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In
1987, at age 20, Steve Daigle began doing business with South
Side Welding and Sandblasting
as a subcontractor. In 1988 he bought the
company and equipment to become sole owner and operator.
Daigle
Brothers Southside Welding and Sandblasting
resulted in 1991 when Steve partnered with his brother Lee. In 1998 Steve bought out his brother’s
portion of the company and the little repair shop began repositioning
itself by doing miscellaneous fabrication work along with sandblasting
and painting for local paper mills and other companies.
A major turning point for what is now Daigle
Brothers, Inc. (DBI)
came in 1993 when they bid on and were selected for their first big
structural steel project for the Tomahawk Middle School.
One
year later the company moved across the street into what, at the time,
seemed like a well-laid-out building of 30 x 80 feet. The facility has
seen modifications many times, including a
7,000-square-foot addition to house their growing machine shop
business. Equipment in the machine shop includes a 5” G & L Boring
Bar, a Haas Vertical Machining Center, and a 15 Ton Bridge Crane. In
2007 a small addition was necessary for the automated
beam transfer shuttles and conveyors which
were designed and built in house. These help cut down on handling time
and crane use. At this time DBI has a full time employee assigned to
Quality Control. Since the summer of 2008, the drafting department has
grown
to 9 technicians and is an outsource for other fabricators.
Today,
DBI is an AISC certified steel fabricator and machine shop that in 2006
alone saw gross sales increase by 50% totaling $7.2 million. DBI has supplied the structural
steel for award-winning commercial buildings and specialty sites around
the state. Steel fabrication has remained
DBI's core focus, and they’ve become a frequent contributor to large
commercial
buildings constructed by contractors such as; Miron Construction, Oscar
J. Boldt Construction, and CR Meyer. For
example, DBI has been involved with four distinctive Hummer
dealerships; three in the Wisconsin area and one in Minneapolis. The
Milwaukee-based, Bergstrom
Automotive
facility was cited as “Wisconsin’s Top Project in 2002” by Wisconsin
Builder for
its “unique steel design”.
DBI
has received recognition for the Peninsula Players Theatre in Door
County’s Fish Creek. Much of this outdoor
theatre’s tube steel structure is uniquely exposed, and the project was
among the winners in a worldwide competition sponsored by Design Data,
a company that markets SDS/2, a sophisticated three-dimensional
structural drafting software system. The
project, constructed by Oscar J. Boldt Construction, is featured in
Design Data’s 2007 calendar with prominent mention of Daigle Brothers
as the detailer and fabricator. DBI was
also a supplier for the UW-Oshkosh Student Recreation and Wellness
Center, numerous jobs for the Wausau and Stevens Point school
districts, the Packaging Corporation of America Tomahawk Mill, and the
latest additions at the new Harley Davidson facility also in Tomahawk. DBI, in 2007, was awarded
the contract for 800 tons of structural steel for the Riverview
Hospital in Wisconsin Rapids and ,in 2008, was awarded the contract for
1,744 tons of structural steel for Appleton Medical Center Bed Tower
Addition.
Daigle
Brothers’ drafting department uses an SDS/2 or AutoCAD, the standard in
the general computer-aided-design (CAD) industry. This
complexity in selection of a fundamental toolset is indicative of the
sophistication of today’s structural systems. Design
and production processes demand constant training, and for this reason,
the company has strong ties to the Tomahawk School District and area
technical colleges.
To
this day, Daigle Brother’s loyalty to customers and quality keeps the
company’s reputation intact. Together with
the support of their dedicated employees, DBI will strive to preserve
the vision and mission of the company. DBI
remains committed to the values set forth since the beginning.
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