SMALL AND NIMBLE

H&S MANUFACTURING STARTED BY MEETING POTATO, SUGARBEET NEEDS

BY MIKKEL PATES | AGWEEK STAFF WRITER

STEPHEN, Minn. — If not for a sign along the highway, a motorist in Marshall County could easily mistake the H&S Headquarters for just another farm.

Close-up, it’s a collection buildings — office and main shop, smaller paint shop, a couple of storage buildings and an assembly shop. The company and farm headquarters in the late 1800s was part of a bonanza-style farm.

H&S Manufacturing is a vibrant, agricultural related manufacturing company that sprang from an innovative potato and sugarbeet farm in northwest Minnesota.

Craig P. Halfmann, 66, is chief executive officer of a farm and an ag equipment manufacturing business that has thrived by providing customized options in niche markets for sugarbeets, potatoes and other crops.

Sons Brent, 36, and Brian, 33, take the lead on the 5,000-acre Halfmann Farms Inc., where they raise sugarbeets, wheat, dry edible beans, soybeans and sometimes corn. Both hold business degrees from the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks.

Son-in-law Darin Adolphson, 38, trained as an engineer at the University of Minnesota and since 2017 has helped lead H&S Manufacturing Inc., a company celebrating 50 years. The company makes tillage, spraying equipment and sugarbeet harvest carts, and recently has branched into recycling equipment and other urban purposes.

Farm-grown

In 1911, Craig’s maternal family came to this area.

Paul Halfmann, Craig’s father, raised potatoes and added sugarbeets in 1965, growing for American Crystal Sugar Co. Denver-based Crystal built its Drayton, N.D., factory in 1963, about 26 miles to the west.

In the mid-1960s, Paul and John Szklarski, his right-hand man on the farm, built an electric skidsteer loader, allowing them to move potatoes inside storage buildings without gasoline power. The two started making them for others and in 1971 together formed H&S Manufacturing Inc. — 50 years ago this year.

In 1972, Craig graduated from high school. That very summer, he bought shares in American Crystal Sugar Co., as it became a farmerowned cooperative. In 1975, the Halfmanns established Halfmann Farms Inc. as a corporation.

In 1979, they dropped potatoes and concentrated on beets and manufacturing. In 1980, Craig married Marlys Steer, who grew up on a farm in the Angus/Warren area. Their three children were born from 1981 to 1987.

In those days, Paul took more responsibility for the manufacturing while Craig focused more on the farming and helped in the shop in the winter. As potato producers outgrew their skid-steer, H&S shifted to sugarbeet equipment — row crop cultivators and band sprayers, which targeted spray strips over the rows, saving costs from broadcast spraying. H&S also marketed a row crop cultivator.

Everything changed on Dec. 23, 1984, when Paul died unexpectedly from a heart attack. He was 66.

Stepping up

Craig, at age 30, suddenly had to step up to keep both business going without his dad. The farm had two employees. H&S had five in the manufacturing side, plus several part-timers, especially in late winter and early spring. Marlys worked on the books.

Thanks to “good people on the farm,” Craig spent most of his time on the

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Craig Halfmann’s maternal grandparents started farming near Stephen, Minn., in 1911 on a farmstead that had holdover buildings from the Culbertson-Wheeler bonanza farm that dated to the late 1800s.

H&S Manufacturing Inc. co-founder Paul Halfmann stands by the power scoop that he and John Szklarski built in their farm shop in the mid1960s. This unit used a 12 horsepower gas engine drive for outdoor use or a 7½ horsepower electric motor for indoor use. The power source drove a hydraulic pump, coupled with two orbit motors and four cylinders. The operator controlled it with levers and foot-operated valves.

John Szklarski, together with Paul Halfmann, in the 1960s built an electric skid-steer loader for moving their bulk potatoes inside storage buildings without gasoline power. The two in 1971 formed H&S Manufacturing Inc., a company that turns 50 this year.

Photos courtesy of H&S Manufacturing and Halfmann Farms Inc.