THE DESIGN of a scissor-type mobile work platform by Wolf Haessler early in the 1980s has lifted him and his company, Skyjack, into one of the world’s largest suppliers of such units in less than 15 years. The company, now established in Guelph, Ontario, with eight other facilities within Canada, the United States, and Europe, manufactures more than 12,000 units a year with gross sales for fiscal 1999 amounting to $262 million. For Wolf, who invested $5,000 to start his own machine shop with partner, Sid De Way, 1969, it’s a success story. But 30 years later, Wolf admits “I get more kicks and more satisfaction taking the company to higher levels than I do taking money out of the bank every week.”

A native of Germany, Wolf came to Canada with his parents and five siblings, settling in Richmond Hill, Ontario, in 1952. He graduated in engineering from the University of Guelph in 1966, adding a Master’s degree from the University of Western Ontario before joining DuPont Canada. Soon he realized that he would rather run his own show and invested $5,000 to form a partnership with an older tradesman he had met on a summer job. Haessler & De Way opened in Brampton, Ontario, and over the next 15 years did repair work and made replacement parts for conveyor systems and bakery equipment.

A chance remark by the owner of an equipment rental firm prompted Wolf and his partner to develop their version of an aerial lift platform. They were ready to produce it by 1981, but the financial turn down of the early ’80s made it impossible to find an interested bank or investor. The prototype was hidden in a farmer’s barn until the financial climate improved when they secured a distributor and sold 100 units in 1984.

Wolf Haessler, Chairman of Skyjack Inc., stands beside one of numerous mobile work platforms he has developed since making his first scissor lift model in 1981 and putting it on the market in 1984. In the past 15 years, Skyjack’s head office plant in Guelph and other facilities in Canada, the United States, and Europe have produced a complete line of self-propelled boom type work platforms now sold in over 30 countries around the world. One called the SJTK66, for example, that can reach a height of 22 metres and extend horizontally 17 metres is now on site to help reconstruct the Frauenkirche in Dresden, Germany, courtesy of Mr. Haessler who donated the unit for a two-year period to assist in the rebuilding of the famous church.

Making a small profit by 1985, Haessler gambled that he was on to a good thing. He bought out his partner, promising to pay him with future profits. He expanded his product line by selling in Europe. When the contract with a distributor expired, Wolf decided to sell direct to North American clients. By 1989, more space was required. Employees were asked to invest with him in an existing Guelph building.

Since then several additions to both the office and plant areas have been made. In 1994, the company went public, with the $6.2 million raised used to consolidate ownership of both the Guelph plant and a smaller one opened earlier at Emmetsburg, Iowa. He also donated 300,000 shares to all employees with a minimum of two years service so they could participate in Skyjack’s future.

Skyjack today employs more than 1,600 people in five countries and has produced more than 50,000 mobile scissor-type lift units now sold in over 30 countries around the world.

Mr. Haessler is a recipient of several awards for his entrepreneurial skills and innovative programs, including the prestigious Canada Award for Excellence in Entrepreneurship in 1995. “Because a business is always alive and changing, there are always new goals to strive for. That’s what gets me up in the morning. "Wolf has no wish to be an overseer. He is a doer who gets results.