Welding shop passes torchby Nathan Arneal The welding and metal shop at Seventh and Main in North Bend has a tradition of owners passing the business to an employee that goes back 85 years.
Jens Thomsen bought the building – which had been a filling station – and moved in with his blacksmith business in 1941. (Coincidently, Dec. 7, 1941). Thomsen and then his son Sonny ran the business until 1978, when the Thomsens sold it to one of their employees, Charlie Vopalensky. Vopalensky Welding operated until 2007 when Charlie sold it to one of his employees, Roch Emanuel. During his ownership, Emanuel nearly rebuilt the shop from scratch after the 2009 downtown fire and then waded through the 2019 flood. Now the tradition continues with Roch handing it off to one of his employees, Tyler Vyhlidal. After six years of working at Emanuel Custom Welding, Vyhlidal has purchased the business from Roch and Diane Emanuel and renamed it Tyler’s Custom Welding. He’s been a business owner just over a month now, having closed on June 19. “I’m still not used to it yet,” Vyhlidal said. “There’s a lot of change. I still think to this day, ‘How would Roch do this.’ He’s got 42 years of experience.” He doesn’t have to go too far to find out how Roch would do it as Emanuel still comes in and works nearly full time. He and Vyhlidal have simply flipped owner-employee roles. Emanuel, who turns 65 next month, said he plans to keep working for at least another two years. “After that, it’s hard telling,” he said. Roch’s wife Diane Emanuel continues to work part time in the front office alongside employee Linda Brower. Joe Blaha – Emanuel’s grand nephew – has worked in the shop the past three summers and will join Vyhlidal full time after finishing school this winter. Vyhlidal, 35, has uncles and cousins who are business owners, and he knew it was something he aspired to. But he didn’t think it would be in custom welding. After graduating from North Bend Central in 2010, Vyhlidal went to school at Northeast Community College for animal science. His first few jobs were at livestock operations before he moved back to his hometown to work on a farm and then Frontier Coop. The course of his life changed while running an errand to Emanuel Custom Welding in August 2020. “I came in for nuts and bolts one day working on a project down there,” Vyhlidal said, “and Diane was like, ‘Do you want to work for us?’ Sure, why not?” Except for a little bit of welding in high school shop class, Vyhlidal did not have much experience in the metal melding business, but he learned. “I know when I started there was a lot of stuff what was supposed to be straight and looked like a banana when I got done,” he said. While his skills developed, Vyhlidal began seeing himself as Emanuel’s successor. Read the full story in the print or e-edition. <<Back to the front page |
