Late-summer sunsets can linger in south-central Ohio, and when they combine with dust kicked up from the rodeo at the Tuscarawas County Fair it feels like the AEM Manufacturing Express has arrived at a place of long-standing traditions. Our stop at Gradall Industries in New Philadelphia, Ohio reinforces that feeling. It’s a company with 75 years of history in this town and Tuscarawas County, and the kind of culture where it’s not unusual to encounter a third-generation employee.
Gradall is the stuff of manufacturing legend. It was founded in 1944 and invented the world’s first hydraulic excavator, and is now known for its unique telescoping boom. The company’s ownership has evolved over the years and was acquired by Volvo CE in 1997 and operates as a separate brand. You find its excavators in highway construction, rough terrain work, railway maintenance, steel/aluminum mill maintenance, demolition and material handling.
The story of the company name is that it comes from a comment by the wife of Ray Ferwerda, who along with Koop Ferwerda founded the company. Evelyn Ferwerda compared the machine to a giant that uses its arms to “grade” the earth and its hands to perform “all” the other work: Gradall.
“It’s a challenging job, but it’s a really good job,” said Jesse Renicker, an assembly worker who took some time to speak to the Manufacturing Express crew. He’s one of those third-gen workers, following his grandfather and dad into the company, where he’s worked the last 10 years. For about six of those, he worked with his father. Like other employees, he notes that a Gradall job is coveted in this part of Ohio. Later, Todd Jackson, the Gradall operations manager and himself a 30-year company veteran, explains that you could likely walk down a New Philadelphia street and stop locals at random and nearly everyone knows somebody with connections to Gradall.
Jackson also says part of the appeal is that the company is under one roof, so “we bring in sheet steel and get to see it going out as a finished product.” Those products, he adds, go all over the world.
Rod McAfee, director of engineering, came to Goodall fresh from college and has stayed for 34 years. He had other offers but wanted to return to the area where he was raised. He recalls that, then as now, if you told somebody about your Gradall job, “they would just say ‘you got it made.'”
McAfee also echoed a challenge that the Manufacturing Express has frequently encountered: “Many young people are missing out.” Bridging the gap between the great manufacturing careers available in today’s industry and the workforce of the next generation is on the minds of every equipment manufacturer. Back at the Tuscarawas County fair, the Gradall booth has a leading message: “We’re hiring.”
The Manufacturing Express team spent a couple of evenings gathering support signatures at the county fair, where displays of equipment testified to the area’s manufacturing and agriculture. The livestock exhibitions would have made any major state fair proud, and then there were those Tuscarawas sunsets. There’s no better way to celebrate a community and the company that continues to sustain it 75 years and beyond.
