CEO Leroy Billesberger has many words of praise for his company, WeldCor Supplies Inc., a standalone, customer-direct provider of general supplies, welding equipment, and materials. Committed to being a recognized and respected supplier, WeldCor offers a wide range of quality products with outstanding service at discounted rates by selling wholesale direct to customers.
With warehouses spread throughout Canada, WeldCor offers the best and most reliable products and services, including industrial and welding gases, safety clothing, welding and fabrication equipment, and a comprehensive line of MIG, TIG, hardbanding, and hardfacing products for a wide range of industries.
“WeldCor’s commitment is to make sure the customers’ needs are met,” says Billesberger. “We always stress the quality of various products and try our best to assist the customer in making the correct decisions.” This is done by properly serving the customer from the proposal stage of their request through to delivery.
Taking a different angle
“From the corporate aspect, we believe in a triangular ideology that incorporates quality, service, and price, and for this reason, WeldCor takes a strong stand against any inter-company business bribery for financial gain,” Billesberger says firmly. “For all employees of WeldCor, we stress the triangular personal commitment of honesty, integrity, and ethics.” With the welding supply industry servicing a small subset of companies, it is vital that customer relationships are valued by every member of WeldCor’s staff.
As WeldCor’s customers come to know its culture of honesty, they also come to trust its employees to assist with important decisions, understanding that the company has their best interests at heart (even referring them to a different firm if that means that their needs will be better met). “We’ve become known for not just selling product to an end customer but also as a unique part of their supply chain with our willingness to help them out,” Billesberger says.
Instilling a deep sense of honesty and commitment into his employees to pass along to clients is a top priority for Billesberger and could be considered the backbone of WeldCor’s ongoing success. “We’re also known as being very technically strong, and we have technical knowledge within this company,” he says, adding that there are 200 to 300 years’ worth of combined experience amongst WeldCor’s employees. “Between us, somebody has the right answer, and we’re smart enough to know that it’s not just knowing the answer, but knowing when you don’t know and finding someone who does.”
Source of strength
This commitment to care extends, of course, to WeldCor’s products, sourcing quality items either nationally or from mills in Italy, South Korea, Vietnam, Ukraine, or Japan, and passing along good prices to clients.
“We could make more profit, but we believe customers will always return if we’re always honest with them,” says Billesberger. “They trust us to give them quality product at a competitive price. Getting their product on time, and knowing that what they get is a good quality product, is very important to them.”
This commitment to fairness and reliability runs deeply throughout WeldCor’s policies and practices, with Billesberger striving to maintain them for the sake of both the company and its customers. “You reap what you sow through honesty and integrity, and your customers realize you have ethics, and they trust you,” he says. “That’s really what’s important. You can look at yourself in the mirror—if you have a conscience—and say, ‘That was a good day.’ We feel very humbled that customers trust us as much as they do. It’s absolutely amazing.”
Giving back
The team’s integrity extends to involvement in its community, another vital component of the company’s success, whether it’s the MS Society of Canada, Cycling for Cancer, or a local car racing sponsorship. But WeldCor’s biggest charitable effort goes to supporting the “Make-A-Wish” Foundation, raising, with the help of customers, more than $125,000 to date, with hopes to improve that this year to $150,000 through an annual golf tournament as well as its Christmas “Welding For Wishes” campaign in November.
“It’s a core philosophy that we should give back to the community that supports us,” says Billesberger. “We need to help our kids out because I believe that when we have local issues, we should try to help with local issues, and then we can expand from there.”
Make-A-Wish has been very important to WeldCor over the years, with the company putting between $15,000 and $20,000 of its own cash into the golf tournament, and vendors and suppliers donating a variety of items such as golf clubs to be auctioned off. “It’s a beautiful symbiotic relationship between a vendor, ourselves as the middleman, and the end customer,” Billesberger says. “And the beautiful thing is that in a small way we can actually help some of those young kids who need help.”
Planning for growth
When it comes to future growth, it’s Billesberger’s desire that WeldCor be Western Canada’s leading independent welding supply company, the one that’s known for treating each customer as an individual, not a number.
“I started this as a single store, and my long-term goal was to be the largest independent in Western Canada, because that’s where I was born and raised,” he says, adding that he now has stores in Prince George, Surrey, Chilliwack, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, and a new store in Winnipeg. “The only place we don’t have a store is Calgary, and we’re working on that right now,” he shares. “When that’s done, that’s a long-term goal accomplished.”
Beyond that, other notable goals include keeping those triangular ideologies going strong within the company. “What I hope to achieve is, if people hear of someone needing something for the welding industry, they’ll say, ‘Go to WeldCor, because they will treat you right,’” Billesberger says. “That’s our focus, and that’s a great testimony; that’s what you want. It’s word-of-mouth more than anything else. Everything else is just dollars and cents.”
And while the company has faced some challenges over the past few years, including battling through all the effects of COVID, the ongoing stress of finding qualified employees, and now tariffs, these are all issues that every independently owned company faces, and it’s important to have a thick skin and “roll with the punches” to be able to operate in today’s ever-changing business environment.
Accomplishments and blessings
“Our biggest accomplishment is that WeldCor has employees who, because of our core beliefs, have been with us since the 1990s,” says Billesberger. “It’s truly a blessing to have employees and friends of this calibre. I have said to new employees over the years, ‘Welcome to the WeldCor family,’ and this is a true statement.”
Along with quality product and customer care, he is also a big believer in the importance of enjoying the workplace where you spend so much of your time. “The most important thing is I love what I do. This is fun,” he says, noting that whenever anyone visits WeldCor, that sense of fun is evident. “I’ve had people say, ‘I can see you really love this business. Your eyes light up.’”
A welder by trade and a self-described “tinkerer,” Billesberger says he enjoys playing around while trying to build something better, but his extensive knowledge means he provides technical support as well. “We’re a technically oriented company, doing tech support for probably about 200 welding distributors across the United States,” he says, adding that he’s well known with the independents in the USA, even offering a 200-page product catalogue, with about 7,000 to 8,000 books circulated.
But proud as he is of what he’s built over the years and the reputation WeldCor commands throughout the industry, he stresses that one particular person in his life is owed a huge debt of gratitude.
“None of this community would be possible without the fact that by my side I have my wife, who supports me 110 percent and always has,” he says. “There’s no doubt that it makes a person want to get up in the morning and try to do a little bit better.”
Doing better in business means perfecting the quality of service so that clients always know that WeldCor will treat them right. When asked what most sets the company apart from others in the industry, Billesberger answers immediately: “We care.”
