Itron finalizes SmartSynch purchase

Itron, Inc. has finished buying SmartSynch for $100 million.

The Liberty Lake company said Tuesday the acquisition strengthens its cellular communications offering and will bring greater choice to utility customers.

Jackson, Miss.-based SmartSynch is the leading provider of point-to-point smart grid solutions using a cellular network for communications. It has more than 130 customers, including nine of the top 10 utilities in North America.

Most recently, SmartSynch’s technology was selected by Consumers Energy for a cellular smart grid network serving 1.9 million electric customers.

Itron provides energy and water resource management products and services for nearly 8,000 utilities around the world. It has more than 9,000 employees doing business in more than 130 countries.

Staff report

Pacific Steel buys N. Idaho’s Forest Steel

Pacific Steel & Recycling, based in Great Falls, has purchased Forest Steel Inc. in Dalton Gardens, Idaho, for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition was effective Tuesday.

The facility will operate under the Pacific Steel name. Pacific is retaining all 37 employees of Forest Steel, and owner and president Grant Forest will remain in a consulting capacity.

Pacific moved branch manager Ben Halderman from its steel service center in Pasco to the Dalton Gardens facility.

Forest Steel was started in 1982 in Coeur d’Alene. Originally a one-man operation, it processed recycling and sold new steel.

Pacific Steel & Recycling is entirely employee-owned, with 850 employees at 43 branches in Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah and Colorado. Originally incorporated as Pacific Hide & Fur Depot, the company was started as a one-man operation by Joe Thiebes Sr., a German immigrant, in Spokane in the 1880s. Pacific sells steel to fabricators and also processes scrap metal to be recycled at steel mills.

Scott Maben

800 Caterpillar workers strike over contract

JOLIET, Ill. – About 800 union workers who rejected Caterpillar Inc.’s latest contract offer walked off the job Tuesday at a plant in Joliet.

The employees, part of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, are asking for better wages and health care. They voted Sunday to reject the Peoria-based company’s latest contract offer. Production at the plant, which makes hydraulics and other components for mining trucks, tractors and other machines, won’t be disrupted, the company said in a statement.

Associated Press