General Irrigation’s Redesigned Floating Pump
General Irrigation's floating pump.
G
eneral Irrigation and Dewatering of Oakes, North Dakota, designs and installs a wide variety of deepwell, submersible, and towable pumps, including the versatile Dyna Flo pump. One of the newest additions to its lineup is a completely redesigned floating pontoon pump. General Irrigation can build models to accommodate any model of pump or application. In this interview, General Irrigation President Dana Rosendahl tells Irrigation Leader about the design and capabilities of the new floating pump. Irrigation Leader: Please tell about your background and your company.
30 | IRRIGATION LEADER | September 2020
Irrigation Leader: How many employees do you have? Dana Rosendahl: When I bought the company, there were 3 or 4 employees, depending on the season; today there are 10–13. We’ve expanded the company; in the beginning, we primarily dealt with irrigation. A lot of other irrigation companies handle center-pivot systems only. We handle center pivots, but we also handle towlines, wheel lines, traveling guns, solid set, and other things. We’ve expanded into sewer and water as well: We’re a licensed sewer-water contractor in North and South Dakota. We started a dewatering division and do subsurface dewatering for contractors. In addition to General Irrigation, we developed another corporation, Dyna Flo, to build and market our Dyna Flo pumps. We first built a flood pump, then lift pumps for field irrigationleadermagazine.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF GENERAL IRRIGATION.
Dana Rosendahl: I grew up on a dairy farm, and as I was growing up, I learned how to weld by fixing and building equipment on the farm. That created an interest in building and manufacturing. I did a couple of years of vocationaltechnical training for welding when I was in high school, and I have some manufacturing experience in welding, forming metal, and assembly lines. That’s one of the things that has aided us in manufacturing these pumps. I started
working at General Irrigation in 1982 and have been here ever since. We never do the same thing twice: We’re always working for somebody different, doing something different, and honing our skills. It’s always fun, and as long as it is, I’m going to keep on doing it.
