CEDAR VALLEY LIVING LARGE PROGRESS 2020
SUNDAY, MARCH 1, 2020 wcfcourier.com | SECTION H
KELLY WENZEL PHOTOS, COURIER STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Lynn Moran, a Waterloo Foundry core setter, sets cores onto a fixture so the gantry can set them into the mold at the John Deere Foundry on Jan. 15.
Deere fires up Foundry work Company continues to invest millions into its Cedar Valley operations PAT KINNEY
For the Courier
WATERLOO — It’s been a long journey from the U.S. Virgin Islands to the floor of John Deere’s Waterloo Foundry for Shihani Wallace. But it’s a good place to be. And Waterloo continues to be a good place for John Deere, as it continues to invest millions into its Waterloo operations and employs 5,000 people, drawing workers from the Cedar Valley and beyond, like Wallace. He had already relocated to the area before being hired at Deere. “I went to college at Upper Iowa (University) and then I came here,” said Wallace, who’s worked at the foundry eight years. He played football at Upper Iowa University. “I started off at Rockwell in Sumner, and they ended up closing down, and I was in need of a job” — just as he and his wife were expecting their first child. “We just job searched. My wife’s grandfather actually used to work here back in the ’70s, ’80s, so he recommended I apply here.” It was the right decision for him and his family.
Core Room operator Shihani Wallace dips a core in a ceramic heat resistant solution to prevent iron penetration at the John Deere Foundry. “It’s great. It’s fun,” he said. “The people here are nice to be around. It’s a family atmosphere.” He and his wife have two boys, ages 9 and 4, and live in La Porte City. His goal, he said, is “hopefully, moving up the ranks to a salaried position.”
The camaraderie Wallace has experienced is essential. Deere is the only large agricultural manufacturer with its own foundry in the U.S., manufacturing castings for the Waterloo operations and companywide. It’s a a big operation and requires a lot of teamwork.
“I’m the quality guy, the liaison between different departments,” said Robert Bradley of Allison, who’s worked for Deere 15 years. While foundry work was looked on as grueling and undesirable decades ago, “I don’t plan on leaving the foundry. I don’t have any intention to leave here. I like it. And
proud. My main goal is to make sure we do well.” He previously worked at Schumacher Elevator in Denver. “Some of our best ideas for efficiency improvements come from the wage folks on the floor,” said Travis Weepie, a manufacturing engineering supervisor and a product of Wapsie Valley High School in Fairbank. “That’s our best resource.” The coordination within the foundry is typical of the coordination between and improvements to Deere’s various plants throughout the metro area, Waterloo factory manager Becky Guinn said. At Deere’s Tractor Cab Assembly Operations plant on East Donald Street, “We just completed limited production build for our new 8R and 7R tractors, and it went really well,” she said. “Start of production is in April. We’ve very confident of the manufacturing processes. We’ll ramp down production on the current model and start production on the 8R and 7R.” Over the course of a little more than five months, 124,000 square feet — about two football fields — of TCAO factory floor space faced a complete transformation from the ground up. Plant manufacturing engineers Please see FOUNDRY, Page H2
Deere’s Waterloo manager excited to be back PAT KINNEY
For the Courier
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WATERLOO — John Deere has a new factory manager for its Waterloo Works. She’s no stranger to Deere or the Cedar Valley. But she is the first woman to hold the post, the latest of several posts of increasing responsibility. Becky Guinn, a 28-year career Deere executive who previously worked at the Waterloo operation in the mid-2000s, took the reins last fall at Waterloo Deere’s largest North American manufacturing complex. She succeeded Dave DeVault following his retirement. Guinn, a native of Kansas and a mechanical engineering graduate of Kansas State University,
said Deere has supported her and many other women in their career climbs. She was hired as an intern at the Des Moines Works in Ankeny and spent 14 years there in manufacturing engineering and supply management. The return to Waterloo brings her full circle in many ways. “I came here in 2006 as a business unit manager out at TCAO (Tractor Cab Assembly Operations, on East Donald Street),” Guinn said. “The first time I came to Waterloo, I put my son in kindergarten.” And now, she said, “I just dropped him off at college at Iowa State. It’s amazing how quick that goes.”
She spent three years in her first stint in Waterloo. Then she moved into a manufacturing engineering director’s position based out of the Quad Cities, “trying to connect over 70 factories around the world around our manufacturing engineering competency and processes and development there.” Then she took a position in Germany, responsible for the design and sub-assembly of farm equipment operator cabs. “I took my third- and fifthgrader to Europe. We lived over there for more than two years. It was a good experience, getting
KELLY WENZEL, COURIER STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Becky Guinn, Waterloo Works factory manager, stands in the John Deere Please see GUINN, Page H2 Foundry on Jan. 15.