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Title: Willard Wall WALCO Calf News Magazine
Date: 1993-07-01
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| Title | Willard Wall WALCO Calf News Magazine |
| Date | 1993-07-01 |
| Description | The Fabulous Flint Hills Ss : . By Betty Jo Geiger —. ii° ssociate Editor » ust as the Sioux Indians worshiped the Black Hills of South Dakota as ®” sacred ground, the cattlemen who graze the Flint Hills of Kansas display deep reverence for the rolling green hills that provide their liveli- hood. In almost hushed tones, they visit about the miraculous combination (Continued on page 24) For cattlemen, spring in the Flint Hills of Kansas is like no other place on earth. Sorted according to color, the gold Charolais appear out of the rainy mist. Mr. WALCO ... Willard Wall WMS , aA oc By Betty Jo Geiger ssociate Editor Editor's Note: This is another in CALF News Cattle Feeder’s history series on personalities who have been instrumental in the development of the United States’ cattle feeding industry. This is the final segment of a series showcasing Willard Wall, a pioneer in the animal health distribution business and founder of WALCO International, Inc. Bob Barrett of Barrett & Crofoot and Willard Wall visit at a livestock meeting. I had heard you could get financing Willard Wall is proudest of his people. ¢ ¢ B: 1954, we were operat- on your accounts receivable, but he = = = ing the animal health said no.” company out of an old Willard, not to be deterred, went to -" | tin shed behind the Fresno to see the regional manager, ye 3 _| store,” Willard said. We sat on Mr. Zink. Zink said they did finance ie = |five-gallon cans and made deals. receivables, but only in San Francisco. Mother was the bookkeeper, and at So Willard drove to San Francisco and my > that time Norm Gabor came on went to a gray, 14-story building in a board as our CPA.” Gabor became the downtown area. = a real asset to the company, accord- T took the elevator to the 14th ing to Willard. floor, where I encountered a great big bust of Gianinni, the founder of Bank — LL America. The entire floor was open Dealing With The Bankers and there were a lot of people. I walked up to a man’s desk, intro- About six months after the Wall § duced myself and told him I needed brothers went into business for $3,000 and wanted to use our receiv- themselves, they were faced witha ables as collateral. cash shortage. Their father had He said, ‘Mr. Wall, we do ac- come through the Depression and counts receivable financing, but you had run for the last 20 years are in the wrong place. We do that without using a bank; he did not over on Polk Street.’ trust them. So the brothers had to On Polk Street they praised my start from scratch. accounts receivable and told me they I went to Bank America herein = would be happy to give me financing Porterville and the vice president, ... but it would be a good idea to go Mr. Bakotich, turned me down flat. _ back to Mr. Zink to get the loan. Back CALF News Cattle Feeder - July 1993 in Fresno, Mr. Zink asked me to go to Mr. Bakotich, since he was the local banker. In Porterville, I went to see Mr. Bakotich again. He was irate. He told me to come back tomorrow to see about the loan. The best part of the story is because I had been gone so long, the accounts receivable had come in and we didn’t need the money anymore. Through the years, though, that bank has been a very large part of our success.” ‘bee Adding On After the first acquisition, the store in Phoenix was built. More products were becoming available, and then Wyeth Laboratories came out with a product that took the feedlot market by storm. Always versatile, the Walls sold everything from tack to tags. When a clothing store in El Centro, Ca., got in trouble with credit, the Wall brothers went down to see if they could work with the owners. They set up a 50/50 partnership. We sent our auditor down to check out the books, and he found out Where Quality Locations of the WALCO divisions are shown on a redwood slab in the conference room of the corporate office. they owed five years of withholding night, from the hotel room, I called taxes. The federal government was Mr. Bakotich and told him we going to put a lock on the clothing needed $20,000.” store. So we gave them a proposal Come see me when you get back — either buy or sell — and they to town,’ was his reply. We flew were happy to sell. They needed home the next morning and went to $20,000 for their 50 percent. That the bank. Is A C ommitment A Well-engineered, field-tested design yields efficient ration mixers. A Strength from rib-reinforced, welded body The Most Complete Line Of | structure only. Four-Auger Mixers, _& Unequaled mix time, throughness and overall Ranging From 203 to 900 : performance. True Cubic Feet. SESS eterna een esa ees Men raneranera ahahaha ata Sas A Durable, reliable products since 1948 —— from the industry leader. Setting lhe Staudards - Call Us For A Demo Today. international Inquiries Welcome P.O. Drawer 7, 600 Oak St. Eaton, CO. 80615 303/454-2291 800/227-1702 Fax 303/454-3491 CALF News Cattle Feeder - July 1993 His desk was off to Lethbridge, Alberta, into the bank.” Willard WEA = By 1968, we had in ; : a recalled. When we got eight separate corpora- there, he showed us into th iS b ET tions. Don Garlin was a room at the rear of the rey i both one of our first sales- bank and shut the door. men. He was a Did he take us to the wor | ds. ee classmate of Kermit’s woodshed! It turned | ai and played football out he didn’t appreciate 2 a Le, with me at USC. He See oa COE ee rey, ,000 on only our ootball for the 49ers word. wor k Ts and did some ranch- In 1956, Bank "7 ing. He ran the store America Vice President S | eo) at El Centro. We Fred Pierre — a little | en [[o}'A would fly him down short guy — and my on Mondays and back brother Kermit decided an d / g rf on Fridays. to start a store in Twin Another store Falls, Id. We borrowed to wor k $20,000 to open it. Dad always said it took five years to get a business going, but so far every- thing had gone just right for us and we were not used to waiting. When Kermit went up to Twin Falls the first year, he lost money. When he lost money the second had lost the $20,000. T will never forget what he said ... Did I ask you for the money?’ The store turned around the very next year. My dad always said the first mistake is always the least costly.” Dr. Ray Cerniga, a consulting veterinarian, joined the organiza- tion in 1956. He is still with the organization today. ee eee Still More Stores Possibly because the whole family had started the business, the | Walls adopted a company policy that is still in force: We pay no attention to nepotism. In some cases the third generation is now working for the company. Many couples run the stores across the country. The Walls believe in family operations. Next, they added Sunnyside, Garlin started was WA] tn under the stairwell at | | | | | | Wa., working with the Washington / Cattle Feeders and a number of Canadians who came down to buy | \ there. Eventually Max Wicham took $10,000 and started a store in CALF News Cattle Feeder - July 1993 | year, Kermit lost interest. We went | to Pierre and told him we were going to close the store because we | the Clovis Sale Yard. peopl = ‘ You walked in and backed out! All of our stores in the central part of the country developed fr from \ there.” —~_ wat — One of Willard’s favorite success stories is about Louie Holiday, who now manages the El Paso Division. Kermit hired Louie to sell new had been working as a cattle doctor | | | products that the other salesmen had _ \ declined to market in the field. Louie \ sively degraded in the for one of the feedyards in Blythe, Ca., and knew a bit about medicine. He was sent to a Dale Carnegie course, which was pretty new at the time, and polished his sales skills. Louie sold everything he presented to his clien- tele, and that infuriated the other salesmen. One day, Louie wrote me a sweet letter. He said, ‘Mr. Wall, I under- stand that WALCO opens new companies. I would like to invest.’ At the same time, I had a customer who was running cattle up from Mexico through Texas. He said, ‘Why don’t you take a look at El Paso?’ and I did. Louie Holiday opened up the division in a converted grocery store and it took off. He talked me into building a new store for him out in an isolated part of El Paso, which I had reservations about, but soon Interstate 10 was built right in front of it. That store has been mighty successful, and Louie has been smiling ever since. As I said before, all I want is for the people who work for us to have those things in life that they want. I couldn’t be prouder of them. All of Te = \ » SOYPLUS NEWS By Doug Stidham,PhD SoyPLUS Division Manager Bypass Protein for Beef? It Makes Sense! Protein is a hot topic in feed yards these days — the talk is about feeding more protein than called for by the NRC, due to beef- implant programs and bet- ter-performing cattle. A recent Iowa State feed- lot study concluded: The results of these trials sug- gest that yearling steers capable of gaining 4 lb./day or greater, May require up to 14% protein in dietary dry matter.” The study also stated: proteins less exten- rumen than soybean meal could be used more effi- ciently and could be added at a smaller percentage of ee diet.” SoyPLUS, our patented, All- natural soybean meal with 60% rumen bypass, may be the answer in these higher protein rations. Earlier Iowa State research proved the value of SoyPLUS for young growing attle. A current grow-finish tudy at Purdue involving SoyPLUS will provide more answers on bypass protein for beef. | If you're looking at boost- ing protein in your feed- ard, give me a Call at: 1-800-843-4769. | HIGH-BYPASS SOYBEAN MEAL SOY RLUS. SoyPLUS/West Central Box 68 Ralston, 1A 51459 Willard’s formula is simple: Retain capital to grow. Don’t be highly leveraged. Never owe the bank too much. Take risks but never risk everything. Provide for the long haul. Stay with the core business. Willard also sees tremendous opportunity in the future of the industry. There are heightened opportunities for growth. There will never be enough dollars to take advantage of the opportunities.” He cited the economies in Mexico, Canada and South America as very real opportunities for expan- sion. WALCO and Willard ... Now WALCO has come a long way since Willard sold hamburgers and triple dip ice cream cones for 10 cents apiece. (His mother told him he would go broke doing that.) WALCO is now spread across 18 states and employs more than 700 people. Other compa- | eee he ety. nies include Western Veterinary Supply, headed up by Ray Cerniga; es —§ around the world for the next 15 CAVL with James Sheldon; Province Changes years. He now lives in Las Vegas. Livestock Supply in Canada; Sunwest He did it his way. Industries; RX Veterinary Products; There came a day in 1965 when In the early 70s we hada meeting Animal Health Express, and Info Tech, Kermit came in and said ‘Brother, in Sun Valley with allofthe salesmen 4 computer division. _ you are going to buy me out or you and their wives. We put the eight Willard ap VERY realistic about his i are going to have a new partner. I'm companies together. Stock was role in the business. 1 not doing this for the rest of my life.’ issued to everyone. Then in 1975, we A number of years ago, I was _ Norman set up a buyout program. set up an ESOP program. We were driving back from Fresno and realized Kermit went to New Zealand, one of the first. With our program, there was nothing I could do that day bought a 57-foot yacht and sailed we very seldom lose a salesman.” that would make a difference to the company. My job had become one of taking care of the problem areas. The Truly caring about the people of WALCO, one of the mementos in Willard’s company had grown to the point where office is Amos Richards’ hat. Richards, who headquartered out of the my individual efforts were not going to Nebraska area, was a dear friend and longtime associate. sustain the company. That day it = aS struck me: I was completely dependent on the people in the company. = We have developed a team of i a 2 = ig younger management to do the day-to- : | ? day work, but I have the best of both worlds. I get to go to work at a jobI enjoy, and I get to work with people.” WALCO '’s corporate office is the second floor of the old Masonic Temple in downtown Porterville. Willard’s office is part of the old dance floor where he danced with his first date. When he is not working, Willard loves to fish for salmon and hunt for pheasants. He and his wife Pegge have a lovely new home, seven children and 19 grandchildren. Asa cattleman he is a success ... all six cows had calves this year. And Willard is in the same business he started in ... the people business. on |