HISTORY OF RAPID CREEK CUTTERS

Pat Burrington started Rapid Creek Cutters and got it's name from being located on Rapid Creek Road in Inkom, Idaho.  Inkom is about 8 miles south of Pocatello on I-15.  In the Fall of 2001, I was working at a Phosphorus Plant called FMC in nearby Pocatello, ID.  It suddenly closed after 50 years in business and I was about to be jobless.  I had been a welder in the Army, had two college degrees in the Welding/Metallurgy and Quality Control fields and felt like I might be able to run my own metal fab shop.  I flew to Chicago to a trade show, decided to buy an OMAX waterjet machine, and start my own cutting  business.  It was pretty tough at first, but things kept rolling and after about a year and a half, I decided to purchase a second cutting machine, only this time have it be a Plasma table for metal signs, metal signage, etc. Things kept getting busier after starting this website and pulling in work from all over the United States.  I had increases in gross sales every year I was in business for the first 6 years, and I feel like the shop is pretty well established as of now. The majority of my work comes in from out of state, and through web customers.  I had been interviewed by the  local paper a few times, the local television stations, and radio after doing some pretty interesting projects, and my popularity has spread.  By 2005, I had added a lathe, mill, powder coating set-up, an Ironworker, and a press brake. In the spring of 2006 I was getting pretty overwhelmed with orders being a one man shop. I was taking just about anything and everything that was coming through the door.  About that time, I was asked by the Idaho National Laboratory to go to work for them doing pretty much the same thing I was doing at home, and I decided a change might be good, and went to work for them in May of 2006.  I kept the shop running, but it was just part-time.  By June of 2008, I had decided working for someone else just wasn't what I liked to do, so I went back to running Rapid Creek Cutters again full time.  In the summer of 2012,    after about a year of searching, I found a wonderful piece of property in    Montana and relocated the whole business to Stevensville.  It took  about 3 months to get everything torn down, re-installed, and back to where    I was before, but in October of 2012 I was up in full capacity again only  this time in a new shop in Montana.  Things have been going well since the move and I welcome the new customers I have gotten since re-opening and  want to thank all the old ones from Idaho that I got to do business with for the past 19 years. Pat