How Sheridan Built A Manufacturing Hub That Helps New Businesses Take Root

Taylor Wendtland once worked for Weatherby. Now the firearms manufacturer is a customer of Wendtland Machine Works.

Wendtland does most of the work himself, with occasional help from a student intern. His customers include Sheridan manufacturers such as Bill Britz’s animal-research equipment business and Tom Balding’s bits-and-spurs operation.

Wendtland trained at Sheridan College, which helped him land the job at Weatherby. He opened his own shop in 2024. Now he estimates 80% of his manufacturing work comes from local customers.

His small shop is part of a much bigger story, namely how Sheridan built a manufacturing community that not only supported the next manufacturer but encouraged new ones to set up shop.

It took years of investing in training, preparing industrial sites, and helping businesses expand. The result wasn’t just more factories. It was an ecosystem of companies that support one another.

Manufacturing employment has doubled since 2018 across Sheridan, according to figures from the Wyoming Business Council. That’s despite real headwinds from shortages of both workers and housing.

The success wasn’t easy. In fact, it started with a stunning failure. 

What Sheridan Didn’t Have

Dave Kinskey had been Sheridan’s mayor for just a few months when a plastics manufacturer expressed interest in the community.

Kinskey was all about it. He had run on a platform of economic development, and if Sheridan could land this company, it would deliver on that campaign promise.

More than that, though, it would be a breakthrough for Sheridan manufacturing. 

So he mounted a huge charm offensive. He squired the company’s representative around, helping identify potential properties and working to understand what the business needed.

He and many others in the city put considerable effort into the prospect.

Only to learn that the company was choosing Casper instead.

Kinskey didn’t let disappointment get in the way of a final, important conversation.

“I’d been trained in sales that when you lose a sale, you call them and you say, ‘I know you made your decision, and I’m not trying to change your mind. I just want to know the next time I have a customer like you, what do I need to do to close the sale?’”

From that conversation, Kinskey learned that it wasn’t the sales pitch. Sheridan was missing a key element for its success as a manufacturing hub. 

The manufacturer wanted people who could work with computer-controlled machinery, turning a design on a screen into a finished product. 

“Any townspeople who do that, I can hire them,” Kinskey recalled the manufacturer’s representative telling him. “It doesn’t matter if it’s extruded plastics or wood or metal or anything else.”

Training Pipeline

Sheridan didn’t have enough of those people. What it really needed to hook a manufacturer was a training pipeline to create those kinds of workers.

“That stuck in my mind,” Kinskey said. “You’ve got to have training ahead of growth.”

That can be a difficult investment to make. Equipment and instruction cost money before a program has many students, and before employers are necessarily there to hire them.

But without the training, Kinskey said, a new manufacturer might have to import workers rather than create opportunities for the people already living in the community. 

“Manufacturing is good for Wyoming. We’re not an algorithm state, we’re a make-stuff state,” Kinskey said. “That’s what we understand. And there’s already some manufacturing here and there all across the state.”

Manufacturing built the American middle class, Kinskey added. He believed it could help build Sheridan, too.

Whitney Benefits and its then-board president, Tom Kinnison, also saw potential in manufacturing, Kinskey said. Whitney’s support helped Sheridan College add advanced computer numerical control equipment (CNC) and expand its welding programs. 

The training pipeline had begun.

A Field Of Dreams

Workforce preparation was one piece. But it was also important to home in on which industries made the most sense for Sheridan, and then ensure they had what they needed to operate.

A 2007 regional target-industry study, undertaken through Forward Sheridan and the Wyoming Business Council, helped identify light manufacturing as a promising fit, said Robert Briggs, administrator of the Sheridan Economic and Educational Development Authority, known as SEEDA.

One of the most significant obstacles was the lack of shovel-ready industrial property.

Simply having acreage wasn’t enough, though. There was too much competition from other locations hungry for manufacturing jobs, and the costs of the infrastructure these manufacturers would need had been steadily rising.  

So Sheridan set about creating what became the Sheridan High-Tech Business Park on the north side of town.

The town’s willingness to invest local money helped it secure outside support, Kinskey said. 

“That was because we put millions of dollars of our own money in first,” he said.

Through a combination of local investment and the Business Council’s Business Ready Community grant and loan program, what had been pasture became a field of dreams — a place built with the hope that manufacturers would come.

Nothing Succeeds Like Success

Vacutech, which makes central vacuum systems used in car washes, was the business park’s inaugural light manufacturer, moving from Colorado. Weatherby followed as another prominent recruitment success.

In fact, when Weatherby announced in 2018 that it was moving its headquarters and manufacturing operations from California to Sheridan, Adam Weatherby identified Sheridan College’s growing manufacturing and machine-tool program as a deciding factor.

Sheridan’s manufacturing growth didn’t stop with bringing in companies from elsewhere. It also supported existing companies.

Kennon, for example, had been in the community since 1989. Before moving to its current facility in 2021, its operations were spread among separate spaces, CEO Becky Cooper told Cowboy State Daily during a manufacturing tour facilitated by Kinskey and the Wyoming Business Council.

“We were really just maxed out,” Cooper said.

Employees walked along North Main Street between locations, while engineering and prototyping happened in rented spaces apart from other operations. Meanwhile, the company ran two shifts.

The new building, developed with state and federal support and leased to Kennon through SEEDA, brought all its activities under one roof. 

Kennon today has 60 employees and is continuing to grow. Its new facility allows the company to handle on one shift work that previously required two, leaving room for a massive growth spurt if it adds shifts.  

The employee-owned company makes aircraft protection products and ligature-resistant doors for behavioral-health settings. Cooper said the company recently secured a $2.4 million contract for F-35 inlet covers.

Other manufacturers have followed different paths. EMIT, for example, expanded into Sheridan’s former Kmart building, growing without direct Business Council assistance, Kinskey said.

Farther Away, Easier To Supply

For Bill Britz, Sheridan’s manufacturing community offered an advantage that sounds counterintuitive at first.

When Britz moved his animal-research equipment operation from Wheatland to Sheridan, he was farther from his Denver steel suppliers. But getting the material he needed became much easier.

His suppliers’ trucks were driving by Wheatland all the time on their way to Sheridan, he said, but wouldn’t always stop in Wheatland.  

When he moved to Sheridan, though, he was part of a concentration of manufacturers who needed materials. Now he could get supplies on a daily basis. 

That synergy was a consideration in choosing Sheridan after looking at several communities. 

Another factor was Sheridan’s visitor appeal. Britz had joined an Italian manufacturing group, and Sheridan offered opportunities to combine a factory visit with a trip into the mountains and other local activities. 

The manufacturing base also means the companies can help each other out with supplies and services. At Craftco, employees described supplying parts and services to other manufacturers around town while relying on Wendtland for smaller-volume machining work better suited to his shop.

The diversity of equipment and capabilities makes the cluster of manufacturers stronger together. 

A Way To Come Home

Wendtland wanted to come home to Sheridan. The question was how to make that happen.

He had earned a business-finance degree at Montana State, but realized before graduating that he didn’t want to spend his career in a bank office. So he pursued machining at Sheridan College instead, finding a way to combine his interest in making things with his ambition to own a business. 

“I was going to come back here one way or the other,” he said.

Sheridan’s manufacturing community gave him something to build on, though getting started still took help. The late Kim Love offered him a place to begin. Family investment and financing through First Federal, including a Business Council-facilitated loan, helped him acquire the property and equipment.

His first months were nail-bitingly slow.

Wendtland spent days calling and emailing prospective customers. He traveled to other communities to find work. 

Finally, after about six to eight months, Weatherby sent some work his way. More work followed, and word of mouth started to kick in.

Now the shop covers its mortgage, equipment loans and operating costs. 

Wendtland still isn’t drawing a personal income from the business. He’s plowing the money back into expansion, with plans to add equipment and eventually hire more people. 

For now, he has built the foothold he wanted in the place where he wanted to live. And Sheridan’s growing manufacturing hub helped give him a way to do it.

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.