Buhler looks to expand

Manufacturing plant in search of skilled workers

By Jeff Zent
The Forum
Monday, February 07, 2005

Welder Jerry Discher works on a guard for a front-end loader Wednesday morning at Buhler Industries Inc., in Fargo, N.D. Discher began working at the manufacturing plant, located at 1330 43rd St. N.W., when it opened in August 2002.

Cooper Wieck assembles a front-end loader at Buhler Industries Inc.

Craig Engel has big plans for a Fargo manufacturing plant. What he needs is more skilled workers.

As president of Buhler Industries Inc., Engel was instrumental in getting the company to open a Fargo plant in August 2002.

Buhler Industries, a Winnipeg-based agricultural equipment manufacturer, bought the former Alloway plant at 1330 43rd St. N and started building front-end loaders with 15 employees, plant manager Kevin Pietsch said.

The company has since added 25 employees and plans to add about 100 more, Engel said.

"Once we get close to that milestone, I'll start making the next plan," he said.

The plant's expansion has been tempered by the area's limited pool of qualified welders, assemblers and other skilled workers, Engel said.

"I guess you could say we're on a standing hiring campaign," he said. "We knew we would have to be patient in adding employees in Fargo and that's what we're doing."

The Fargo-Moorhead area's unemployment rate is about 2 percent, the second-lowest in the nation, according to Job Service North Dakota.

"The low unemployment rate means our economy is doing very well, but it creates certain challenges," said Brian Walters, president of the Fargo-Cass County Economic Development Corp.

Local business leaders are working to grow the area's skilled work force by promoting job opportunities and offering training, Walters said.

Buhler Industries, founded in 1933, employs about 850 people at nine Canadian plants and Fargo. The company also operates seven distribution centers, with three located in the United States.

Buhler employees build a wide range of equipment including grain augers, tractor-powered snow blowers and mowers, Versatile tractors and wheel loaders.

At the company's 110,000 square-foot plant in Fargo, Buhler employees manufacture front-end loaders and components for other companies, including Fargo's CNH tractor plant, Engel said.

Plans are to shift more work from Canadian plants to Fargo, adding manufacturing lines to build more loaders and other products as workers become available, Pietsch said.

"It's our major growth point at this stage," Engel said of the Fargo plant.

"They proved to us they could build with better quality and lower cost," he said. "In the manufacturing world those are the two most important things."