After 50 Years, Surplus Store Veterans Retain Grip On Spokane Market

People in the trade say that what Red Rudisile, Bill Barany and John Conley don’t know about the surplus business probably isn’t worth knowing.

Between them the trio has 150 years of experience. Each founded his own war surplus store in Spokane half a century ago and still operates the business full time today.

The three have been in the surplus business since it was a baby. Indeed, they were midwives at the industry’s birth after World War II.

It grew out of the war effort in which Americans produced, amassed, stockpiled, and shipped mountains of materials overseas to help defeat the nation’s enemies, a campaign in which all three men took part. Rudisile is an ex-Navy man; Barany, a Marine; Conley a Seabee.

Vast surpluses of materials had to be sent abroad to make sure enough goods got past the enemies’ submarines and dive bombers to win the war. “Sometimes the military would send three shipsful when one was needed, because only one would get through,” recalls Rudisile. “That’s how America got such great piles of leftovers.”

After the war, the piles had to be whittled down, and disposing of them created a entrepreneurial opportunity for returning servicemen.

Rudisile was 41 when he got into the business. The eldest of the three at 91, he still puts in a long day. “I have some good work years left in me yet,” declares the owner of Best Buy Surplus.

Conley, who operates White Elephant stores with several sons, is 20 some years Rudisile’s junior. Barany, operator of the General Store with his sons, is in his late 70s. All remain active in their businesses.

During the past half century, they have operated outlets all up and down the city’s two main east/west and north/south business arteries - Sprague and Division - sometimes half a dozen or more outlets all at the same time.

Now the Conleys operate two stores, one each on North Division and East Sprague. The Baranys have one on North Division. Rudisile still runs a store in his old East Sprague stomping grounds, where wife, Margaret, swears the biggest challenge they face is fending off drug dealers, prostitutes and pimps.

But Red says another development is making business more problematic, too, and that is a growing shortage of surplus. With Uncle Sam about cleaned out, surplus stores increasingly must turn to commercial distributors for more of what they stock.

Great Harvest plans make-over

Another business in the Davenport Hotel district is proceeding with plans for a makeover, now that the Davenport and Washington Water Power Co. have come to terms on cleaning up the oil spill and reopening the hotel.

Jacque Sanchez of Great Harvest Bread Co. says designer John Rovtar is working up ideas for a redo of the 17-year-old bakery business at 816 W. Sprague. “He wants a sort of French flavor,” she says. “I don’t want to get it too foofaraw.”

Personnel Unlimited adds temps unit

Personnel Unlimited Inc., the veteran Spokane permanent placement and executive search firm, has added a new Professional Temps division. Patti Earling is general manager. She comes to Spokane from Missoula.

“Essentially, we have integrated permanent and executive search with temporary help and contract services,” she says.

But the new division provides far more than just clerical help on demand, she says. It specializes in professional contract and temp-to-hire staffing services for accounting, engineering, data processing, sales management, legal, medical/dental, and “the whole gamut of professional services.”

This, she says, makes the agency Spokane’s first and only full-service staffing organization. With one phone call, employers can access specialists with recruiting experience in filling professional niches from administrative support personnel to chief executive officers.

“With temp-to-hire,” says Earling, “you get to try before you buy.

“Temporary may be anything from a receptionist out sick for a few days, to a bookkeeper on vacation or medical leave for a few weeks or a few months,” says Earling. “Temporary can even end up being permanent.

“Contract more often means a company has a need for a special project that it wants to get done over a period of six months or five years. And contract work is usually more on an executive or professional level.

“Temps also offers payrolling services,” she says, “in which a company selects people it wants to work for the firm but doesn’t wish to carry on the payroll. It’s a cost effective way to hire employees, and have us cover them for workers compensation, Social Security, unemployment insurance.”

It all has to do with upheaval in employment practices and lifestyles. During the past decade, reports Earling, growth in the temporary help industry has averaged 15 percent a year.

, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel writes a notes column each Wednesday. If you have business items of regional interest for future columns, call 459-5467 or fax 459-5482.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review