Oct. 19, 2020

Sioux Falls might identify workforce as one of its challenges for business growth, but a Minnesota executive points to the city’s labor pool as the reason he’s expanding his business here.

“I saw my employee base shrinking, and it’s such a dim outlook on trying to recruit young people or anybody to help. I can’t find help in Minnesota,” said Darwin Elbers, president of Hills Stainless Steel.

“And when I talk to business owners in South Dakota, they tell me the same thing, ‘It’s really hard here too,’ but they have not experienced the wasteland that I’m in. There is nothing. When I advertise for help, I get zero applicants. Zero.”

At one point, Hills had three dozen employees at its Luverne facility. That has dropped to 32 as more students pursue four-year degrees and aren’t open to learning trades, he said.

“I visited three Minnesota tech schools in welding and fabrication and compared them to South Dakota tech schools, and the student count is triple in South Dakota,” he said. “It’s cultural change that’s happened.”

Hills Stainless Steel + Equipment Co. Inc. started in Hills, Minn., and expanded to Luverne in 1987. It was founded by two stainless steel tank repairmen from Minnesota and located in Hills because of the dairy presence in the area and resulting need to transport milk.

The company now works on all makes of liquid food transportation tanks in addition to serving as an original equipment manufacturer of water tanks, fertilizer tanks, converter dollies and pup trailers. It also deals in used trucks and equipment, and manufactures and sells parts nationally and internationally.

In Sioux Falls, the new 12-bay facility at 4100 N. Northview Ave. — north of Fleet Farm and west of the Sanford Sports Complex — is designed to allow Hills to further diversify, including into other stainless steel fabrication.

When it opens in about a year, the plan is to start with 15 employees and potentially scale up to 50. Jobs are “highly skilled positions, and we pay well,” Elbers said. Positions include working with stainless steel and aluminum in addition to jobs in parts, warehousing, sales and service.

Elbers, who lives in Sioux Falls, said he’s confident he can find those people.

“I like what’s going on in South Dakota. I like the workforce development that’s happening in the high schools, the CTE (career and technical education) program,” he said. “My son went through it, and I don’t see that happening in Minnesota at all. And my son went through the Southeast Tech welding program, and that’s where we plan on recruiting.”