Walinga Celebrates 70 Years of Excellence and Service!

Member company Walinga celebrated its 70th anniversary this year with community open houses at its offices in Canada, the United States, and Australia. Although much has changed since Walinga’s founding in the rural community of Fergus, Ontario, its commitment to customers remains the same.

“Our vision and mission remain to provide innovative solutions for the ag market, both for transportation and pneumatic conveying. That forms the basis of what we do every day,” said Walinga CEO Butch Medemblik.

When Cornelius Walinga and his son-in-law John Medemblik founded the company in 1954, it was called Commercial Body and Coach, and their slogan was “Building any body for anybody.” As the business evolved, they saw a need for high-quality equipment designed for the specific needs of the agricultural market, and they decided to make that their entire focus. Robert Lodder joined the company as a third owner in 1959, and in 1965, they moved their headquarters to a larger facility on the outskirts of Guelph, Ont., to meet the needs of a growing customer base.

In the 1970s, the company underwent what Butch calls “a natural progression,” expanding from trucks and trailers to also include pneumatic conveying solutions, which grew out of the pneumatic systems that moved grain and feed in and out of Walinga’s trailers. The inaugural pneumatic conveying solution offered by Walinga was a mobile unit that could be powered by a farm tractor, making Walinga one of the first producers in North America to use a positive displacement system to transfer grains, resulting in faster transfer rates using less horsepower and smaller lines.

“Today, engineered transportation equipment and pneumatic conveying solutions are the two business units that form the backbone of Walinga,” Butch said.

Source: Sideroads Summer 2024

Walinga.com | Member since 1995