‘Confident’ Jax manufacturing firm plans for serious growth (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — For more than two decades, QuickTie Systems of Jacksonville has been steadily establishing a reputation with regional builders as a company that uses innovation and customer service to streamline facets of the construction business.
Now, it’s still doing that — but also looking to become a bigger player in the national building marketplace.
Founded by Harvel Crumley in 1999, QuickTie builds products for tying down wood frame and masonry structures that could be exposed to high winds or seismic forces.
With major population growth in the hurricane-prone Southeast in the last 20-plus years, QuickTie has been a competitive supplier to the building industry.
As those businesses have grown, so has QuickTie. It is about to move into a 43,000-square-foot facility off Pickettville Road. That will be in addition to its 37,000-square-foot operation at Vantage Way.
But company leadership doesn’t expect the additional space to be big enough for long, according to Senior Vice President Jim McCarthy.
“We’re continuing to grow rapidly, year over year, particularly the last couple of years,” McCarthy said. “And we see that growth continuing.”
Last year, revenue increased by almost 100%, McCarthy said, and about 20% the previous year. It has added more than a dozen employees since 2020 to around 75 now.
And although it has a five-year commitment to its new location, McCarthy said QuickTie expects to need 150,000-square-foot facility in the near future.
“We’re just beginning to look in that direction,” McCarthy said. “Obviously, for that size facility, we’ll have to buy land and build. We’re not averse to that.”
Making top products
Among the chief reasons for QuickTie’s ascent is what the company believes are superior products. It holds eight patents and has more than two dozen other products in development.
“Everybody’s looking at how they can be more efficient, how they can save money,” McCarthy said. “Here’s a way of doing so without sacrificing safety or quality.”
According to commercial construction firm The Douglas Co., conventional hold-down hardware uses a lot of fasteners to secure the hardware to the framing components. While effective, it is labor-intensive, especially when dealing with larger or more complex wood-framed structures.
The tie-down systems use either steel cables or threaded rods to hold down the building’s structural components. Such systems can be used with a wide range of framing materials, the website says.
This is a look at part of the QuickTie cable system installed in a structure. The product is used to mitigate damage caused by high winds or seismic activity.
One of the primary advantages of the tie down systems is their versatility. Because they are not limited by specific hardware requirements, they can be engineered to replace nearly all of the traditional hardware for a project, which means fewer materials are needed on the job site.
Mike Smith, owner of Smith General Contracting Inc., told the Business Journal that he’s been using QuickTie products for about 20 years because they are reliable and because they make jobs easier for his workers.
The company builds homes, hotels, multifamily, etc. all over the country, including the construction of Naval base housing in Jacksonville and around the state.
“We get better service out of QuickTie than we do out of others,” Smith said. “Their engineering is second to none.”
Making it better
That engineering that Smith mentioned is one of the big reasons QuickTie keeps adding orders and revenue year after year.
McCarthy said its ability to react quickly to address specific customer needs is one of QuickTie’s greatest assets.
“We are making a niche for ourselves in that we do a lot of custom work,” McCarthy said. “We’ll look at ways to manufacture (a particular component) or find a way to improve upon it.
“Frequently when they need something or want something, we’ll go out of our way to create it, and that’s the advantage to being small and yet having the capability to produce anything in house.”
That’s part of the reason QuickTie is adding work space with an eye to further expansion in the near future.
With more space, it can produce more products as the need increases. And additional room also leads to the ability to warehouse more products to meet demand more quickly.
McCarthy said QuickTie leadership anticipates growth because of its relationship with its clients and the overall strength of the building industry.
“We’re really confident in what we’re doing, in the industry we’re in and th