Despite having little formal education in design and drafting, Wilf Degelman was a confident implement innovator. To hear from his sons, contemporaries and distributors, there was one way. And it was “Wilf’s Way.”
He innovated to address his own farming problems and frustrations, like picking stone by hand all summer and being held hostage by the Western Canadian snowfalls. As many in the industry will attest, he changed how life was lived in the province.
Like most of the other Shortline Legend Hall of Famers to date, Wilf was not an engineer. And like many others, he was a rare breed of designer and inventor.
Anything he touched was going to be designed heavy — “overbuilt” says sons Paul and Jack — and simple. Heavy, durable and no extra parts. Simplicity and robustness ruled the day. He wasn’t interested in building a complex “Swiss watch” but rather what the farmer needed to get the job done quickly.
Wilf Degelman
Degelman Industries, Regina, Sask.
Age: 94
Founded: 1965
Position: President
Claim to Fame: Introduced a new era of stone pickers, dozer blades, landrollers and heavy harrows. Led with an agility to roll with the changes unsteady of getting caught up in the land or the irrelevant.
According to his sons, the teenage Wilf was refining his welding skills while his friends were playing hockey and baseball. Many family members kept his torch active, and he put a few dollars in his pocket from job shop work, including local implement maker Pete Anderson.
He founded his manufacturing company at age 32, and kept food on the table through sheer work ethic.
After completing the farm chores, he’d weld until midnight and then wake up at 5:30 a.m. and do it again..
The Rock Picker
The company can trace its roots to a frustrated Wilf toiling on his Raymore, Sask., farm in 1962. The province is said to “grow rocks” nearly as well as cash crops. Hand-picking stones in summer-fallowed fields and hurling them onto the “stone boat” was backbreaking labor.
While the first few attempts for a solution by the self-taught welder didn’t fly, Wilf continued to attack the problem, and developed one of the first modern rock pickers that didn’t require the tractor to stop.
Wilf Degelman’s rock picker took the worst, most back-breaking job on the farm and mechanized it. Only once in a great while does a new product truly change people’s lives, but the rock picker did, say Wilf’s sons Jack and Paul. degelman industries
“It was simple to operate because all you had to do was drive a certain speed, lower the grill, scoop up the rock and contain it in the bucket,” says Jack.
But he wouldn’t allow others to buy one until he could fix all known issues. After several iterations, he was satisfied enough to sell one to a neighbor in 1964. That first unit was painted green because it was the only paint Wilf found in the barn.
“It’s rare that a product comes around and changes people’s lives,” says Paul, “but that’s what his invention did.”
His late wife, Eileen, was instrumental from the beginning when she and Wilf were at a crossroads of focusing on the farm — or the manufacturing business. Despite pressures from his parents to return to farming, the unmoved Wilf sold off the cows and chickens — a great risk for a young father and husband. “He converted his red hip roof barn to a factory and eventually to 2 shifts of workers” recalls Jack.
Because we were so far out in the country, the welders were staying at the house. Mom was the one buying the steel and other materials and preparing lunches in evenings while she and Dad were still farming. She was the protector of Wilf and even tougher than him. You’d have to go through Eileen to get to Wilf. She could say no to anyone, recalls Jack.
As word began to get out, farmers were saving their milk money to buy the Degelman rock picker. “One customer showed up and said they wouldn’t wait for it to be painted; they wanted to buy it on the spot. Dad sold the unit with a gallon of his yellow paint for them to apply at home,” recalls Paul.
Hall of Fame Digital Extras
Thousands of great inventions just like his disappear from an inability to get them to market. Degelman ran $25 ads in The Western Producer and attended farm fairs to meet farmers, distributors and dealers. Some of the original machines are still in use 60 years later, says Paul.
By 1966, the labor demands of the business required a move to the city — Regina — to gain better access to workers.
Dozer Blades
The next big project was the bulldozer blade in 1969. Wilf designed a simple blade that could be manually angled with pins and safely hooked up to the tractor frame. John Deere took notice and asked for the blades in John Deere green.
Jack says Wilf tangled with Deere over volume commitments, but the shop was soon working 24/7 and shipping thousands of blades.
Business was brisk, says Jack, because the tractor fitups were always changing, with a lot of development time required from R&D. Wilf’s first blades cost about $2,500, while some retail today for $100,000.
Like the rock picker a decade earlier, the dozer blades flourished out of necessity. “Our roads in 1969 weren't developed like they are today; some were more like dirt trails,” says Paul. “When snow came, farmers still had to feed their cattle and get grain unloaded, the kids to school and to town to buy groceries. Getting the roads opened was a life-changer for many.”
Design Principles. To farmers, a few things stand out in Wilf’s designs. It was always straightforward and simple, with the fewest number of parts. If something came his way that was unnecessarily complex, he was known to say, ‘That design is too ‘Swiss-watch’ for me.' He didn’t want anything breaking down,” says Paul, noting that near-constant repair was common in a lot of farm equipment.
His innovations had less to do with a drafting table than his personal observations. His ingenuity and innovation came from watching his neighbors and considering how he could help them. Most of his designs originated from the seat of his tractor.
“At the farm shows, Jack and I would sell what was in inventory. But Dad would start telling farmers all the great things he was working on in R&D. He’d undo our sales by telling them to wait til what he’d have next year…” – Paul Degelman
He was also lightning-fast in getting his designs to prototype stage. He’d rush the prototypes to get them out in the field to learn.
“It would often take 4 iterations to get them into production, but he could see when he was onto something,” says Paul. “Today’s software and technology tools make beautiful prototypes, but it’s more methodical today. Dad and his team were fast, and more often than not, his ideas were chalk drawings on the shop floor.”
Wilf always insisted on durability. “He wanted the look of the machine to be synonymous with strength. The rule was: ‘Whenever in doubt, add metal.’”
Leadership Legacy
When asked about their dad’s leadership style, the answer was simple: “he led by example.” That was true, whether working on the farm, putting in the long hours at the factory or going to shows. “He put in the hours,” says Jack, “and he expected the same from everyone. He was not a ‘Do as I say guy,’ but did it himself and expected us to follow.
“He was curious and cared for the farmers. He wasn’t teaching us per se, but we sure learned how he interacted with people.”
That curiosity didn’t end with the customer. Another of Wilf’s key attributes, says Jack, was treating everyone the same. “It didn’t matter if you were the president, a new hire or a floor-sweeper, everybody got the same attention from him.”
Embrace the Risk
Wilf was no stranger to risk. Examples included abandoning the livestock and signing on for a huge loan from the Bank of Montreal to fund his manufacturing dreams. “He was a huge risk-taker; it would bother us at times,” says Paul. “In the early days, he had nothing to lose. But we’d built the business up to where it was worth something and he’d want to build a new $25 million plant across the street. If it made sense in theory, he was going to do it; he’d look at the reward, not the risk.
“We’d tell him our concerns and he’d say, ‘That’s nothing. Don't worry about it, boys. This is what we're going to do.’ He helped take the fear away, but it was tough to accept sometimes.”
Those risks affected both the farm and the implement business. Once he got the manufacturing business off the ground, Wilf would return to his fields and was seen running 600-horsepower tractors with air seeders and packers — 100 feet from the nose of the tractor to the packer and putting full systems together. “The neighbors thought he was crazy,” says Paul.
“And then he started his slough pump, the Super Slough Sucker, another crazy invention. And it took out our R&D for a full year.”
The neighbors knew Wilf was successful, but also thought he had a screw loose in pumping sloughs when he should’ve been seeding. But nothing affected him; he didn't listen. He just did his thing. It wasn’t about getting wealthy, it was about pushing the envelope.
The slough invention failed to make it commercially, but his sons know no one captures lightning each time. “There are lots of stuff you end up throwing in the bushes and go on to start something else,” says Paul. “He wasn't scared to fail. No one builds stars their entire career, but he sure hit on a few of them.” There are also a few things in the fencerow that could still be commercially successful today.
Adapting to Changing Times
Wilf and his company adapted to the changing times and shifts in farming practices. When Western Canadian farmers moved to pulse-crops in the early 90s, harvesting became a new challenge. And when Western Canadian farmers embraced air seeder technology with no-tillage and continuous cropping, Degelman’s cultivators and chisel plows were no longer needed. So, the decision was made to exit tillage for a time. Yet farmers quickly realized a unique equipment need as they pursued pulse crops.
Wilf steered the company into a new product that pulse-crop farmers needed — a landroller. Lentils and peas were harvested close to the ground, and Wilf’s landroller design pushed the combine-damaging rocks below the ground’s surface.
Family Affair: The Degelman 5
Over the years, Degelman Industries was a family affair, with all Wilf and Eileen’s kids playing a role at some point, in either manufacturing, sales and marketing, research and development, purchasing, administration and human resources. There was no doubt who was in charge, though Paul and Jack say Wilf couldn’t tell you what the term “CEO” actually meant.
“Dad was the designer and looked after R&D,” says Jack, noting that Wilf also moonlighted by operating a farm he’d acquired in 1973. “All the day-to-day stuff was handled by the four of us, Roland, Scott, Paul and me.”
Like many family businesses, there was no formal structure nor a playbook for the Degelman’s to follow. In time, the brothers took on more and more responsibility, which gave Wilf some freedom from the office and allowed him to focus on his passion of farming.
But it wasn’t all sunshine and balloons. Wilf was known for his stubbornness and each family member had to “slug it out” with the old man.
Interestingly, the Degelman 5 leveraged their own leadership styles, though no one would call it a “textbook” org chart.
While Wilf held the president title, Paul says the brothers also ran the company like they were in charge. “When any of us were on the road, we’d speak like we were president. We took a lot of liberties. Sometimes, it was awkward or got us in trouble, but maybe it also drove our success.”
As Wilf, Scott and Roland began to enjoy retirement, Paul and Jack followed what had worked, in a “What Would Wilf Do?” kind of approach.
In 1993, just a year after the landroller got going, the firm’s next big move was with the Strawmaster heavy harrow. Western Canadian farmers were embracing air seeder technology with no-tillage and continuous cropping, and demand fell off for Degelman’s cultivators and chisel plows.
Continuous cropping brought a new problem that farmers hadn’t experienced before, residue problems. For generations, farmers summer-fallowed their land to prepare it for the next year.
“Dad started working on a heavy harrow; a new thing for the time,” says Jack. “A couple little harrows were out there, but Dad brought a no-nonsense approach that was simple and super tough. They ran better at 12 mph than they did at 6. You could run it that fast.”
The company was in a bind until the Strawmaster got going in 1995. “We were having a tough time making payroll, and everybody pulled up their socks and went to town on this thing. Demo after demo and show after show, the whole company rallied behind this product,” says Paul. “Within 4 years, we were selling 600 units a year.
“That changed us from a company that was in debt and trying to figure out how to make payroll, to one where we could expand, pay off the banks and put us in a excellent position to grow the company.” The company continued to expand and innovate under his sons’ leadership.
By 2010, farming practices across North America demanded a new approach to tillage, and in response, Degelman developed the Pro-Till, a high-speed disc machine that now represents the majority of production.
In 2020, private equity fund Westcap made a $63 million investment into the company, taking Degelman’s ability to grow to a new level. The Degelman family still has ownership, and family members sit on the board. Wilf, now 94, lives at home with daughter, Leanne.
