After graduating from the mining engineering program at the Haileybury School of Mines in the 1960s, Paul Villgren quickly found work with INCO, and then Falconbridge.
He could easily have stayed the course, enjoying a long career working for some of the region’s biggest mining companies. But something else had drawn his attention.
Escorting visiting mining suppliers underground so they could demonstrate their merchandise, Villgren had been intrigued by the variety of available products and their ability to improve safety and production.
So, with three years of work under his belt, he gave his notice and took a job working for the Hugh J. O’Neill Company, a mining supplier with locations in Timmins, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, Kapuskasing, and Quebec.
“My mother cried for a week,” Villgren chuckled. “She thought it was a big step down, but I thought I would enjoy that more and travel and sell supplies. And it worked out well.”
Villgren had been with Hugh J. O’Neill for five years when he approached the general manager with an idea to carve out a niche in wire rope sales. It was something mines used a lot of, but an area of the industry that no other company was specializing in, he said.
His manager couldn’t see a way to make money at it, and Villgren’s idea was dismissed. But he insisted there was an opportunity there. Villgren gave six weeks’ notice and started making plans to go out on his own.
This year, Villgren and his staff are marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of Sling-Choker Manufacturing, the Sudbury-based supplier of slings and wire rope Villgren launched in 1975.
Since those early days, when it was just Villgren, a pickup truck, and a sole investor, Sling-Choker has expanded to 13 locations across Canada, employing hundreds of people, and becoming a trusted name in wire rope slings, chokers, and rigging supplies for mining, forestry, pulp and paper, steelmaking, construction and other industries.
As industry has evolved, the company has, too, phasing out more obsolete products in favour of items customers need: conveyor components, hoses and fittings, cranes, pumps, safety equipment, and more. This versatility is reflected in their motto: “Sling-Choker: More than you think.”
Yet, the company isn’t angling to be the Amazon of mining supplies, boasting a massive catalogue filled with an endless array of choices, Villgren said.
Their goal is to stock products locally, at a competitive price, deliver dependable customer service, and offer the expertise of their trained technicians to provide the most up-to-date information on product use and safety.
“We’re not looking to sell you more,” Villgren said. “We want you to look after what we’ve sold you so that they last longer, and we stay your supplier. You know, that’s really worked for us.”
Villgren has been emphatic about building a company based on integrity.
Each time Sling-Choker considered moving into a new community, Villgren said, the business case had to make sense.
He had zero interest in going head to head with an existing wire rope company, taking their customers, poaching employees, and putting them out of business, because “what has the community gained?” he said. “Nothing.”
Instead, they would go into an area where there was a need for their services, hire locally, and eventually present employees with an offer to buy into the company, which has been a profit-sharing enterprise since inception.
New hires must first work in the shop, to learn about the inventory and understand the products. Sling-Choker does all its own training and promotes from within.
Villgren believes their role in the community goes beyond employment, and Sling-Choker has contributed to a number of charitable causes over the years.
In the earlier days, when the community of Manitouwadge was fundraising to purchase a new ambulance, the company pitched in $10,000 to put them over their goal. In Timmins, as the city rallied behind a severely ill young girl, Sling-Choker contributed to a fund to help her family travel to Ottawa for treatment. And in Sudbury, the company has, for years, sponsored an annual walk that raises funds to support seniors in the community.
“It’s good for our employees to know that they’re part of something like that, that the company is giving,” Villgren said.
Over the decades, Villgren has started up or purchased a half-dozen other businesses, including Rezplast Manufacturing, which specializes in fibreglass and plastic components, and Industrial Fabrication (now Kovatera), which makes rugged underground vehicles and equipment for the mining industry.
Though he estimates his companies have created jobs in the high hundreds, Villgren admitted he doesn’t know the true number. And it’s not something he lingers on.
“We don’t want to be the biggest,” he said. “We want to strive to be the best, and that’s because that will bring you more business.
“If you just try to be big … you lose focus of why you’re there, and start cutting costs and try to keep getting bigger and bigger, instead of focusing on building a good business.”
That growth is continuing under the next generation of ownership.
Earlier this year, Villgren’s son, Dan, who is now the full owner of the Sudbury Sling-Choker location, launched an offshoot, Sling-Choker Academy.
The new business will provide a full range of safety training programs, from mining common core to working at heights to first aid and CPR.
As Villgren rounds out his seventh decade — he’ll turn 80 this December — he doesn’t want to retire just yet. He still enjoys showing up to the office, interacting with staff, and experiencing the excitement of new business opportunities.
When asked what keeps him motivated to keep going after all these years, Villgren is succinct.
“It's building,” he said. “Because when you're building, you're employing people, and I get a lot of satisfaction out of that, and then you end up helping a lot of people.
“I wish I was 30 years younger, because there's so much opportunity out there, to look at other businesses, or to do things and put new products out, to start a little company and just specialize in that.”