In 1982, DeeLane Maupin had an idea. He had worked for Webster’s Mile High Farm in Rexburg, Idaho, for several years, and he liked his work just fine. He had grown up in nearby Chester and was happy raising his family in the Upper Valley. But he knew there was a little bit more he had to offer the world and his young family. He was pretty handy as a welder, so DeeLane started taking welding jobs on the side and working on those projects at night, after he got home from work.
In those days, a lot of DeeLane Maupin’s work came from potato growers who needed repairs done to the hook chains on their potato growers. Those broken digger links provided DeeLane with a lot of business, and in 1987 he was able to start welding full-time to provide for his family.
Things have come a long way for Maupin Welding in the last 32 years. In 2000, DeeLane retired and handed the reins over to his son Justin, who runs the business today. Things are different now for the company than they used to be. With the advent of potato belt diggers in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, a lot of the Maupins’ welding work went out the window. And as farms have gotten larger, their need to come to a welder for help has gotten smaller.
“The need for welders has faded away,” says Justin. “Most farms are so big now that they have their own welders and don’t need us to do it for them. Even by 1990, welding for us had diminished to really not much at all.”
While the company does very little welding anymore, the family has stuck with the name Maupin Welding because “that’s what people know us as,” says Justin. And it’s not as if their clientele has changed much. Maupin still deals almost exclusively with potato growers, churning out and stocking potato equipment replacement parts.
The business has done well enough that in December, it was moved to a new, larger, sleeker shop about a mile up Highway 33 between Rexburg and Sugar City, Idaho. “We’ve expanded from working with one chain dealership from one manufacturer, to where now we represent four chain manufacturers,” says Justin Maupin. “We’ve aligned ourselves with the top vendors and manufacturers to make sure the people we work with can still trust us.” The new 13,000-square-foot facility allows Maupin Welding to accommodate the innovations and every-increasing demand that potato growers—their primary customers—are faced with.
The shop also has recently started carrying a full line of hydraulic hoses and bearings, and the last year or two has seen Maupin Welding into tillage equipment and fertilizer pumps.
Though most would agree that the Maupin family has done well on their own, Justin Maupin simply deflects any credit. “We’re just appreciative of our customers and manufacturers who have helped us get to where we are,” he says. “That’s what makes it work.”
Indeed. And the Maupins, as said before, have put in the work to align themselves with the very best.
That’s a recipe for success.