Defiance contractor makes top 100 lists in metal construction trade magazine

Spyker Contracting — located at the south edge of Enterprise Industrial Park on Defiance’s southwest side — was mentioned in the May issue of Metal Construction News as 65th in square footage for metal building systems in 2021 throughout North America. The company’s total was 197,030 square feet, according to the magazine, an increase of 94.8% over Spyker’s 2020 total (10,240 square-feet).

Spyker was also listed as 79th in the magazine’s list for metal “tonnage” in 2021, noting that the local contractor’s total went from 34 tons in 2020 to 508 tons in 2021.

“We purchase the pre-engineered packages that Varco Pruden or Nucor design and we put them together like an erector set,” explained Spyker company owner Bob Spyker during an interview this week. “We had to fill out some paperwork as far as square-footage we did in 2021. It kind of came as a surprise to me we would even be in the top 100.”

The increase is related to Spyker’s contracts with Keller Logistics Group/Keller Development Group of Defiance. One of them is Keller’s new 195,000 square-foot packaging plant — well underway on Defiance’s Commerce Drive, just north of the Johns Manville plant on Carpenter Road — that is expected to open this summer.

A second is a 70,000 square-foot industrial speculation building that will be going up on Elliott Road — perhaps by the end of the year, according to Spyker — behind the new DECKED factory while a third is planned in Napoleon’s industrial park. The latter, also a speculation building to help attract a manufacturer, will total 150,000 square-feet.

He credits his work with Keller as a big reason for his company’s growth, going from a small building on Ohio 66 south of Defiance to the industrial park location in 1989.

“Started out very small, and over the years (have) just grown, and probably one of the reasons is Bryan Keller,” said Spyker. “We’ve done all of Keller’s work for quite a few years, and because of the contacts that Bryan has we’ve picked up some other customers beside that too.”

While the top 100 listing mentioned above concerns only Spyker Contracting, two businesses actually are operating from the industrial park location. The other — a partnership between Bob and Tony Spyker — is Spyker Manufacturing, a maker of plastic laminate cabinets that are shipped nationwide.

The latter business employs 4-5 people and includes state-of-the art equipment for such things as precision cutting. It has been in operation since 1995.