Butler Manufacturing

Butler Manufacturing was founded in Kansas City in 1901 by Emanuel Norquist and Charles and Newton Butler, who began with galvanized steel stock tanks, and it says it invented the pre-engineered metal building. BlueScope Steel Limited acquired Butler on April 27, 2004, and the brand now sits within BlueScope Buildings, with its listed address on Genessee Street in Kansas City, Missouri. It also points to the BlueScope Buildings Research Center for in-house testing of its systems.

Its hangars and aviation segment covers buildings from a single-aircraft space to large clear-span hangars for several aircraft, plus hybrid buildings that put offices, mezzanines and maintenance zones in the same structure. Butler says its framing is engineered for oversized door openings and the loads that high-performance hangar doors put on a building, and that it scopes hangar projects around door complexity early in design. It names private aviation, airline maintenance hangars and aviation museums as project types, and also sells standing-seam roofs and reroof and wall retrofit systems for existing buildings.

Butler does not sell or build directly: projects go through the Butler Builder Network of independent contractors, which buyers can search on its site, so design-build terms, schedule and warranty handling come from the local builder. Butler does not publish pricing. The text of its aviation page does not name specific FBO or airport hangar clients. Technical documents, product information and image libraries are posted on its site for architects and builders working through planning and design.