(Radio Iowa) – Diamond Vogel Paint in Orange City announced last week it is going to sell of the company owned stores that sell what it calls its architectural paint that is used by homeowners and contractors. Diamond Vogel C-E-O Jeff Powell says they determined its the best move for the future of the company.

“The retail environment is has been challenging for several years and it’s just a very difficult challenging decision for us because we’ve got such great employees,” he says. The employees will be offered positions by the company that is purchasing the retail stores. Powell says they have been a regional player for this type of paint, and plan to supply it to the new retail owners.

“At this point in time, we’re going to continue to manufacture those great Diamond Vogel architectural products to supply to those locations. So yes, you’ll still be able to get Diamond Vogel paint and it’ll be coming out of the Diamond Vogel factory,” Powell says. Powell says they will now focus more on industrial customers and the industrial products manufactured in Marshalltown. He says they hope to expand the reach of those services.

“We are more, more national, less regional and we certainly have opportunities to expand that to be both national and potentially international over the long term. But yeah, it’s a much wider geography that we supply those particular products,” he says. Powell says the company buying the retail stores hopes to expand into more areas outside the current regional reach, and that will keep the Orange City plant going.

“We aren’t anticipating any changes at that manufacturing site at this point in time and if all things go well, we hope to maybe even expand that in the future,” Powell says. The company was founding in Orange City in 1926.