PDM Subsidiary General Steel to Build $7.5 MillionFacility in Woodland, Wash.

STOCKTON, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 4, 1998--PDM Steel Service Centers., a division of Pitt-Des Moines Inc. (AMEX:PDM), announced today that its subsidiary General Steel will build a $7.5 million steel service center on Schurman Road in Woodland, Wash.

The company is now selecting a general contractor for immediate construction and targets completion for March 1999. General Steel is currently leasing a facility in the Columbia Business Center in Vancouver, Wash.

The new facility will include 130,000 square feet of warehouse and office space. The total operation will provide 230,000 square feet of overhead crane-serviced areas and will occupy a 19-acre tract of rail-served land purchased from Heritage Development, a company based in Kelso, Wash.

"The new Woodland operation will be the second largest facility in PDM's Steel Service Center Division and one of the most modern steel service centers in the Western United States. This facility will include the latest technology in material handling and processing capabilities, which will allow General Steel to double its product offering and better meet customers' delivery requirements for the entire states of Washington and Oregon," said Derek Halecky, president of PDM Steel Service Centers, which is headquartered in Stockton, Calif.

The new facility will continue to operate under the direction of Craig LaCross, vice president and general manager, and is expected to double its existing work force to more than 100 over the next five years.

PDM Steel Service Centers operates seven steel service centers, three corrugated metal culvert manufacturing plants, and a coil processing center. The division's principal products include structural shapes and tubes; sheet; plate; corrugated pipe; and a variety of allied products and services.

PDM Steel Service Centers is one of two business segments of Pitt-Des Moines Inc. Based in the The Woodlands, Texas, near Houston, Pitt-Des Moines Inc. is a diversified engineering and construction company that also processes and distributes a broad range of carbon steel products. The company reported 1997 revenues of $475 million from operations in its two business segments -- engineering and construction, and steel distribution.

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