(BRANDON HANSEN/Chewelah Independent)
MILESTONE MOVE: Twenty-five years after starting their own company, Wuesthoff Excavation takes over Chewelah Welding’s operations…
Wuesthoff Excavation, Inc. was formed 25 years ago as a logging company and continues to evolve.
Shaun Wuesthoff worked for ten years in the timber industry, gaining valuable experience in operations management, quality control and safety. Now he’s bringing in a whole new tool chest under his company’s name.
The company isn’t a stranger to change. After it was formed in 1995 as Wuesthoff Logging, it added excavation to its services in 2002 and got out of logging in 2008. They’re now one of the premier access road contractors in the region.
After using Chewelah Welding and Machinery’s services many times, they decided to buy the company from Jeff Goff about a month ago and utilize the longtime welder and fabricator under their own company’s umbrella as Wuesthoff Welding Services.
“I think both our experience in contracting and Goff’s experience in welding and fabrication will be great assets to us all,” co-owner Stephania Wuesthoff said. “We have a different client base than Goff, but he also brings in a local client base, which will allow Wuesthoff Welding Services to expand as a company.”
Wuesthoff has always thought outside the box and like any logger at-heart, enjoys a good challenge. Acquiring Chewelah Welding and Machinery means another new area for the company to move into. It started as an idea about a year ago, when Goff, Shaun and Stephania realized that they could be more efficient with Goff focusing on the work and Wuesthoff’s company handling the other aspects. This now means they have in-house fabricating capabilities while also providing Goff’s experience and work to other people and companies in the community.
The equipment and metal was moved to Wuesthoff’s shop outside of Valley last month, and Goff can service the mainstay Chewelah company’s equipment along with southern Stevens County as well. The three had a good laugh when asked about the move, but they were able to get everything to fit and work inside Wuesthoff’s Excavation’s location, which was built in 2002.
Goff has 32 years of welding and fabricating experience from Alcoa and Colville Machine Works. Moving Chewelah Welding under the Wuesthoff umbrella means that Goff has the support of a larger company while providing his expertise on a wide variety of jobs. Wuesthoff is certainly no stranger to dealing with large machinery that needs welding repairs.
For welding and fabricating work, along with metal purchases – people can now call Wuesthoff Welding for the service. Goff said he can work on things as small as pots and pans to as big as excavators.
Goff can do stairwells, rails, gates, machinery attachments and much more. People can also come to Goff with an idea; he can get to work creating it.
Eventually, the Wuesthoffs said they would like to get the welding shop back into Chewelah, but they do offer convenience delivery of items from their Valley shop back to Chewelah when someone from Wuesthoff is heading there.
Wuesthoff will also offer mobile service countywide if people need welding and fabricating services.
Since moving in April, Goff has been basically not-stop busy with work.
“We got really busy right off the bat,” Goff said.
Wuesthoff started with one 540A John Deere Skidder, a chainsaw and a pickup and has since grown to a crowded company yard of equipment, a Chewelah office and now Goff’s fabrication services.
While there was a name change in there, as stated before, the Chewelah area business isn’t afraid to make a few changes to the company model.