KENNEWICK – Tess Sherman is never still. The manager of CI Cellars, a division of Kennewick’s Columbia Industries, doesn’t have time.
As she talks in a quick clip, her fingers have a habit of fluttering.
“We’ve got so much going on here,” she said. “I’m running all the time.”
She oversees 31 developmentally disabled clients, a bonded wine warehouse and a packaging and storage facility, all part of the nonprofit organization that employs about 100 people.
The organization began in 1963 as the United Cerebral Palsy Association of Benton &Franklin Counties. In 1981, the name changed to Columbia Industries. Today, Columbia has a budget of more than $4 million and its businesses, CI Cellars, CI Shred, CI Packaging &Storage, CI Assembly, CI Gifts, and the new Shop CI, bring in more than $2 million a year.
Rich Foeppel, CI’s executive director, said the nonprofit’s diverse business ventures keep the organization afloat and it can’t afford not to look at new opportunities.
Columbia’s packaging and repackaging operation began 25 years ago to serve Welch’s. But last year, when Welch’s announced the closure of its Kennewick plant, Sherman and Foeppel didn’t fret too long.
By that time, workers were packing more wine than juice.
In the past year, Columbia Industries obtained its winery license so CI Cellars could store wine barrels. Now, the organization’s 18,000-square-foot warehouse bustles with activity.
Hundreds of oak barrels are stacked in a temperature-controlled room, and nearly 84,000 cases of wine are stored in the warehouse as well.
Forklift drivers, moving pallets of wine and paper products, avoid the center of the warehouse, where Columbia Industries’ clients are putting together cardboard inserts that will hold a six-pack of Ste. Michelle wines.
Every week it’s something different, Sherman said. “A few weeks ago we did a repack on some horse treats for Riverwood Horse and Feed in Finley, and then we assembled some chairs,” she said.
Her workers, who are developmentally disabled, also are always willing to learn something new and work tirelessly to get through projects, she said.
“I’m always amazed. It may take awhile to figure something out, but once they do, they go at a pretty good pace,” she said.
Their ability has led Sherman to a motto that has served Columbia Industries and its clients well. “We’ll try to do any job at least once,” she said.
About three years ago, Ste. Michelle officials contacted Columbia Industries. The winery had been hiring temporary employees during the busy times of year to build boxes, shrink-wrap bottles and do specialty packaging. They offered the job to Columbia Industries, which invested $40,000 to turn its building into a bonded wine warehouse.
Since then, the company has been serving the area’s wine industry well.
Charlie Hoppes, owner of Fidelitas Winery in Benton City, stores barrels and bottles with Columbia Industries and has been spreading the word about the organization’s services to other winery owners.
Columbia Industries’ CI Cellars is the only bonded wine warehouse in the Tri-Cities, and that means small winery owners, like Hoppes and Larry Oates, owner of Sleeping Dog Wines in Benton City, don’t have to spend money building storage space at their wineries.
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