Modular Transportable Housing
When it comes to delivering workers’ camps in the most extreme climates on Earth, Modular Transportable Housing (MTH) likes a challenge. In fact, the company’s quality products and ability to protect laborers from the elements are what keep clients coming back to MTH’s units. “Our vision is to have the best camps for extreme conditions,” Vice President Stacy “Stolt” Stoltenow says. “When people think of camps, we want MTH to be the first to come to mind, and our quality is what sets us apart from everyone else out there.”
MTH was founded 15 years ago by Washington state apple farmer Steve Forney. He realized there was a shortage in temporary housing for the state’s large influx of seasonal migrant farm laborers. Ferney discovered converted cargo containers served his purposes, so he submitted a proposal to then-Governor Gary Locke, who commissioned Ferney to build 60 units to create a 200-bed camp for the state.
While this contract gave MTH its start, Ferney quickly realized he would need to find additional markets to keep his new business alive. He turned to the mining industry, and after pitching his products to the vice president of Cominco Mines (now Teck), MTH earned a contract to produce custom-designed a 25-bed sleeping facility for its mining camps.
Today, MTH’s products serve mining, petroleum and construction operations in Alaska and the adjacent Northern Territories of Canada. Along with headquarters in Yakima, Wash., MTH has a finishing facility in Seattle. The company also has built facilities in Peru and Costa Rica as it gears up for international expansion, which eventually will include forays into the Middle East and Africa.
“Everything we do is built on a customer design for what they want in a camp,” Stoltenow says. “We have some standard layouts for bedrooms and kitchens, but on every project, we inquire with the client and figure out exactly what they want and build to suit them. No two camps are identical, even for the same client.
“When we first started, mining camps had four people crammed into a bedroom with bunk beds,” Stoltenow says. “Today, they want to enhance employee comfort. A lot of the amenities we add are to make life comfortable in a camp in a harsh environment.”
Battling the Elements
No matter the conditions or the building codes of a region, MTH makes sure it goes above and beyond requirements and mandates to provide the utmost comfort and safety for end-users.
“We’ve gone the extra mile to make sure we follow through and do everything we say we’re going to do, as well as go above and beyond,” Stoltenow says.
MTH went well beyond to make sure a camp in Barrow, Alaska, could withstand the harsh conditions of the northern-most city in North America. Once the company delivered its units to the site, the client felt the floors of the units did not have enough insulation to withstand temperatures that could plummet as low as minus 70 F (minus 21 C).
To put the client at ease, MTH agreed to arrange and pay for an additional application of industrial urethane spray foam insulation to the bottom of the containers as they were being installed. Once a machine and an operator were located in Barrow, all MTH had to do was ship the spray foam to the site.
However, Stoltenow says the company found out the operator was on vacation and his mobile phone was shut off for the time being. Instead of giving up, MTH went straight to the top of the town.
“We called the mayor of the village, and he said he knew where he tended to be – a café for dinner in the evenings,” Stoltenow reports. “He said once he left the office, he would go by the café and would connect us to make sure the units were sprayed in the small window before installation.”
The mayor delivered the operator for MTH, which hired him over the phone. The units were sprayed as they were assembled, and they kept laborers comfortable throughout the harsh northern winter, Stoltenow says.