The Startup Years

After 40 years, countless business changes, and as many different people involved, it’s easy to forget about the early days of a business. But those days formed the foundation of the Applied Engineering we all know today.

As with any new company, the first handful of years were a major learning experience. When asked how it felt to start a company, founder, Dwight Hinkel, said “Although self confident and very familiar with business and engineering processes, the idea of hiring, managing staff, and having sufficient capital was daunting.”

Applied’s Early Growth

Despite the mountain that lay before it, Applied was able to grow it’s employee count over the first few years. This employment surge meant money was the number one challenge. In addition to paying these new employees, Applied needed funds for computers, software, drafting boards, facilities, etc. According to Dwight, this was achieved through “God’s grace, LOTS of hard work, credit cards, multiple home mortgages, loans and investments from family, and the loyalty of early staff like Dean Benz, Fred Renner, Les Roehl, Dan Hinz, Steve Krahler and many others.”

The loyalty of Dean, Fred, and Les was not sequestered to just the early days. All three remained at Applied for over 30 years. Dean is still with Applied, and celebrating his 40th anniversary right alongside us! 

When asked about how it felt to be part of a brand new company, Dean Benz shared, “I was grateful to have a job for starters. I had worked at Steiger Tractor, but due to the agricultural equipment markets, the company folded, which left me and many other engineers without a job.” It seemed like the timing was perfect for a new engineering company to enter the arena.

A Philosophy Built Around the Customer

From the very beginning, Dwight had a clear vision for how Applied would operate: find the right clients, and then build around them. “The whole goal of the company in my mind was to find customers and then surround that customer with services that we can provide that make them a better company,” Dwight explained. That meant offering contract engineers, draftsmen, on-site staffing, copy services, CAD systems, and computer hardware — all under one roof. “Companies love to work with one vendor,” Dwight noted. “If they can just pick up the phone and say ‘we need three engineers that can do Laplace transforms or whatever the requirement is’ — because we’re engineers, we understand their question.”

This was a novel concept for the region. Before Applied, companies in the area relied on out-of-state firms for contract engineering support. Dwight saw the gap and filled it — and in doing so, helped create an entirely new market for engineering services in the upper Midwest.

Through his experience at Steiger, Dwight was able to form relationships with other manufacturers in the area that were instrumental in Applied’s growth, and have remained our longest standing relationships to this day! 

In the next article, we will further explore the work and the relationships that helped cement Applied as a leading engineering consultant in the region.