A prominent producer of material lifts, elevated access equipment, safety guarding items, and industrial steel work platforms (mezzanines), Wildeck Inc. proudly celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. The company got its start in 1976, as an engineering division of a steel supply company, and has since evolved into a manufacturing powerhouse, “providing the structural backbone for the world’s most complex supply chains.”
Located in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Wildeck offers efficient storage, lifting, guarding, and high-access solutions to increase operational capacity, productivity, and safety. Its products boost profitability for manufacturing operations, retail backrooms, warehouses, distribution centers, logistics centers, and a variety of other businesses.
Additionally, the company underwent a significant organizational transformation in 2007 when staff members approved an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), and is now a part of Holden Industries, Inc., a business entirely owned by its employees.
Wildeck’s 50th anniversary also follows a significant milestone for the company: consolidating its three Wisconsin facilities onto a 21.97-acre complex with a much larger production facility in 2024, when it finished building its new, state-of-the-art headquarters in Waukesha. At the same time, the company opened a new office and production facility in Tolleson, Arizona, to expand its activities in the West.
The employee-owned advantage
“What you get with an ESOP that you may not get with other organizations is a sense of ownership and a stake in what you do, day in and day out,” says Patrick Stapf, Senior Marketing Manager. “It appears that people who spend the most time here, like those with longer tenures, tend to care more. That’s why I think ESOPs outperform non-ESOPs in a variety of categories.”
Mike Twitty, Outside Regional Sales Manager, agrees. “A lot of our team members take a personal vested interest in making sure our customers get the best experience and that their projects go as smoothly as possible,” he says.
Along with its ESOP status, Stapf also attributes Wildeck’s longstanding success to its engineering expertise and level of craftsmanship in the shop. “When you’ve got employees who care a bit more, you expect that to show in the product you put out,” he stresses. “The scope of product is definitely a specialty of Wildeck.”
Breadth in the market
From smaller-scale machinery and structures to those that span multiple football fields in length, Wildeck has done it all. “Everything we do is custom, designed and fabricated to our customers’ application requirements—that’s the name of our game,” says Stapf. Customers come to Wildeck with very particular applications, and the company then designs and manufactures to those requirements.
Customers include some of the largest players in the e-commerce sector, who often rely on Wildeck’s product to be the first in the door. In fact, when building a brand-new distribution center, Wildeck’s steel structures are often the first installed, followed by the rack, shelving, and automated systems. “If our product isn’t there on time or parts are missing, that carries down the line,” says Stapf. “It’s very important when working with a supplier in the category we’re in that we do our best to make sure everything is high quality and on time.”
Apart from its foothold in the e-commerce industry, unique, public-facing projects over the years have included viewing platforms for the National World War II Museum in New Orleans and a material lift on Fremont Street in Las Vegas for the SlotZilla Zip Line.
“A big advantage for us is the breadth of the market we work with,” adds Twitty. “Anything from fulfillment centers to pharmaceutical hubs, data centers, food processing, heavy manufacturing, or even museum spaces. Such widespread application allows us to help a wide spectrum of customers.”
Customer care always comes first and helping businesses achieve maximum productivity is key. “We help our customers get the most out of their facilities for safety, efficiency, and capacity,” says Stapf.
The Wildeck way
A major player in the material handling equipment industry, Wildeck services those with material, tangible items that need to be stored or protected. Clients come to Wildeck when they’re running low on capacity and need to add a second or third level for increased square footage. They may also seek the company out if they’re looking to improve safety with steel barriers for forklift traffic or if they require assistance with efficiency.
“If they need a safer or faster way to move materials from the ground level to a second or third level on up, they’ll seek us out for our material lift products, and all of our products can tie together,” Stapf says. “If you choose us for a mezzanine or structural steel platform, maybe you also need a safe or efficient way to get materials up to that mezzanine level. We can offer our material lifts that attach to our steel decks to allow customers to do that as well.”
It really comes down to Wildeck’s superior structural design elements, adds Twitty. “Where many of our competitors may only do a certain design type, like cold form C section, for example, or only beam and bar joist, we do it all. We’ll design whatever makes the most sense for the application, whether it’s a light-duty, cold form structure all the way up to a 40 or 50-foot span. The product quality at the end speaks for itself, and I think that’s why customers continue to come back.”
Committed to community
In addition to its customers, Wildeck is also deeply committed to its home and community, says John Murphy, Senior Director of Sales. “We’ve stayed local to Waukesha for the entirety of Wildeck and are highly involved in the community,” he says.
With all products proudly made in the USA, Wildeck works with a variety of steel suppliers, primarily in the Midwest, to add value through its products, whether that’s cutting components down to the proper size, drilling into structural framing members for assembly, or doing the welding and painting on-site at its campus. “Essentially, we’re taking all these components from various steel suppliers—mostly local—bringing that into our shop, adding value to it, and then the result is essentially building components that we place on a truck and ship out to our customers,” Stapf tells us.
It’s a ground-up operation, adds Twitty. “We’re taking the raw materials, we’re doing all the engineering and design work in-house for our structural design, and we have been able to own all the manufacturing processes to output a product that we have control over,” he explains. “That provides extra value to the customer, because we’re not reliant on as much outsourcing as others may be in the industry.”
The company has its own team of engineers, including structural, mechanical, and electrical engineers, and has found a great deal of success in hiring through local colleges in the area. Being an ESOP company, meanwhile, means offering an attractive culture that welcomes communication and transparency amongst team members. “I think that lends itself to a lot more buy-in and individual ownership of each project, being able to leave your mark,” says Twitty.
It is in part this culture that has led to so many employees staying with Wildeck for decades and eventually retiring with dignity. The everyday atmosphere at Wildeck celebrates and supports the community, whether that’s participating in an Office Olympics or March Madness event, gardening programs, or charitable efforts, such as a holiday food drive through the Food Pantry of Waukesha County.
Eyes on the future
Looking ahead, Wildeck is excited to be back at MODEX 2026, the premier supply chain experience trade show—its first appearance since the pandemic—with a new product soft launch: upgrading its line of lift products and becoming more standardized with components, an effort led entirely internally with a dedicated team of employee owners.
“Essentially, we’re standardizing components to make it easier to have our product assembled on site, easier to troubleshoot, and easier to order components as needed,” Stapf explains. “We’ll still be making fully customized units for those that require it, but we’re offering a more simplified solution for the majority of applications.”
This pre-engineered and pre-configured aspect also lends itself to greater efficiency in delivering quality products on time and quickly, says Twitty. Having those units to fall back on as a baseline, and then expanding the portfolio from there, will serve to improve the customer experience. “They’ll have some good baseline products to reference, and that will cover the bulk of applications,” he says. “We’ll be able to expand from there for anybody who wants to take advantage of all the custom designs right now, but we’ll have some things that are locked and loaded and ready to go from the get-go.”
Aside from MODEX, the Wildeck team is looking forward to continuing to grow. Nowadays, it’s running two shifts to keep up with demand, utilizing all the new equipment and planning for future expansion. “The number of projects really saw a large uptick through the latter half of last year—a healthy challenge for our design team, our engineers, and all of our shop employees as well,” says Twitty. “We’ve found ourselves scaling up to accommodate that.” That included a hiring spree over last summer, adding new positions at both locations in Arizona and Wisconsin.
On the marketing side, Stapf looks forward to promoting Wildeck’s new products and letting the world know what sets the company apart. “On a personal level, I’m excited to see how these take flight over the next year or two as we build momentum on those standard units,” he shares. At the end of the day, he says, “our bread and butter is upgrading facilities.”
Even with its many impressive achievements—including the upcoming 50th anniversary—it is Wildeck’s people and their commitment to quality that truly differentiates this company. “The longevity within the company definitely helps set us apart,” says Murphy. “It’s the long-tenured people who work here that are not only doing a fantastic job but are mentoring our new employees to ensure we pass those levels of service on down the line. We’re committed to meeting and exceeding customers’ expectations.”
