Melroe:Fathers of invention
(continued)
"You don't just start building a Bobcat or a
combine pickup," Irv said. "Dad started things and improved on them for years
before they were manufactured. We made the first windrow pickups on the farm ... one at a
time, drilling the holes by hand in the days before electricity" - and riding the ups
and downs of the farm economy.
"You'd run into one problem and solve it and then you'd tackle the next
problem," Irv recalls. "We frequently talked about getting out of the loader
business. In fact, it was decided to stop production on the loader."
The first machine made by the Kellers was a two-wheel drive with a rear caster wheel. It
was very maneuverable but lacked traction when the bucket was in a digging position. A
four-wheel drive was made in late 1960. "It solved one problem but the open chain
drive was exposed and got dirty. It would frequently break down and the service calls and
warranty were killing us," said Sylvan Melroe, former advertising manager and Ed
Melroe's nephew.
"People loved the machine and the work it did, but the repairs were costing us too
much. Then another idea was presented. We enclosed the drive system in an oil bath and
that's when the loader took off. It then became known as the Bobcat. We could have just
said, 'The skid-steer principle doesn't work' and quit. That's how close the line is
between success and failure."
At first the family farm subsidized the windrow pickup manufacturing business. Then,
pickup sales subsidized development and production of Ed's Harrowweeder invention.
Finally, the harrow subsidized the Bobcat as the Melroe and Keller brothers toiled to
perfect the novel machine.
"You just never give up when you start something like that ... if your heart is in
it," Irv said. "We ran out of money many times and fought the finances, but we
kept going."
A Depression survivor
"Anything he bought at the hardware store or from an implement dealer, he'd have to
change," Mabel Melroe said of her husband in his biography. "Sometimes it was
just a notch he filed or a bolt he moved, but he was never quite satisfied."
That characteristic drove Ed Melroe to "rebuild, modify, experiment and invent,"
wrote Karolevitz. After the struggle of the Great Depression, he rebuilt his farm
operation in the late 1930s, buying broken-down machinery and repairing it with his older
sons. From 1936 to 1938 Ed Melroe expanded his farm from 480 acres to 3,500 acres.
"This willingness to start at the bottom and work up was to be a keynote of E.G.'s
ultimate success," wrote Karolevitz. Besides operating the 3,500-acre farm -
monstrous by late 1930s standards - the Melroes built combine pickups at night or on rainy
days.
The family made three pickups in 1937 and 12 in 1938. "The extra money that came from
these somewhat crude combine attachments was a great boon to the Melroe comeback
endeavor," wrote Karolevitz.
Then, in the summer of 1939, tragedy struck - just when farming was on the upswing and
Melroe's combine pickup was attracting attention outside Sargent County. Ed Melroe, 47,
suffered a heart attack during a church picnic baseball game. The heart attack caused a
blood clot to lodge in his leg. Ultimately, his left leg was amputated above the knee.
The loss of mobility was hard for Melroe to accept. He felt he was needed for field work
and he was planning to crank up production of the combine attachments.
However, John Deere Co. had been eyeing Melroe's invention and in 1939 paid him $5,000 for
the patent. The deal put wind in his sails and paid some of his medical bills.
From farm to factory
Today, Melroe's assembly line makes heavy use
of robots and high technology. Photo courtesy of Melroe Co.
"Uncle Ed was a self-contained think
tank," said Sylvan Melroe. "We got several phone calls saying, 'Uncle Ed had a
heart attack.' The next day he'd be coming down the road 100 miles per hour, saying, 'We
have to do this or that.' His mind was like a clock. It never stopped."
Three of the four Melroe boys - Roger, Les and Irv served in World War II. Cliff helped
his parents manage the farm. During the war, Melroe's inventiveness picked up steam. He
began to envision a little manufacturing enterprise in Gwinner that would bring his boys
together in a family endeavor when the war ended. He bought an old gas station and
refitted it as a workshop.
In 1947, they committed themselves to real manufacturing with the $1,000 purchase of a
used punch press, drill press and turning lathe. Around this time, the manufacturing
business moved into an old schoolhouse.
Soon, it became clear the old schoolhouse wouldn't cut it for full-blown manufacturing.
Sales were growing and the young entrepreneurs convinced their father they needed to build
a factory designed for manufacturing farm machinery. Ed, like most who pinched pennies
through the Depression, was reluctant. But the optimistic young Melroes prevailed and in
1948 they put up a 30- by 100-foot factory.
"Les and I hauled the cement blocks for that first building on a farm truck,"
Irv recalls.
In 1950 Evelyn's husband, Eugene Dahl, joined the family management team.
The plan went like this: Les, Irv and Rog would sell combine pickups in late spring and
summer. Ed and Cliff would concentrate on refining the product and developing a production
schedule. In the winter, and when field work allowed, everybody - including the family's
hired farm hands - would work on the assembly line.
'Bumpkins' hit big time
More than 400,000 Bobcats have rolled off Melroe's
assembly lines, headed for work sites around the world. Photo courtesy of Melroe Co.
The Melroes had been farming and working on
machinery together for decades. So that part went pretty fine. But sales had consisted of
a neighboring farmer saying, "Will you make me one of those?"
They described early sales calls as "amateur hour."
Irv drew South Dakota as his sales territory. He said he felt "like a country bumpkin
going to town with a basket of eggs to sell - except you didn't have to explain an egg to
every buyer."
The 1950s brought periods of up and downs, with the fledgling company riding the gyrations
of the farm economy.
The Melroes continually struggled with the need for greater operating capital. North
Dakota lending institutions didn't want to take a risk on the company. In 1953, a wheat
rust epidemic forced farmers to plow down grain and cancel orders for Melroe pickups. The
company was in a bind.
Melroe Manufacturing had built combine pickups, but suddenly farmers didn't want them. The
unpurchased pickups were locked in storage by a warehouse financing company. It was
disastrous and embarrassing for the Melroes and their work force, which numbered around
12.
As the brothers mulled closing the business, a dispute with Reynolds Aluminum over a
shipment of aluminum they couldn't afford led to an unforeseen, beneficial banking
arrangement.
An angry call from a Reynolds Aluminum credit manager in Chicago turned into an offer for
help. Melroe's biography explains it like this:
"'I'm sorry, but our representative had no authorization for extending credit,' said
the voice in Chicago. 'You'll either have to pay or we'll be forced to take some sort of
action against you.'
"There was a brief pause because Roger (Melroe) simply had nothing to say. Then the
voice from Chicago went on: 'In looking over your records, it seems to me that your
company is an excellent risk. You show no credit defaults or other indications of unsound
operation. Somebody should be willing to take a chance on you.'
"The Reynolds man suggested the First National Bank of Chicago and offered to make
the necessary introductions." A banking relationship was born of the meeting.
Bobcat goes global
In 1955, Ed died of complications from gall bladder surgery. His death at age 63 came just
as the Melroes were preparing to market the Harroweeder, which Ed and Cliff had spent
years fine-tuning. Cliff became president of Melroe Manufacturing Co. after his father's
death. The Harroweeder was a hit with farmers and it became a much-imitated piece of
machinery.
In 1957 Melroe's annual sales rose above $1 million for the first time.
With the addition of the Bobcat loader, Melroe was no longer an agricultural company. With
the Bobcat, it entered the industrial market and the world sales arena.
In 1966 the company celebrated making its 50,000th windrow pickup. Today the total is more
than 100,000. Melroe has been out of the pickup business since the 1980s. The surviving
Melroe sons proudly note that John Deere still makes a windrow pickup modeled after the
one their father designed.
The Bobcat pushed Melroe's sales higher: to $4.5 million in 1963 and to $16.5 million in
1967. That year, Robert Spolum became vice president for administration, the first person
outside the Melroe family to become a high-level manager.
Also in 1967 Melroe bought Reiten Manufacturing of Cooperstown. Edwin Reiten of
Cooperstown founded Reiten Manufacturing in 1938. The company was best known for its
trip-beam plow, which cut down on plow share breakage. The company also made aluminum
grain boxes, field sprayers, steel buildings, tanks, machinery trailers and snow buckets.
At its height, Reiten employed 95 people in Cooperstown.
In 1969 the brothers sold Melroe Co. and it became a division of Clark Equipment Co. of
Michigan.
In 1973 Melroe acquired Kirschmann Manufacturing of Bismarck and Kirschmann's
self-propelled crop sprayer called the Spra-Coupe. Last year Melroe sold off its
Spra-Coupe line as part of a divestiture effort.
By 1985 sales had climbed to $195 million and to $604 million by 1994.
Melroe's focus has switched from farm machinery to compact equipment for construction,
industrial and farm markets.
Four years ago, Ingersoll-Rand Co. of New Jersey bought Clark Equipment and its products.
The acquisition added Melroe's products to Ingersoll-Rand's line of machinery.
Ingersoll-Rand has annual sales of more than $7 billion and employs 40,000 people.
Melroe employees at the Gwinner, N.D.,
factory celebrate a production milestone in the mid-1960s. Photo courtesy of Melroe Co.
Today Melroe's Gwinner plant produces Bobcat
skid-steer loaders and attachments. The Bismarck factory makes one loader model, Bobcat
excavators and attachments.
Melroe also has a factory in Grove City, Minn., and locations in Brussels, Miami,
Singapore and Japan.
This spring Melroe Co. will spend $18 million expanding its two North Dakota plants.
The company will spend $8 million adding 78,000 square feet to its 575,000-square-foot
plant at Gwinner.
About 60,000 square feet will be added to the 300,000-square-foot Bismarck plant. The
addition will cost $5 million and another $5 million will go for a new paint system and
expanded overhead conveyor system.
Company president Chuck Hoge said the expansions will let Melroe increase production by 50
percent.
Hoge said Melroe just completed its seventh consecutive year of increased productivity and
profitability. Melroe sales have grown about 15.7 percent annually since 1991.
(continued)
In August 1957 Les Melroe dropped by the Kellers'
shop in Rothsay to see their invention.
"We happened to have that (loader) of Eddie Velo's in the shop, doing some work on
it," when Melroe stopped by, Cy Keller recalls.
Cyril Keller, left, and Louis Keller, with
one of the early Keller Loaders. Louis' son, Joe, located the loader in Michigan last fall
and bought it for a collection the family is assembling. Bruce Crummy / The Forum
Melroe encouraged the Kellers to take their loader to the Minnesota State Fair and show
farmers how it worked.
At the fair, Louis and Cy operated it for spectators. "The Melroe boys didn't try to
sell it," Cy said. "They would just mingle in the crowd and ask people what they
thought."
Farmers were so enthusiastic that on the third morning Les Melroe came out and pasted
Melroe decals on the loader, Cy Keller recalls. "He said, 'If people want a machine
that bad, Melroe is going to have it.' "
The Melroes bought the rights to the machine and hired the Kellers to develop it further.
Its appeal lay in the fact the little loader was highly maneuverable and able to turn 360
degrees in its own track.
By late 1958 Melroe was producing what was then known as the Melroe M200 Self-Propelled
Loader. Refinements continued and by 1960, the model M-400 was born, the first true
four-wheel drive skid-steer loader.
Sales took off.
By 1962 it became clear such a small, agile machine deserved a name of its own. Lynn
Bickett of Melroe's advertising agency suggested "Bobcat" - a small powerful
animal adaptable to different conditions.
The Bobcat slogan soon became "Tough, quick and agile."
A price sheet from the early 1960s shows the Melroe Self-Propelled Loader sold for $1,390.
A basic Bobcat today sells for around $20,000, said Leroy Anderson of Melroe's marketing
staff in Fargo.
Brothers still invent
Louis left Melroe Co. in 1967 to pursue other interests including tracks for skid steer
loaders. In fact, he patented tracks, known as Tire Crawlers, now made by Loegering
Manufacturing Inc. of Casselton, a company owned by his daughter and son-in-law, Marilyn
and George Loegering.
Marilyn Loegering and her brother, Joe Keller of Wahpeton, have collected eight of the
early loaders - two Keller three-wheel loaders and six early Melroe models.
A bit of detective work last autumn resulted in finding one of the seven Keller Loaders -
still in excellent working condition - in Piconning, Mich. The owner agreed to sell it
back to the Keller family.
Joe Keller and Marilyn Loegering are researching what happened to the remaining loaders.
They plan to put the loaders on display but haven't selected a place yet.
Louis is now 75 and lives in Edgeley, N.D.
Cy conducted Bobcat operator training schools in Gwinner and San Antonio, until he retired
in 1982. Cy is now 76 and lives in Fergus Falls.
The brothers still invent.
Cy devised The Squirrel Show Swing Feeder, a device that feeds squirrels but prompts them
to perform an entertaining gymnastic routine in the process. The feeders are popular with
nursing homes, Cy Keller said. Two of his sons produce the feeder in Pelican Rapids, Minn.
And Northland Tackle Co. makes a marker buoy he developed in 1994. More recently, he
invented a rod holder for ice fishermen. It's sold through Scheel's.
Louis also is working on a "pop down" ice-fishing device that anglers can use
while sitting in a pickup.
Neither Keller had a clue their little loader would boom like it did.
They're proud their work is still putting others to work. "Lots of people use
(Bobcats) to make their living," Cy Keller said, "either making them or
operating them."
Last year Bobcat No. 400,000 rolled off the Melroe assembly line.
By Deneen Gilmour
The Forum
At age 114, FRS Industries is one of Fargo's oldest manufacturing firms - if not the oldest.
Originally known as Fargo Rubber Stamp, FRS Industries still makes rubber stamps but now that's just a small part of its business.
Today it manufactures signs, badges, prize ribbons, buttons, stickers, and of course, rubber stamps.
How does a manufacturer thrive for 114 years?
"We're selling things people want," said owners Gary Westerholm and Tim Dockter.
Bob Ketelle uses a heat-transfer printer to print a computer-generated graphic on peel-and-stick vinyl, which is one of the many different ways FRS Industries makes promotional materials. Dave Wallis/The Forum.
A century ago, Fargo Rubber Stamp was the place attorneys and office workers went for supplies. Today, a cross-section of America comes to FRS Industries for specialty items, via a national network of dealers.
Horse show ribbons, sheriff's badges, Braille signs, bumper stickers, laser-printed award plaques - you name it, and you might find it rolling off FRS' production line and headed for New York, Hawaii or Puerto Rico.
"Locally, people know us as a T-shirt and rubber stamp company," Westerholm said. What locals may not know is 95 percent of FRS' business comes from well beyond Fargo's city limits.
Westerholm and Dockter are proud to lead a 114-year-old company but they know history doesn't mean much to customers who just want their order tomorrow. Service, quality and price are keys to longevity, they say.
Increasingly, speed is vital to maintaining a competitive edge. Customers expect orders to pop out of a computer and onto an express delivery truck instantaneously.
"More and more, we compete on speed of delivery," Dockter said. Sometimes that means the owners take a turn on the production line to meet a tight deadline.
Several years ago FRS was called to augment a New York company's lagging efforts to fill an order for "Say No to Drugs" ribbons. Trying to fill the shortfall, Westerholm committed FRS to producing 600,000 ribbons in one week. Working at top speed, FRS employees exceeded that, producing 1.1 million ribbons in a week's time.
The company began as Nugent and Brown Printing and became known as Fargo Stamp Works around 1910.
In 1912 Iver Fossum, a printer in Hillsboro, N.D., bought the company. His son, Cy Fossum, joined the firm in 1946, which by that time also produced such advertising specialties as wooden nickels and buttons.
In 1975 Cy Fossum sold the business to a group of employees that included Westerholm and Dockter. The company had five employees when Westerholm hired on in 1959. Today it has 50, he said.
By 1981 the company had diversified far beyond rubber stamps and changed its name to FRS Industries to reflect its versatility.
The 1980s and 1990s were decades of automation, replacing repetitive hand labor with machines or computers.
Companies like Melroe and FRS Industries epitomize the growth of manufacturing in North Dakota.
Jobs in manufacturing companies increased from about 7,000 in 1947 to nearly 25,000 in 1997, according to Job Service North Dakota.
The 1997 North Dakota Manufacturer's Register lists 157 manufacturers in Fargo, making everything from farm machinery to ceramics. Another 36 manufacturers do business in West Fargo.
While a good share of North Dakota's early manufacturing ventures - Melroe at Gwinner, Wil-Rich at Wahpeton and Reiten's at Cooperstown - focused on farm equipment, that is no longer the case. Growth has brought diversity to the state's manufacturing sector.
A look at the "A" section of the Fargo manufacturer's register shows the diversity:
* A Cut Above Gems makes precious gem jewelry;
* Acme Sign makes wooden, vinyl and sandblasted signs;
* Advantage Printing does offset printing and screen printing;
* All Purpose Rope makes nylon and polypropylene tow ropes;
* Alpha Type/Graphics Inc. does commercial typesetting;
* Amerix Corp. makes heat exchangers;
* Ames Sand and Gravel Inc., as its name says, processes sand and gravel;
* Applied Image Inc. does screen printing;
* Artisan Builders makes wooden organ pipes.
In the next six years manufacturing is expected to generate 3,000 jobs in North Dakota. Job Service predicts most of those will be in the durable goods area, making things like farm equipment.
