Manufacturer founded in the 1840s Gold Rush days says adios California, hello Idaho
When Dan Drouault compared his electric bills from Southern California Edison to Idaho Power’s rates, he was astounded by the difference.
The president of Covington Engineering, a Redlands company that manufactures lathes and other machinery used to grind and polish stones and glass artwork, Drouault learned that he could save about $22,000 a year in electricity costs.
“The savings were enormous,” Drouault said in an interview Thursday.
It’s part of the reason Covington Engineering is moving next month from San Bernardino County, east of Los Angeles, to Meridian.
Covington bought a building with 24,677 square feet at 520 E. Franklin Road, a few hundred yards east of South Main Street, a sale reported by Thornton Oliver Keller Commercial Real Estate, which represented the seller. The graphic arts company Artech was located there before moving to Eagle.
“The city is honored that Covington Engineering has chosen Meridian as their new home,” Meridian Mayor Tammy deWeerd said in a written statement. “We are proud to add them to our manufacturing business community and look forward to watching them grow their business in Meridian.”
Drouault (pronounced drew-oh) said his company had outgrown its 18,000-square-foot building in Redlands, where Covington has been located for 50 years. But the decision to move 825 miles to the Treasure Valley didn’t come lightly.
Covington was founded in Redlands in 1848, the same year that gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in Northern California. James Covington had come from Mississippi, where in 1840 he began making hand and foot grinders for grinding farm tools, coral and seashells. He also made grinders and pushcarts for the Army during the Civil War.
The company has a long legacy in Redlands, a town of about 70,000, the Redlands Community News reported last summer when it revealed the company was looking to move.
And Drouault, who has been with the company for 22 years, knew former owner Vaden Covington, the founder’s grandson, and his wife, Dorothy, from the time Drouault was a baby. He bought the company in 2006.
“We began our journey about 12 years ago, looking for a place to move outside of California, to find a better business environment, a place where there was better quality of life,” he said.
Drouault said he scoured the country, looking at the East Coast, Texas, Nevada and Arizona, among other places. He liked the Coeur d’Alene area in North Idaho and almost bought a building in Post Falls, but decided against it after realizing shipping costs would be much higher there than in the Boise area.
“I also needed a city that had the infrastructure,” he said. “I had to be able to get steel. I had to have wood, the castings and the other raw goods that we need to make the machines here. The Treasure Valley offered that for us.”
The nearly 7,000 extra square feet at the Meridian building will help Covington achieve a better production flow, he said. Employees had to walk back and forth to get items because of the cramped space.
Twelve of the company’s 14 workers will move with Covington to Meridian. During trips to Idaho, Drouault brought several employees with him each time so they could see the area before deciding whether to become Idahoans.
“They were really pleased with what they saw,” he said. “A lot of them said they couldn’t believe how clean downtown Boise was. They loved the Capitol and other buildings, and that the streets are clean.”
Drouault, who praised the city of Meridian for its efforts to lure the company, said he expects to hire four new employees once they get up and running.
People he’s spoken to have been very welcoming, Drouault said. That was personified, he said, by a waitress who served him at Boise’s Cracker Barrel restaurant.
“Well, what y’all doing here?” he recalled her asking. “I guess she could tell we were not from around here. I told her I was thinking about relocating my business here and she says, ‘You know what, honey, that’s perfect. We need more business here.’
“I was impressed that a waitress had that much of a pulse on it,” he said.
This story was originally published December 20, 2019 at 12:44 PM.
