Company Solidly Grouted

Sometimes a person can discover just the right niche to achieve success. Walter Pytlewski found his niche between two tiles.

Twenty-one years ago Pytlewski developed a top quality tile spacer and named his manufacturing company Precision Tile Spacer Co. With the company’s success, he felt the need to escape Southern California. He brought the company to North Idaho in 1985, opening with two employees in about 13,000 square feet at 5255 Seltice Way.

Seeing the need for other quality tile industry accessories, Pytlewski added more products and 20 employees to produce them. He renamed the company Barwalt Tool Co., with his wife, Barbara, the premiere namesake.

Barwalt now manufactures about 20 products for the wholesale market, with Ultralight Knee Pads and Ultralife Interchangeable Blade Trowels gaining the most notoriety. The company has gained so much respect worldwide that it now markets and distributes some 200 items for the tiling industry through a full-line catalog.

Thus the necessity for more space. Construction will start later this month on 25,000 additional square feet, including 15,000 for warehouse space.

“Our object has been to make the common man’s workday a little easier,” Pytlewski explained. “We now have a quest for more qualified people (employees).”

In his personal quest for environmentally safe space, he now commutes to fast-growing Kootenai County from a rural setting near Bozeman, Mont. His national sales manager is Nancy Young.

Describing their move as “patient-focused,” Coeur d’Alene Ophthalmology and Coeur d’Alene Eye Clinic have merged their medical and surgical eye-care businesses into the North Idaho Eye Institute.

The Institute has about 50 employees, including seven doctors, working in the revamped Eye Clinic facility at 1814 Lincoln Way in Coeur d’Alene, and the satellite office at 1110 Polston in Post Falls. The ophthalmology group left its quarters at 700 Ironwood Drive on March 1. The move may allow for expansion of the crowded neighboring North Idaho Cancer Center.

“The comprehensive eye-care center improves efficiency without diminishing patient care,” administrator Paul Weil said. “We bring patients the latest medical advancements in laser surgery, eye glasses and contact lenses in one facility.”

The 8,000-square-foot Lincoln Way building was remodeled to add new exam rooms and an improved waiting area to the surgery center and optical shop. An optical shop will be added in Post Falls.

Founded in downtown Coeur d’Alene in 1967, Dr. Roy Toyama moved the business to Lincoln Way in 1972. The medical staff includes Drs. David Wold, Roderick Kent, Patrick Pardon, Stephen Moss, Justin StormoGipson and John Weisel. Hours are 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and Thursday evenings. Phone 667-2531.

Burger wars may be renewed in North Idaho with the potential arrival of Carl’s Jr., the country’s seventh largest fast-food hamburger chain. A renewed customer focus and new management practices have led to a surge of growth for the company.

Carl’s is putting in three stores in Spokane this year, three next year and adding six more in the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene area by 2001. The first three Spokane stores will be in former Boston Market locations and the third in a former Wendy’s. The next three will be new buildings.

Carl’s also is building two stores in Boise to add to its existing list of about 800 stores. The parent company, CKE Restaurants, Inc., also owns Hardee’s Food Systems (with 2,876 Hardee’s restaurants) and Taco Bueno Restaurants (111 stores) and is a joint owner of the 85 Boston Market stores in California and Rally’s Hamburgers (480 stores).

Carl’s menu features a variety of hamburgers and sandwiches (including steak and chicken), baked potatoes and a salad bar.

Carl N. Karcher started the company with a single hot dog cart in Los Angeles in 1941. He opened his first full-service restaurant in 1945. Company headquarters is in Anaheim.

Carl’s Jr. restaurants were on my list of sightseeing adventures in Southern California last week. However, the highlight was the new Getty Center, a five-building art museum and arboretum on a mountaintop overlooking Los Angeles.

A white, rubber-wheeled tram takes visitors to the white, modern complex, built from marble imported from Italy on 100 boats through the Panama Canal. Entry is free, but parking reservations ($5) are needed weeks in advance.

Gasoline in downtown L.A. was about $1.50 and down to $1.10 in the coastal areas. Our journalism conference was in Huntington Beach, about the size of Sandpoint. It offers a popular outdoor market on Fridays. The market would be even more festive if the main street was pedestrian-only, something Coeur d’Alene should consider in the summers.