Meet the Founder of Applied Engineering

“I grew up on a poor dirt farm in central North Dakota, but through hard work and education, I was able to turn those humble beginnings into a huge debt.” This is how Applied Engineering founder, Dwight Hinkel, succinctly describes his background. While tongue-in-cheek, Dwight is being honest about the toll of starting a business. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s back up a bit.

Meet Dwight Hinkel, the founder of Applied Engineering.

Dwight grew up on a farm near Wing, North Dakota. He spent his childhood surrounded by agriculture and heavy machinery. He drew his professional inspiration from his uncle and his father. His uncle, Ernest Ulm, invented many products as a Mechanical Engineer for International Harvester (IH) in the 1950s and 1960s. His father was a mechanical genius and could fix anything. As a young man, Dwight realized his father was held back by his lack of education, and this drove him to seek the education he needed to excel in his professional goals.

After graduating from high school, Hinkel went on to obtain multiple degrees in Business, Computer Science, and System Analysis. After the computer science job market collapsed with NASA’s major layoffs, he and his wife moved to Fargo where Hinkel attended NDSU during the day while working full-time at Steiger Tractor at night. 

“I crammed 4 years of college into 14,” said Hinkel with a laugh. Because of his experience running certain types of machines, and because of Steiger’s ever-increasing demand, he ended up working from 6pm until 6am, 6 days a week. He did this for a year, eventually moving up to night lead man, and then night Foreman. Hinkel then moved into the office and became a manufacturing engineer. Due to this heavy workload, he had to take a couple years off from his schooling, but after 14 years, he graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, along with a breadth of experience in the engineering industry, and was therefore able to pass the PE exam immediately.

Igniting a legacy.

In 1986, Hinkel was feeling unsatisfied with his job as General Manager at Classic Roadsters, a kit car company. With a lack of engineering job opportunities in Fargo, and with his experience in the contract engineering industry, along with the encouragement of a draftsman at the kit car company by the name of Kevin Beird, he decided to start his own engineering company in Fargo, with Kevin as his first employee. 

With his degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, the name Applied Engineering was conceived.

During the formative years at Applied, Hinkel handled sales, billing, recruiting, and more. He was working 120 hours a week, trying to get this new company off the ground. There was one year where he was only home 8 weekdays out of the year. “To be honest with you, if I had to do it all over again, I don’t think I would do it. It was just too stressful,” said Hinkel of his experience. “I could’ve had a very comfy job working as an engineer anywhere. Though I probably would have had to move out of state.” 

Back then, there weren’t engineering opportunities in places like North Dakota. All of the work was in California, or New York, or someone could potentially find work in Minneapolis. But because of Hinkel’s sacrifices, 40 years later, the name Applied Engineering has become well-known among manufacturers across the region, and thousands of engineers have been given the opportunity to find employment close to home.

Today, Dwight is retired, but that doesn’t stop him from keeping busy. He is an accomplished author, with a book on Amazon called Puppies, Lambs, Bunnies & Motorcycles, about his early life and his introduction to mechanical discovery. He also co-authors numerous books with other writers, teaches Mechanical Engineering classes at the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, and works on a variety of engineering projects of his own design.

In the next article, we’ll talk about the early days of Applied – the challenges and wins, and how Dwight and his team grew together.

You can order a copy of Puppies, Lambs, Bunnies & Motorcycles here. Dwight will personally sign any paper copy sold!