By Joe Kertzman, managing editor, Badger Common’Tater
In the northern plains of West Fargo, North Dakota, Crary Industries is best known in the Wisconsin potato and vegetable industry as home to Lockwood Manufacturing.
With a history that includes sunflower seed and bean harvesting equipment, anhydrous applicators, and cutting attachments for combines and swathers, Crary Company was sold to an investment firm, in 1999, and became part of a group of manufacturers specializing in potato planting.
One of those companies, Lockwood, boasted a manufacturing legacy dating back to 1935, but it was based in Nebraska in outdated facilities.
The decision was made to double the size of Crary Company to 200,000 square feet and move the Lockwood product line to West Fargo, in 2001.
In the years since, the company has been able to stabilize its market share as one of two dominant domestic manufacturers of potato equipment and penetrate new international markets.
In 2005, two of the potato companies, Mayo Manufacturing and Harriston Industries, were sold (and have since combined to become Harriston-Mayo) to their employees.
That set the stage for the sale of the Crary Company to ECHO Incorporated of Lake Zurich, Illinois, creating a new company named Crary Industries.
Today, Crary continues to make quality products for the agricultural market, and potato planters, harvesters, and foreign material separators/cleaning systems (VACS Mobile) under the Lockwood brand.
