June 2018

80 81 THE COLUMBIA MACHINE COMPANY VERSATILITY AND INNOVATION C olumbia Machine, Inc. was founded by Fred Neff, Sr. in 1937, as a small shop on the banks of the Columbia River in Vancouver,Washington, and named, at the time, Columbia Forge and Machine Works. Its main job in those early days was repairing the primitive block ma- chines used by companies to produce concrete products.While learning the intricacies of the manually operated machinery,Neff decided that Columbia could design and build a better machine and, in 1945, he pioneered and built a hydraulically operated machine that would semi-automatically produce two 8x4x12-inch blocks at a time-an industry first. According to Bryan Goodman, the com- pany’s Chief Operating Officer, Neff market- AT A GLANCE THE COLUMBIA MACHINE COMPANY WHAT: A leader in design, manufactur- ing, and support of concrete product machines and solutions WHERE: Vancouver, Washington WEBSITE: www.columbiamachine.com