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Date: 6/29/2020
AGAWAM – TW Metals is an international specialty metal distributor with 22 branches in the United States as well as facilities in Europe, Mexico, India and China. But for Stephen McMahon, the Agawam branch manager for TW Metals, Western Massachusetts is the place to be.
“We’ve been in Agawam for about 30 years now,” said McMahon, branch manager for TW Metals’s Agawam facility. “The fact that we could stay here was great for us.”
McMahon told Reminder Publishing that being located in Western Massachusetts allows TW Metals to operate efficiently. It puts it at the intersection of major routes for shipping their material to manufacturers with plants in New England, like Pratt and Whitney, Boeing and GE.
Being in Agawam, specifically, also has benefits.
“The town is very business-friendly. It’s a very easy place to do business,” McMahon said.
When TW Metals moved to its Gold Street location in 1990, McMahon said they had an inventory of about $500,000 worth of materials. Now, the company stores roughly $5 million worth. It had simply outgrown the old space.
Settling into the new, state-of-the-art service center on Bowles Road about a month ago, the company made the move during a peak in the pandemic.
“We had talked about moving for a long time and then the world fell apart,” McMahon said.
While the economic downturn that resulted has had an immediate impact on the company, he said, it has weathered the storm fairly well and has its eye toward the future. The new facility is three times the size of the original location with plenty of room to grow.
“We’re not just thinking about what we’re doing for business next week,” said McMahon, “but five, 10, 15 years from now.”