The Lucknow Sentinel, 2016-03-02, Page 1The
L
ck
www.lucknowsentinel.com
n
ow Se
n
11
n
$1.50
HST included
PM40064683R07656
e
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Darryl Coote/Reporter
Smyth Welding and Machine Shop owner Barry Smyth will this year be shipping land rollers like the one pictured behind him to all 50
states in the USA.
Smyth Welding, 'building everything from the ground up'
Darryl Coote
Reporter
Smyth Welding and
Machine Shop located near
Goderich started rather
innocently, its owner Barry
Smyth said from his office in
early February.
One could even say it
started off somewhat
neighbourly.
In 1955 at 15 years of age
George Smyth, Barry's father,
bought a welder, and back
then the people of Lucknow
did farm work together.
They worked like bees,
said Barry, who took over the
company in 1998.
"Everybody would join
together and go fill a silo at
the neighbour's place and
then everybody would help
do that at the next neigh-
bour's," he explained.
And there was always
repair work to do, and weld-
ers (both the tools and its
practitioners) were rare on
farms back then.
"He started doing his own
repair work, sort of thing, and
then of course word gets
around that someone in the
area's got a welder, said Barry.
And the company took off
from there, starting as a
repair shop that would
evolve into a machine shop
as people, usually neigh-
bours, would come by and
ask George if he could cus-
tom build them a tool.
"That's how a lot of our
stuff, our product line, kind
of started," said Barry.
"Farmers came to us with a
need and we would built it
for them. And then maybe
another farmer says the
same thing, 'I'm looking for
something similar.' Eventu-
ally, you think, maybe there
is a market here."
This is how the company's
land roller, which is used pri-
marily in soybean farming,
came into being.
In the early years of the
company, George would be
asked to build a land roller
or two, which he did, and
word spread.
"We looked around and
not a lot of people [were]
making them around here
and we developed a whole
line of them" said Barry.
Now, they make them cus-
tom from 10- to 68 -feet long,
and in three different
diameters.
The land roller, said Barry,
is their most popular product
with them producing around
100 of varying sizes a year.
"It's probably our biggest
ticket item. Our biggest roller is
our most expensive piece that
we build and it's one of our big-
gest in volume," he said.
And he expects to be sell-
ing more in the next couple
of years.
For the past decade Smyth
Welding has been selling
machines, mainly these land
rollers, in several of the
northern States. About seven
or eight, he figures.
However, due to a new
deal with a distribution
company, he expects to be
shipping product to all 50
states soon, said Barry.
This has kept him behind
his desk instead of in the
shop more than he'd prefer,
he said, but he enjoys the
idea of having products built
here in Lucknow shipped
internationally.
"There's a sense of accom-
plishment, especially stuff
that's going abroad and you
think, little old Lucknow,
Ontario, and there's a truck-
load going to indiana or Illi-
nois or wherever;' he said.
The company currently
sits at 24 employees, but this
number too could possibly
expand.
Barry said if things go as
planned, next fall will see addi-
tions to his company's payroll.
The success of the com-
pany, he said, can be attrib-
uted to the fact that they
build most everything
themselves.
CONTINUED > PAGE 6
`She's still my mom':
Donna Elphick is learning
to care for her mother
Laura Broadley
Goderich Signal Star
It wasn't until Donna
Elphick looked back did she
see the signs that her
mother, Frances was forget-
ting things she used to know
and was needing help with
things she once did with
ease.
Elphick's parents were
beef and cash crop farmers
and her mother was an
active gardener, baker and
knitter with a quick sense of
humour.
"There were a lot of things
she was quite capable of
doing," Elphick said.
About a year ago Frances
suffered a stroke and was
moved into the Maitland
Manor to help Elphick and
her father, David, with
Frances' growing needs.
The transition to the car-
egiver role was gradual for
Elphick when a few years
prior she noticed her moth-
er's memory getting a little
bit fuzzy so she pitched in to
help Frances with things she
had been able to do before,
like going to the bank.
France had worked in a bank
before she was married so
this was a turning point.
"She knew her numbers
quite well," Elphick said. "It
just got worse and worse as
we went on."
Subtle differences can
indicate bigger change
Amber Riehl, a family sup-
port counsellor with the Alz-
hemier Society of Huron
County, said it's often the
subtle changes in a person's
behaviour that lead to a
diagnosis.
"All these little things start
to add up and suddenly
there's this big picture
change," Riehl said.
Elphick's intuition has
served her well. She knows
that guiding her mom
through old memories and
not getting upset when
Frances forgets the face of
her only daughter is para-
mount to the wellbeing of
both women.
Frances was never diag-
nosed with a particular type
of dementia. It is often hard
to determine the roots cause
of the illness as there are
many factors to consider,
Riehl said.
"Often times it's a mixed
form of dementia," Riehl
said. "Often times we never
really know the root causes
of the cognitive changes."
Looking back on the
whole experience from the
start Elphick said she wishes
she had contacted the Alz-
heimer Society sooner and
accessed resources that
could have helped while her
mother stilled lived at home.
Families tend to have to
find a good balance between
giving the person their inde-
pendence while still looking
after their wellbeing. Every-
day can change the balance
because people's cognition
goes up and down, Riehl
said.
Ask for help
There is also a stigma
associated with dementia
that can cause families and
caregivers to seek help only
when it becomes completely
unmanageable.
"For a lot of people they
don't seek services until far
later into the disease pro-
cess. Where we can work
with people who have sus-
pected memory loss, we can
work with people who have
mild cognitive impairment.
We can kind of be that phone
number that you can call to
get people connected to the
right resources," Riehl said.
To help fight the stigma
Elphick urges anyone to just
someone suffering from
dementia with compassion.
"Just be kind," Elphick
said.
CONTINUED > PAGE 2