TWO RIVERS, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A Two Rivers man is celebrating his 60-year work anniversary. Sixty years… one company.
Don Siebold has been working for Two Rivers metal tube manufacturer Formrite since the time John F. Kennedy was president.
“I enjoyed it. I enjoy the company, I enjoy the type of work that Formrite was doing. I just felt at home here. I had opportunities. I did go and interview at different places for different jobs, but no, I always came back to Formrite.”
To celebrate his milestone as well as a colleague’s retirement, all the workers were treated to a lunch — and to Siebold’s surprise and delight, a brand-new John Deere riding mower.
The mower was delivered by his grandson, a summer employee this year– and the third generation of his family to work at Formrite.
“Funny thing was, I saw this in the back room. I said, ‘Oh, Dave got a new lawnmower.’ I did not think that was my lawnmower,” joked Siebold.
Dave being Dave Wage, the current CEO of Formrite.
Siebold has been at Formrite for nearly as long as Wage has been alive.
That wasn’t lost on Wage when he took the reigns from his father.
“I saw in him all of the characteristics I wanted in a plant manger. So, we fairly quickly promoted him out of the department he was working in to plant manager. You can learn a lot from him. Just listen carefully and listen to those years of wisdom.”
But when Siebold started, he started small back in 1963.
“I started at 19 years old, working an abrasive saw,” remembered Siebold. “Dollar thirty-eight an hour. Gas was 22 cents a gallon — can you imagine?”
And as the company grew over the decades, so did his role.
Colleague Lori Meyer has been with Formrite for more than 30 years herself. When she started, Siebold was her supervisor.
“Do you want a father figure? Do you want a mentor? He was all of the above. There isn’t any way to describe him but a truly genuine person. Don mentored a lot of people here, and I get emotional when I think about it.”
Siebold has advice to the younger generations just starting their own careers:
“It’s not always the money. You have to be happy where you’re working. You can make hundreds of thousands of dollars, and if you get up in the morning, ‘I hate my job, I hate my job’ — that’s not fun. Life goes by too fast for that.”
Over the last decade or so, Siebold has stepped back into a smaller, part-time role as project coordinator.
He says he’d like to work a couple more years but doesn’t think retirement is too far off.
