Joe is the mastermind behind the digless fence concept

Every once in a while someone comes up with a revolutionary idea that really changes things. Usually these ideas are so radical that they are met with resistance at first. After all, it takes time to start a movement.

Meet Joe. He is an idea man, an inventor- the sort of wild-haired guy who does crazy things. He’s cycled across North America, resided in Cuba off and on for years (no, he’s not a communist!), written a book and invented a solar-powered oven utilized in third world countries where power is scarce.

Joe is a hard working guy who loves to putter. A professional fencer by trade, a dozen or so years ago he was having a few issues installing vinyl fence. One, it took too long and was too messy. Two, the cold in  Manitoba Canada was so intense that even if the posts were put in cement footings 3-4 feet into the ground,  the frost would often heave them out of the ground.

So Joe put on his inventor hat and started to tinker.

First he started experimenting with driving pipe into the ground. It worked quite well, but there was a critical problem with this: it was virtually impossible to get every pipe perfectly straight into the ground, which resulted in slightly crooked fence posts.

Joe went to the drawing board and came up with a couple of simple devices that would compensate for the slightly crooked posts. What Joe came up with was not complicated or outrageous. It actually was really simple. But it worked, and worked well. In short, he invented a simple adjustable post collar to sleeve over the pipe so the fence would be easy to make straight and level.

Within a short amount of time, Joe was installing fence a new way. To old fencing friends who had invested in expensive equipment and were accustomed to installing fence the traditional way, this new concept seemed absurd. But when Joe’s fences went up much faster than theirs and performed just as well, his competitors eventually had to embrace the concept to keep competitive. Plus his reputation soon grew so that this new system was used to replace heaving fence posts that were concreted in the ground.

It’s now been 12 years and there’s a growing movement across Western Canada. Most professional fence companies are installing fence this way. We think it’s such a cool idea that we want to help spread the word.

Sure, it’s only fencing. It’s not going to solve world hunger problems or help mankind live on Mars. But time is important to everyone, and this idea is so clever that it will save homeowners a lot of time and hassle. In short, we’ve been lucky enough to stumble on a movement and we want to spread the good news. We want to change the world of do-it yourself vinyl fence.

Ben is an asset to our team

Say hi to Ben, a member of our WamBam team.

You might think that you need to be slightly crazy to work at WamBam Fence, but Ben is pretty normal and easy-going. I think it’s the easy-going part that makes him jive here. For instance, Steve’s 4 year daughter was in the office the other day. She walks up to Ben and shamelessly stares at him. Ben is a polite guy and doesn’t say anything. Finally I ask, “Kate, why are you staring at Ben?”

She gets all shy and responds, “Because I liiiiike him.”

Fortunately Ben doesn’t have to be a heartbreaker because a few minutes later she informs us that she won’t marry him because she’s too young to get married.

Anyway, Ben primarily works on our product development. He essentially takes ideas and transfers them to technical drawings and specs, mainly for our ornamental aluminum fence program. He’s also bailed me out of more than one jam with some great product renders. He’s a busy guy, because not only does he work 20-30 hours a week at WamBam Fence, but he’s also studying Engineering as a full time student at the University of Charlotte.

Ben is a man of few words. Steve will try to pull conversation out of him, and it works best when he asks questions about NASCAR or politics. Ben works out and every so often Steve asks him in jest to flex his biceps. He politely declines with a grin.

“Ben, do you have anything you would like to say on our blog?” I ask him.

He smiles and shakes his head.

We’re thankful for Ben and the work he does here. He’s an asset to our team. With his help we’re creating a do-it-yourself vinyl fence system that doesn’t require digging holes or pouring concrete. It’s fence that’s easy to install.

He may have turned down Steve's request to flex for the camera, but he's got a good sense of humor.

inforetailradio.com approached me at the Hardware Show and asked if they could steal a few minutes for an interview. I was surprised because they were interviewing huge companies like 3M and Char-Broil, but they said they were intrigued by the company name and wanted to feature us as well. They have released the podcast, which you can listen to here:

Info Retail Radio Interviews WamBam Fence

(If you don’t have time to listen, it’s all about our do-it-yourself vinyl and ornamental aluminum digless fence that can be shipped UPS.)

Injection Molding Machines at our Chinese Factory

It’s no secret that “Made in China” is a sticky subject. Here at WamBam, we want to be forthright with our customers, so we don’t want to hide or camouflage this fact. Would we prefer that our stuff was made domestically? Of course. But unfortunately, that’s not an option for us.

Our roots are in New England Arbors, a company that manufactures beautiful arbors, trellises and pergolas. Originally we manufactured our products domestically. We designed everything in Canada, manufactured all the components and pieces with our partners in the US, and packaged it all at our warehouse in Canada. It was “Made in North America” and we were proud of that fact.

Things started to change. Raw material costs went up. Packaging costs went up. Labor costs went up. By far and away the tipping point for us was when the US dollar weakened to the point of being worth slightly less than the Canadian dollar at one point in 2007. Currency losses were massive. We raised our prices to offset these challenges, but we were pricing ourselves out of the market and becoming uncompetitive. We had to make a tough decision. Either find a more efficient-faster-better way to manufacture and keep the business intact, or continue to raise our prices at a serious risk of further hurting our sales and business. We really didn’t have a choice but to find a more efficient way to manufacture.

Aluminum Powder Coating Line

Fully aware of all the challenges and potential pitfalls in dealing with China, we were resistant to the idea. We are passionate about quality and didn’t want anything to hurt our reputation. We started doing serious homework in China by visiting numerous factories—numerous times and over numerous years—to do due diligence in finding a good partner we could absolutely trust.

It wasn’t an easy process, but we did find a good partner. We chose a top notch factory with happy, loyal and well treated employees. Thus began a tip-toe, take-it-cautious approach to doing business in China. The factory was also passionate about high standards which was evident by their state-of-the-art quality control. Best of all, this factory had a partner living in the States so there were some solid links back to the homeland.  They were already manufacturing for many large American companies and had a flawless track record and many happy customers. They offered us pricing that could keep us competitive which in turn meant that we could sustain our business.

Quality Assurance Lab

With this change, repercussions to employees were very minimal because we were still largely manufacturing domestically. A few things slowly changed. Some employees left for different opportunities, some were re-positioned, and one went on disability due to unfortunate personal health issues. But the best news was that the existing employees kept their jobs because sales started picking up again.

When we started WamBam we decided to move to the States to be closer to our customers. Here at WamBam, we do manufacture in China. But all our design, product development, sales, marketing, and customer service employs people in the States. If we manufactured domestically we wouldn’t be competitive and would probably be out of business and subsequently out of jobs.

Do we wish it was easier and more efficient to manufacture domestically? Of course. But the bottom line is that for us it’s not. Rather than resist this truth, we have chosen to work with it. Even though our product is made overseas, we’re confident in our factory’s capabilities and quality control. We are confident we are offering our customers the very best product at a very competitive price to give real value. And because we can do this, we’re creating jobs in America.

To sum it up, at the end of the day we believe that we bring better value and innovation to our customers by partnering with China.