Michael J. Leib, president of Weatherly Casting & Machine Co. stands besides a special casting to celebrate the company’s one-hundredth anniversary. It reads “Weatherly Casting & Machine Co., 1st pour – March 19, 1900,” and shows the date of the pour,one century later, on 3-19-2000.

2,500 degree F molten iron is poured into a ladle, which, in turn, is used to pour the molten iron into sand molds. A large casting can take several days to cool.

Pattern
Weatherly Casting & Machine Co. Plant Manager, Ben Lodderhose, inspects a wooden pattern used to mold a pump housing. The pattern is pressed into a sand mold. The pattern is removed, risers and gates are added and the mold is ready to accept molten iron.

Machining
Bill Moyer brushes away chips from a pump housing being machined on a numerical controlled machine. About 30 per cent of the parts that Weatherly Casting & Machine Co. casts, they also machine.

One hundred year old company makes
ultra-hard abrasion resisting iron alloys

Weatherly

Things are hard and getting harder all the time. That’s the way they like it at Weatherly Casting & Machine Co. (WC&M,) a one hundred year old producer of raw and machined iron alloy castings used in the power generation, pump, cement, and material handling industries.

WC&M’s specialty is abrasion resistant iron alloys that are hard enough to withstand years of wear and tear in applications like cement processing, coal crushing and power generation. So, if you’re looking for hard, it doesn’t get much harder than you will find here.

They pour iron-based castings with additions of
chromium, molybdenum, and nickel to create corrosion/erosion resistant alloys. Most castings are typically in the 100 – 5,000 lbs. Range with a largest single pour of 20,000 lbs.

WC&M is the only manufacturing company remaining in Weatherly—a town that was once the manufacturing center of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. It was both the rise and demise of the Lehigh Valley Railroad that indirectly helped create Weatherly Casting & Machine Co.

WC&M’s One Hundred Years

The company began in 1899 as the Weatherly Foundry & Machine Company. In 1864, Weatherly had become the manufacturing hub of the Lehigh Valley Railroad (LVRR.) When the LVRR left Weatherly, it abandoned a workforce of skilled foundry workers and machinists.

Seeing an opportunity to help the unemployed workmen in the town, create a business, and continue to service the LVRR, several Weatherly men formed the Weatherly Foundry & Machine Company in 1899. Their first contract was with the Lehigh Valley Railroad.

Around 1920, WC&M changed ownership and became affiliated with Wilmot Engineering of White Haven—a manufacturer of rivetless chain. The name of the company was changed to Weatherly Foundry & Manufacturing Company. Joe Hoffman was president of WF&M and George Washington Wilmot was president of Wilmot.

Individuals in the area closely held the stock of the company until 1982 when the company was sold to Barreat, Haentjens & Company (BH&Co,) also known as Hazleton Pumps.

From 1982 to 1985, they operated WC&M as a separate company. In 1985, with a severe downturn in business, they closed the WC&M foundry operation and consolidated it into their Hazleton foundry operations. In 1989, after substantial losses, they decided to sell it or close it—and an employee was interested in buying it.

Buying the Company

Michael J. Leib was one of seven children growing up in Hazleton. His father had worked in the strip mines and had passed away when he was still in high school.

After completing Hazleton High Scholl, Leib received a grant-in-aid scholarship to attend Lehigh University. He needed a job to help pay his way through Lehigh. A member of the board of directors of Weatherly Foundry & Manufacturing Co., who was affiliated with Lehigh, offered Leib a summer intern job at the foundry in 1966.

He studied Materials Engineering and was offered a job at the foundry as a metallurgist upon graduation in 1970.

By 1980, Leib was promoted to vice president of manufacturing. He returned to college in the evenings and received an MBA from Wilkes University with a Finance concentration in 1985.

“One May morning in 1989, Walter Haentjens the president of BH&Co, told me that he was going to close it or sell the foundry,” said Leib. “He wanted to do it by June 30 to stem the losses.”

Leib was considering buying the business but couldn’t put a package together in so short a time frame. Haentjens saw that Leib was making a good faith effort and extended the sale period. On Nov. 27, 1989, Leib took over operations.

Under Leib’s Leadership

“For years, I could see that the place was going downhill because they weren’t making any capital improvements to the plant,” said Leib. “I guess Haentjens got tired of hearing from me and said, ‘I’ll sell it to you and you invest the money.’”

Leib felt that the forty experienced workmen and the core group of customers formed the basis of what could become a profitable business once the equipment was upgraded and modernized.

The foundry purchased new motors and motor controls, analytic equipment, numerically controlled machining equipment, pollution correction equipment, and a $500,000 state-of-the-art melting unit.

Under Leib’s leadership, WC&M has doubled its sales and its workforce has grown from 40 to 74.

WC&M has trained at least 25 of its employees through a four-year apprenticeship. The program combines on-the-job-training with attendance at training seminars. They have apprentice journeyman programs for molders, pattern makers, welders, maintenance mechanics, and electricians.

On March 19, 2000, WC&M poured a casting, on exhibit outside their Weatherly office, that depicts a molten iron being poured for a casting and related historical symbols. It reads “Weatherly Casting & Machine Co., 1st pour – March 19, 1900,” and shows the date of the century pour as 3-19-2000. A plaque reads, “This is the last casting poured from the last heat for the first 100 years, March 17, 2000. Heat No. 2-1493-103.”