Puget Sound Pipe & Supply (www.pspipe.com) is a Seattle-based corporation owned and operated by the Stratiner family since its inception in 1917. The company’s long-cultivated values are clearly spelled out within the company name: people, integrity, partnerships and excellence. Headquartered in Kent, Wash., today it has 10 branches spanning Alaska, Washington and Oregon. 

Stocking complete inventories of the finest product lines in the industry — noting their extensive experience with mechanical contractors, engineering firms, power facilities, oil and gas, petrochemical and pipeline companies — allows Puget Sound Pipe & Supply to provide the best quality service in the industry within a multitude of varied markets.

It has been a member of AD since 1995, when AD launched its PVF Division. In 2017, it leveraged AD’s multi-industry structure and expanded its membership to include the Plumbing Division. Today, it is led by CEO Matt Stratiner, the son of Puget’s Chairman Gary Stratiner, and current AD PVF board and PVF Product Committee member. A longtime friend of AD, Gary Stratiner played a pivotal role on the AD PVF board of directors and in setting the strategy for PVF. 

They are joined by Matt Stratiner’s brothers Koltin Stratiner, president of the company, and Kyle Stratiner, executive vice president of engineered products who is an active AD network member. In addition, Matt Stratiner’s cousin Andy Lewis (COO) and his uncle Steve Lewis (CFO) also work in the business. The family clearly has a passion for the industry, and this is personified with their emphasis on excellence throughout the entire organization.

Through tenure and engagement, Puget Sound Pipe & Supply is fully engaged in adopting the AD model to help grow the business. The distributor embodies AD values by giving back and serving those around them in various charity ventures, understanding the value of taking care of their community. 

The Wholesaler: Being a member of a buying group allows you to draw on resources that can help distributors in many different situations. Can you please provide an example of how your buying group helped during a challenging time? 

Matt Stratiner: My father always told us that if we wanted to grow, there are only a couple of ways to do that: find new customers to sell your same products to or find new products to sell to your existing customers. As we continue to look for new ways to build on what we are doing, AD and its many programs have been a huge advantage we have over our competition in our market. 

The Wholesaler: What AD member product/tool/program was able to assist, how did it solve the problem and how long did it take to implement?

MS: While all the different aspects of AD have greatly added to our ability to grow, one program in particular has helped us continue to expand our offerings and target new customers: the AD Joint Marketing Agreement (JMA) Partner Market Plan. Every year, we identify five to 10 supplier partners we want to focus on, such as growing our business and relationships throughout the year and setting goals we would like to achieve. 

We concentrate on identifying target customers and products with those supplier partners and develop a joint plan for how we can develop that new business as a team. Committing to an annual strategic marketing plan with our supplier partners enables us to grow and track progress throughout the year, helping us take our marketing to the next level. 

The Wholesaler: What were the results?

MS: Over the last few years, one of our most successful collaborations has been with Viega, a trusted partner of ours for many years. When we started carrying and selling Viega, they it was just trying to break into the U.S. market, and we brought them on specifically for our marine sales to shipbuilders. 

Since that time, Viega has continued to increase its scope of product offerings, and we have scaled up with them, bringing in new products such as carbon, stainless steel and copper-nickel press to go along with the copper ProPress systems we have sold for years. Every year, we get together with Viega and identify which new products we should be bringing into our stock, and what customers we want to target to sell those items to. We schedule joint sales calls, product demonstrations and customer events, regularly meeting to update each other on our joint progress. 

This collaborative approach has not only increased our volume and product breadth with Viega but has led to us being considered one of the premier Viega distributors in the market. Without AD’s push on programs like the JMA and its help facilitating relationships of all sorts, the growth we have had in our market would have been much more difficult.