TUKWILA, Wash. — Many companies have deep roots in the Northwest. But Rainier Industries started growing here just seven years after Washington became a state.
"The company started in 1896 on the waterfront in downtown Seattle," said Scott Campbell, CEO of Rainier Industries. "The company started manufacturing tents for prospectors going north to the Klondike Gold Rush."
Now, 125 years later, the company is manufacturing much more than just tents.
"It's really dynamic here. We build almost 100% custom products so it's not routine at all."
Some of their non-routine work includes displays for several Olympic games.
"We did big projects in Salt Lake City, Vancouver, and London. London was probably the biggest Olympics we ever worked at."
They also helped transform parts of the Salt Lake City airport into a work of art.
Closer to home, Rainier filled the stands with cutout fans at T-Mobile Park when the pandemic kept the real ones away.
"It was really fun that rather than doing the traditional annual work we do for the Mariners, we did all the fan cutouts."
And whenever there's something to celebrate it's Rainier Industries who gets the call. They're the folks behind the custom celebratory flags flown atop the Space Needle.
"We're constantly taking other people's dreams and ideas and helping them bring those to life," said Chris Inverso, general manager at Rainier Industries.
When restaurants and venues needed a safe place for their guests during the pandemic, the company also had an answer for that: "That took a lot of shapes and forms and styles and sizes, a lot of tents and awnings and other structures like that so that businesses could continue to serve their customers in a safe way," said Inverso.
And they make almost everything at their headquarters in Tukwila.
"We have a large facility, actually two buildings here in Tukwila and one on the East Coast, about 250 total employees at any given time. But we have a lot of operators that do a wide range of things.
"We've got a fully functional woodshop, fully functional metal shop, to powder coating operations here in Washington and one on the East Coast, a fully functional large format display printing and cutting department, fabric cutting and sealing department as well."
From small to massive projects, there's almost nothing Rainier Industries can’t make. And with roots in Seattle so deep they only plan to grow.
"I think that the last 125 years is just the start we've got that and more to come," said Inverso. "There's definitely a vibe when you come in the door, it feels like a family."
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