Trucks have always fascinated me. Not that I wanted to drive one for a living, but because they come in various shapes and sizes and the curiosity about what's behind those long aluminum sides.
Sit on a corner in downtown Salt Lake City for any length of time and you'll see a variety of trucks from the small ones hauling food to a fast-food outlet, the medium ones carrying office supplies to a large company or the large ones filled with furniture en route to someone's house.Many of the trucks running around in Salt Lake City, and many other areas for that matter, come from Tesco-Williamsen, 1925 W. Indiana Ave., a company that has evolved from a three-man blacksmith shop started in Ogden in 1892 to repair buggies and wagons.
After several mergers, company purchases and formation of a holding company, Tesco-Williamsen will do $12 million in sales this year and officials are adding some other services that should help the company keep its growing attitude.
T-W actually is three businesses in one, according to Bill Brugger, president. The company is a truck equipment distributor, a manufacturer of dump truck bodies, hoists, dump pup trailers and van bodies for sale through 40 distributors in several states and a manufacturer of specialized equipment for the federal defense and space programs and private businesses.
Lorenzo Williamsen started the blacksmith shop in Ogden and eventually it was operated by his son, Ren, who got Williamsen Manufacturing into the truck body business in the 1940s with his first major customer, Garrett Freight Lines.
The blacksmith shop evolved into Williamsen Truck Equipment Corp. and in 1932 began building school buses and vans. WTEC began designing and building steel truck bodies and trailers. The company built a manufacturing plant in Ogden in 1950, but 11 years later the facilities were too small and the company moved to its present location.
Until 1959, Williamsen sold directly to its customers, but that year it signed its first distributor agreement, beginning with Transport Equipment, Seattle. Currently, T-W has a network of distributors in the West.
Under the blanket of Tesco American Inc., a holding company, Tesco (Truck Equipment Sales Co.) is the distribution arm of the operation while Williamsen Manufacturing is the production arm.
Tesco originally was the Lang Co., founded in the 1920s as the first electric welding shop in Utah. Later acquired by Grave Tank, the company began building truck bodies in the 1930s and in 1962 10 employees purchased the truck equipment division and named it Tesco.
In 1975, Monroc, a Salt Lake concrete company, purchased Tesco, but later the Tesco management started a public stock offering to raise money and purchased the company from Monroc. Tesco became a public corporation in February 1980 and operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of Tesco American Inc., Brugger said.
In September 1982, Tesco American Inc. entered into an agreement to purchase most of WTEC's assets and one month later formed Williamsen Manufacturing. Last May, Tesco American Inc. completed a stock buyout and the company became private once again.
Although Tesco-Williamsen continues in the truck equipment distribution and truck body manufacturing and service business, the new push is on specialized equipment, according to Clark Nielsen, director of sales and marketing, and John Newburn, sales manager.
T-W has built specialized equipment for Thiokol Corp., Hercules Aerospace, Boeing Aerospace Measurement Group and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, among others.
The equipment includes missile rocket motor transporter trailers, instrumentation trailers, van bodies and chassis for environmental control units, mobile units for Holy Cross Hospital for on-site mammogram testing and a mobile asphalt analysis laboratory for the Federal Highway Administration.
Brugger said a potential customer approaches T-W engineers with an idea for a new specialized trailer. Design work takes anywhere from a few months to two years because of the many unusual needs the customer has. Then a prototype is built and extensively tested.
He believes specialty trailers have a niche in the national market and he never flinches when it comes to submitting bids to the federal government. "We have the expertise to go through the bid process and we have the people to do the job," Brugger said.
Over the years of mergers, purchases and stock offering, T-W hasn't stood pat on its success and has closed non-profitable distribution branches in several states. -T-W now has an 80,000-square-foot facility with 100 employees.
T-W also is building a new hydraulics area for the construction and rebuilding of hydraulics systems. Brugger said employees will rebuild hydraulic systems for hospital beds and mining equipment, for example.
A native of Venice, Sevier County, Brugger graduated from Utah State University with a degree in history and worked for Tesco as a salesman in Phoenix in 1976. In 1978 he became branch manager in Phoenix and became vice president in 1983 after the merger.
Brugger was appointed president by the board in 1987, and a year later he gained 78 percent control of the company. In 1990, he took the company private and now owns the firm.
Newburn worked for Tesco in 1970 as an inside salesman and was sent to Phoenix in 1976 where he opened a branch for Tesco. In 1979, he came to Salt Lake City as the Salt Lake Division manager and in 1983 was president and chief executive officer.
In 1985, Newburn left the company to do some independent consulting, but returned a year ago and is the national sales manager.
A native of Ogden, Nielsen started with Williamsen as a painter in 1955 and in 1959 went to the parts department and later to the accounting department. He was an assistant branch manager in Pocatello, Idaho, attended Idaho State University and went to manage the Boise branch in 1968.
He returned to Salt Lake City and in 1982 became general manager of Williamsen Manufacturing Inc. A year ago he became director of sales and marketing and concentrates on specialized trailers.