The Zidell Companies are longtime family-owned businesses, based in Portland, Oregon, devoted to quality and dependability. Zidell’s history dates back to 1915, when Sam Zidell arrived in America and began selling second-hand machinery. Initially locating in Roseburg, Oregon, Sam moved in 1916 to Portland and expanded his business, Zidell Machinery and Supply, by selling equipment and supplies to the expanding industrial base 
in the region.

Following World War II, business boomed for Zidell, because scrap steel was in high demand to rebuild the country’s industrial base. Sam’s son, Emery, saw the opportunity of expanding the family’s operations, and he led Zidell into the ship dismantling business in 1946. By 1960, Zidell was the nation’s largest ship dismantler, employing hundreds of men who dismantled a total of 336 ships over its thirty years of dismantling activities.

A major focus for the companies for nearly 50 years was the industrial valve business. Beginning in 1948 as a distributor of valves which were recovered from the ships which were being dismantled, Zidell Valve Corporation grew into one of the country's major 
industrial valve distributors before it was sold in 1997 to Pon Holdings 
of the Netherlands.

In 1955, Emery continued the expansion of the family’s operations with the founding of Tube Forgings of America, Inc. For over 45 years, TFA has been supplying the country with quality-produced welding fittings which have been used in applications ranging from natural gas pipelines to water lines in skyscrapers.

The start of Zidell’s barge building business, Zidell Marine Corp., came in 1960, when Emery decided to use recovered steel from the ships being dismantled to create barges which would last longer than the wooden vessels which were in use at that time. The company soon began to use new steel plate for building its barges, and since 1961, Zidell has built and launched more than 300 barges, most of which are still being used today to haul numerous types of cargo throughout the West Coast of America.

Today, Jay Zidell, the son of the builder of the Zidell Companies and the grandson of their founder, heads the family businesses, which employ over 200 people 
in the Pacific Northwest.