When completed later this year, the new addition will double the size of the company’s Fresno facility.

“The expansion in Fresno is part of our overall national strategy,” said Dan Schwab, D&H’s co-president. “We’re making a shift to ensure that we have the right amount of space in all of our locations.”

Work began last month on the 200,000-square-foot concrete tilt-up structure being erected on the north side of the company’s existing facility, which is located at 3701 S. Minnewawa Ave. in one of the city’s increasingly active industrial areas.

Madera-based Industrial and Commercial Contractors is the general contractor on the project.

“D&H is a very successful company and this expansion is a sign of that success,” said Kevin Barnes, project manager for Industrial and Commercial Contractors.

Headquartered in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania., D&H operates five large distribution centers around the country as well as one in Canada, offering “end-to-end” overnight and two-day shipping and distribution services for reseller, corporate, educational and retail clients.

“Depending on the season,” Schwab said, about 70 to 80 employees currently work for the company in Fresno.

After the expansion project is completed in August, Schwab said D&H is anticipating hiring as many as 40 new employees.

“We’ll start bringing in new people as soon as the space becomes available,” Schwab said.

The expansion will provide additional warehouse capacity as well as an employee lunchroom, restrooms and a second-story mezzanine area.

D&H is one of North America’s largest computer products and consumer electronics distributors, and was founded in 1918 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, by Schwab’s grandfather, Dave Schwab, and his brother-in-law, Harry Spector.

Schwab and Spector’s initial business, Economy Tire and Rubber, specialized in retreading solid tires for America’s nascent auto industry.

In the 1920s, the company began distributing radios and an increasingly wider array of consumer appliances and later televisions.

In the 1970s, D&H entered the video gaming marketplace through a tie up with Atari and then began licensing computer products from companies including Packard Bell, Panasonic and Texas Instruments.

Today, Cisco, Sony, Toshiba, Microsoft and Lenovo are among D&H’s major vendor partners.

D&H initiated an aggressive national expansion beginning in the late 1980s, opening warehouse distribution hubs in Chicago, Boston and Dallas and more recently in Fresno and Atlanta.

The company’s West Coast distribution hub in Fresno has been in operation since 2005.

D&H, which is privately held and one-third employee-owned, has made Forbes’ List of America’s Top Private Companies every year since 2009.