Today the Manufacturing Express pulled off Interstate 94 for a visit and celebration with Felling Trailers. Much of Felling’s nearly 500,000 square foot production and storage facility runs parallel to bustling I-94. The highway passes through Sauk Centre, a community of nearly 5,000 residents about 100 miles northwest of the Twin Cities.
If you stand outside the Felling plant for very long, you’re likely to notice nearly half the vehicles that go by on I-94 are pulling a trailer. Passing trailers haul a fleet of fishing boats (this is lake country), summer hay, an array of off-road equipment and recreational vehicles, and what appeared to be a 50-foot chrome bowling pin. It is a good bet that many of those trailers were passing their birthplace.
That may also be reassuring as the company invests tens of millions of dollars in technology and production systems improvements—including a massive new powder-coat paint plant only a few months old.
The Manufacturing Express visit is part of Felling’s 50th anniversary. The company launched in 1974 when industry legend Merle Felling bought a welding shop. An office that now occupies the original area of the facility still displays a trailer Merle Felling built when he was only 10 years old, using some hay-harvest equipment. It turned out to be a good start: these days, Felling Trailers manufactures more than 5,000 trailers a year, ranging from a 3,000-pound utility trailer to a 120,000-pound hydraulic gooseneck trailer—and its standard trailer line includes over 240 models.
Brenda Jennissen, President and CEO of Felling Trailers (and Merle Felling’s daughter; she and her sister bought the company from their dad), doesn’t see the company’s 50th anniversary as any reason to rest on laurels. She’s looking forward to the next 50 years—and she’s focused on raising up the next generation of manufacturers. “I would tell people, particularly our young people, to look at [manufacturing] as a career option. Don’t rule it out.” Under her leadership, Felling Trailers offers ‘weld camps,’ invites high schoolers to tour the facility, and educates young people about career opportunities that may be open to them.
That’s what truly sets Felling Trailers apart. They build trailers, yes, and they’re damn good at it, too. But that’s not all they build. Here in Sauk Centre, they’re building a new generation of equipment manufacturers—and, like everything Felling Trailers produces, they’re built to last.
