The Foundation: Three Generations
Introduction
Our story begins with my grandfather, Phil Wallbank. In the 1950s, my Grandpa Phil was living in England, which was a difficult place in the years following World War II. One day, he saw an ad in the newspaper for a foreman position at a manufacturing company in Canada and was compelled by the opportunity and the fresh start it would offer. After six long weeks on the water, he was disappointed to learn that the job wasn't the opportunity he had expected, as the company consisted of just a few machines in a garage. Having sold everything to make the trip, returning to England was not an option for him.
FIRST GENERATION
Phil Wallbank (1955)
In 1955, PJ Wallbank Manufacturing was incorporated. Grandpa Phil tirelessly started cold calling manufacturing companies to find a need for his training as a spring maker and from his experience as a mechanic in the British Air Force. His moment came when a potential customer's spring supplier decided to strike, threatening to stop production lines. The customer was eager to avoid shutting down their lines, and with limited options, agreed to have my grandfather supply them.
With no money for new equipment, my grandfather returned to the farmhouse he was renting and proceeded to develop his own manufacturing machines, using old washing machine motors and other scrap hardware. Once production began, the kitchen oven was initially used for final processing by tempering the springs. This is a testament to how we still think about cost today. While no longer here, my Grandpa Phil was a brilliant man and one of the hardest workers I will ever know, teaching himself CAD in his 60s and working 6 days a week well into his 80s.
SECOND GENERATION
Mel Wallbank (1982)
In 1982, my dad, Mel, moved to Port Huron, Michigan from Ontario, Canada and founded PJ Wallbank Springs (PJWS) to focus on a more niche product line. Our organization's roots are in engineering, and not the kind taught in classrooms, but the kind learned and applied on the job. Like my grandfather, my dad was a self-taught engineer, having never attended college. What most attributed to his success was a reliance on pragmatism, ingenuity, and a focus on low costs. Starting with what he had learned from his experience on the floor with my grandfather, he taught himself ladder logic for controls programming when the need presented itself while developing our assembly equipment. He later led the charge with PCs on our manufacturing floor before it was popular and it was purely pragmatic, through the implementation of internally developed software in the 80s for product development and then later a custom developed ERP system in the 90s.
Unlike my grandfather's company, core to our success was our focus in a niche. While my grandfather was constantly under price pressure from competitors due to the commoditized products he produced and slim margins as a result, we were able to differentiate ourselves from our competition due to the niche products we produced using our internally developed proprietary processes. We've learned that involvement in both the product design and the manufacturing process are critical for success. I will forever stand on the shoulders of my grandfather and father and am a beneficiary of the foundation they created and a legacy I will do everything in my power to continue. It's a responsibility I refuse to take lightly, and as much as I'm interested in continuing their legacy, I'm also interested in growing the legacy to further our impact on the world.
THIRD GENERATION
Chris Wallbank (2006)
I started in the organization on the factory floor, working throughout high school in a number of roles. After graduating from college, I rejoined the organization, with my primary responsibilities to enter timecards into our payroll system and to schedule customer deliveries. I soon became curious beyond these initial responsibilities, and as I got more involved in the business, I realized we were waiting for customers to come to us on new projects instead of proactively engaging with them and bringing them solutions to win new opportunities. I believe in allowing one's reputation to speak for itself, via word of mouth, but intentionally reaching out to current and new customers became a priority as I took on responsibility for sales. With no formal training or playbook, and working together with engineering, I dove into sales, using common sense and with the perspective that I would have no choice but to learn along the way. I traveled extensively internationally, often alone, to talk with new customers whom I felt could utilize our products. We also worked hard to better understand the technical benefits of our products, at a much deeper level than we ever had before, to better compete with other product offerings.
After considerable effort and with the support of a strong team, we achieved significant growth, tripling the size of our business over the course of a few years. I learned so much from the experience of growing the organization to this scale, and most of it was "the hard way." This was because there was no one to counsel, and we were all going through it for the first time. It was frustrating, and even painful, but reflecting back, I wouldn't trade this experience for anything.
