Chamber Ambassadors tour Curbtender

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

The Charles City Ambassadors took a tour of one of the community’s newest industrial businesses on Tuesday, June 24.

Curbtender, a Cedar Falls-based manufacturer that builds refuse collection trucks, recently acquired the 56,000-square- foot building in the Southwest Development Park formerly used by Winnebago, who closed the site last summer.

The new Charles City site will be the company’s third factory as it expands to keep up with its increased production demands.

Curbtender CEO Kevin Watje said that when orders started getting scheduled more than a year out he knew it was time to develop a new factory to produce front loaders.

“We had orders we were turning down for this particular product,” said Watje. “Going here, we’re going to have a much higher capacity to fill.”

A family business, Watje and his wife, CPA Laurie Watje, gave the Chamber Ambassadors a personal tour of the facility, explaining how a truck will come in as nothing but a cab and a flatbed and leave as a front-loading garbage truck.

“We mount everything,” said Laurie Watje.

So far only a few units have made their way out of the Charles City facility, which is still a work in progress and only about 25% operational.

“We walked into this facility in January with nothing in here,” said Watje as he led the Chamber Ambassadors through the open space of the manufacturing floor. “A year from now I expect it will be a lot harder to walk through here.”

As the factory develops, new jobs will come with it. Curbtender currently has 11 employees working at the Charles City location, but plans on having about 50 people working on units by next January.

“Our goal is to complete one unit per day,” said Plant Manager Larry Scribner.

After the tour and ribbon cutting, the employees and ambassadors had a brat lunch in the break room to celebrate the fledgling factory.

“We are thrilled to welcome Curbtender Inc. to Charles City and look forward to this family-run business becoming an involved part of our community,” said Community Development Director Mark Wicks.

Curbtender is slated to be the premiere sponsor for Friday’s Party in the Park and staff will be on site to meet the community.