Passing that knowledge onto new employees can be very challenging.”
That’s why Stack Metallurgical invests in staff training, from mentorship to training programs through the Metal Treating Institute (MTI) and Ipsen’s own Ipsen U. “These programs are a big help for our new maintenance crewmembers. Additionally, we have a relationship with Ipsen’s Field Service Team that sends a crew to our shops monthly to provide support and work alongside our new employees.” Chaussee added “We love working with the Ipsen team.”
Technology has also stepped up to fill in gaps that used to be managed by operators with years of experience. And customers are embracing the use of new technology as well. “We’ve been promoting Ipsen’s PdMetrics on our three newest Ipsen furnaces as we walk customers through our shop. I can show them how PdMetrics can send us texts and emails if there are signs that something isn’t right within a furnace during a process, instead of just waiting for the process to end,” Chaussee said. “Our customers are excited and proud to be working with a heat-treater that’s using this technology to make sure their product comes out right without any quality issues.”
Predicting Future Growth
“2025 has continued a strong growth trend for Stack, and we expect this will be a record year for our facility.” Chaussee continued “We’re currently working through some long-term agreements with bigger customers, with a mix of economic drivers that reinforce the benefits of our flexibility. We’ve already added a couple pieces of equipment this year and have an eye out for more opportunities to increase our capacity later this year.”
Stack Metallurgical operates robust vacuum furnace cells, along with atmosphere and aluminum furnaces, among other services. While there are several high-volume customers partnering with Stack, Chaussee knows that there’s no one single customer that is the key to Stack’s future success.
“We just want to continue to diversify and grow all sections of our business. Anytime I run into an industry that we’re not already serving, it grabs my attention.”
For more information about how Ipsen can help you build a flexible heat-treating department to grow your business contact sales@ipsenusa.com.