- Admin
- #1
- WCCO Belting, Inc. Christmas Social
Honoring 40-Year Employee - Mike Boock
Wahpeton, North Dakota, Dec 1st, 2012
In 1954, Ed Shorma opened a one-man shoe repair shop in Wahpeton, North Dakota. Not long after, Shorma used his shoe repair skills to diversify into repairing tarps for farm trucks. That turned into new contracts for replacement seats for tractors, canvas belting, and wooden slats. In 1982, Ed Shorma's innovative entrepreneurial talent landed him the National Small Business Person of the Year award he received from President Ronald Reagan in a White House Ceremony. Nearly six decades later, WCCO Belting (managed today by Ed's son Tom) has diversified and grown into a multi-million dollar specialized rubber product manufacturer to agricultural and industrial businesses all over the world.
On December 1st, 1972, Mr. Mike Boock accepted a new job offer. Forty years later at the 2012 WCCO Belting Holiday Social in Wahpeton, which was held on the same date Boock originally started working with the Shorma family businesses, he received a special thank you for his decades of dedication and hard work from the Shorma family... a fully-restored 1972 Corvette.
All of the employees attending the party, including Boock who is the current Shipping and Receiving Manager of Shorma-owned WCCO Belting in Wahpeton, were led to believe that a small program and comical "roast" were the special events of the evening. Yet WCCO President Thomas Shorma (speaker on video), whose father started the business in 1954, had a surprise in store. As the program was concluding, he gave Boock one last gift box to open in front of over two hundred family, friends, and coworkers. The anticipation in the room quickly thickened as Boock, with a look of question on his face, pulled out a small model car and car key. At that moment, two other Shorma siblings in attendance opened the back doors of the Wahpeton Eagles Club, a rumbling engine was heard, and driven into the room was a fully-restored 1972 Corvette that matched the model and key in Boock's hand.
This will not be the end of the story for WCCO's now infamous employee recognition. WCCO has numerous employees who have chosen to make WCCO their career, and many have spent over twenty and thirty years working with Shorma businesses. As President Tom Shorma said, "If someone is willing to dedicate forty years of his or her life to our family business, this is the least we can do."
Video added by Karley Shorma, 3rd generation WCCO Belting employee
WCCO Belting
4LT GS Roadster
