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About Arc-Zone.com® Inc.

 

Company Info

Arc-Zone delivers premium brand name and private labeled welding and cutting products, services and solutions to metal fabricators worldwide. Our customers range from professional fabricators, welding and manufacturing engineers, welding supply distributors, Industrial suppliers, government, OEM's and systems integrators, to artists and hobbyists.

Our focus is finding the right solution for our customers. We do not have exclusive partnerships with any one manufacturer, so whether you need a custom plasma arc torch package, shield gas purging equipment, a micro TIG torch, or welding automation tools, we pride ourselves on providing quality products to meet your needs.

Need a custom product? No problem -- Arc-Zone has the technical expertise and industry contacts to procure, or build you what you need to get the job done.

Our Carlsbad, California facility is located near the service centers of the world's leading shipping companies. As a result, both international and domestic customers benefit from exceptional turnaround times on all orders.

We’re also conveniently located near some of San Diego County’s best known surf spots. Check the surf reports at Tamarack, San Onofre, Swamis.

  • Cage Code:  1YBU7

  • NAICS:  423840 (Primary)

  • DUNS:  134548150

Jim Watson, Arc-Zone Founder

In June 1998, with a 386 computer, a dial-up internet connection, cordless phone, and a considerable portion of his garage, Jim Watson founded the first e-commerce company to sell welding and cutting accessories: Arc-Zone.com®.

The goal was clear: Deliver high-performance welding accessory products, services and solutions to metal fabricators worldwide, and wow them with excellent customer service.

Jim's commitment to excellence, competitive spirit and expertise in metal fabrication began with his interest in Motorsports – an interest sparked by building and racing motorcycles with his dad when he was 8 years old.

He enjoyed competition, but most of all, Jim enjoyed the opportunity to continually modify his motorcycle to improve its performance.

By the time he was in his 20s, Jim progressed from motorcycles to cars and joined a local race team, the next year he was Chief Mechanic. Intrigued by the process of fabricating purpose built race cars, he signed up for welding classes at Pasadena City College and engineering at Valley Technical College in Van Nuys, California. "I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing, so I could build innovative, fast and safe race cars" Jim says.

With a season of racing and some welding experience under his belt, Jim and his Dad decided to design and build their own car.  Jim has his father to thank for years of racing experience and for the core values that lead to his current success. 

Jim says that his father always urged him to be humble, and to look at things differently – to be a creative thinker and to never stop improving on what you have, a philosophy that Jim still applies today to grow his company.
  
After building another new car, Jim organized a professional race team, which won several major events, and finished 5th in the National Championship in their rookie season! 

At the end of the season, Jim was offered a leadership position at Weldcraft®, a family owned manufacturer of TIG welding products located in Burbank, California. "we built that company into a worldwide quality brand" and that did not go unnoticed.  Weldcraft was sold to Dover Industries, a fortune 500 company, and rolled into the DovaTech division which owned several market leading welding equipment companies; Bernard, K&K, WNI, Smith Equipment and Weldcraft.

Jim saw an opportunity to learn how publicly traded companies operated.  He signed up for business management classes, that coupled with his passion for building the best products drove him to learn from the top management and quality gurus of the day.  Thomas J. Peters (In Search of Excellence) and W. Edwards Deming (Statistical Quality Control), Richard J. Schonberger (implementing JIT and TQC) he attended several training programs to learn form the greats, that ended up being time well spent. 

(Today Jim looks to leaders like Michael Gerber, Seth Godin, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey and Simon Sinek for inspiration and best practices to help him build the best welding supply company in the world).

Jim soon became Director of Manufacturing, then moved to Sales Manager for Weldcraft and finally Product Manager, where he designed, patented and oversaw production and sales of the most popular selling TIG torch in history, the Crafter Series.  After that success, he was asked to take over a new start-up - PlazCraft, a line of Plasma Arc Cutting and Plasma Arc Welding products.
 
When DovaTech was sold to ITW / Miller, Jim resigned and moved to California to explore new opportunities with the emerging e-commerce market.  Jim applied for a accelerated entrepreneurial class, and was selected to join and develop his business plan.  Arc-Zone was conceived in the UCSD Spring Board Tech Startup Boot Camp. 

By 2000, two short years after its launch, Jim took Arc-Zone out of his garage and into an office with its own warehouse and assembly space. 

That same year, he introduced the company at the AWS show in Chicago.  Arc-Zone was the only company that had a computer with a webstore running. . . Unfortunately, it was running from a CD, as McCormack Place had no internet!

Later, the American Welding Society's, Welding Journal magazine featured Arc-Zone.com as one of the welding industry’s pioneers in e-commerce.

In early 2006, Jim continued to innovate by launching CarmenElectrode.com and JoeWelder.com, two industry-leading blogs dedicated to all things welding and metal fabrication.

In 2009 with an emphasis on showcasing not just the high performance products, but celebrating the talented fabricators who use them, Arc-Zone garnered an Image of Welding Award from the American Welding Society.

In 2010, Arc-Zone moved into a new corporate office located in the beautiful seaside community of Carlsbad, Calif. to accommodate the needs of its rapidly growing customer base, inventory and staff. 
The new office's provided room to grow, a bigger warehouse and a call center.

In 2012, Arc-Zone expanded again taking over the building next door 
and began preparing the facility to launch an innovative retail store, featuring the Ultimate Weld Shop™.

In 2015 the company rolled out a new hand coded webstore with a focus on the user experience, and filled with new products.

2017 is shaping up to be a fantastic year, Arc-Zone built a dedicated R&D facility, with engineering, CAD, 3D modeling and rapid prototyping capabilities.  Jim says "We are committed to deliver the next level of products that incorporate the latest, designs and engineered materials to solve problems our customers didn't know they had".

By constantly pushing the envelope, Jim has grown Arc-Zone year after year since the 1998 launch.  The Arc-Zone team has created a worldwide following of loyal customers through continuous innovation, a focus on customer service, building an exceptional team and giving back to the industry.

Get to know Jim at his blog, Joe Welder.

Privacy Policy

At Arc-Zone.com we know you care about how your personal information is used and shared. This notice describes our privacy policy. By visiting Arc-Zone.com, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Notice.

What Personal Information About Customers Does Arc-Zone.com Gather?

We receive and store any information you enter on our Web site or give us in any other way. We use the information that you provide in order to respond to your questions, process your order, receive payments and communicate with you regarding new welding solutions we think may be of interest to you. If at anytime you do not wish to receive communications from us, let us know, and we will remove you from our mailing list.

Does Arc-Zone.com Share Information It Receives?

Keeping information about our customers is an important part of our business, allowing us to provide excellent customer service. We are not in the business of selling information. We do share customer information in order to conduct business transactions with our customers.

Examples include fulfilling orders, delivering packages, sending postal mail and e-mail, analyzing data, processing credit card payments, and providing customer service. Companies we employ have access to only the personal information needed to perform their service. We do not authorize use of your information for any other purposes.

Arc-Zone.com does not sell your information to anyone.

How Secure Is Information About Me?

We protect the security of your information during transmission by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts information you input and information that we send to the credit card processing company when we complete your order. Additionally, we have have employed a computer security company to audit our systems to ensure that we are storing your information securely.

Learn More:
Protect Yourself Online (pdf)

Join Arc-Zone Team

Open Positions

We currently have no open position available.

Don't See Your Dream Job?

As a growing company, we are always on the lookout for enthusiastic, Internet savvy, customer-focused team players to work in our Carlsbad, CA headquarters. Let us know how you can make Arc-Zone an even better company by e-mailing us at jobs@arc-zone.com.

 

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