Current News

On November 9, 2020, the Lord called to Heaven Jay Tornquist.  Jay is likely the best friend I ever had. I considered him to be an older brother. We worked side by side at Willmar Electric for 24 years.  But beyond work, we were close friends. When I heard Jay had...

It is Halloween time, and it reminds me of one of the great stories in my family.  It provided us with an excellent life lesson. It was in October 2016.  My youngest daughter, Sara, was a senior in High School.  It was a Saturday, and the two of us were looking for...

I have been told I should be careful how often I check my retirement savings. It is a long-term investment, and patience is key to keeping your sanity. I recently checked my 401k and was reassured when I saw the balance. I was reassured for two reasons. First, because...

At Willmar Electric Lean Equals Being Organized

One of our core values at Willmar Electric is to meet the needs of our customers.   We believe in providing our customers with quality electrical construction without delays. What quality means is widely debated.  Some people argue it means providing the highest level...

At Willmar Electric, our brand promises are to be on-time, organized, and approachable.  The most difficult to define of the three elements is approachable.  The dictionary definition for approachable is "friendly and easy to talk to." When I asked my coworkers to...

Our Brand Promise is to be On time, Organized, and Approachable. I think we do an exceptional job of reaching all three of these objectives in everything we do. Recently we had two excellent examples of living out being on-time.  As you read them, you will notice they...

The world is full of business books. I went to the books category of Amazon and searched for "business books" and got over 100,000 results. Even if football is canceled and no new TV shows or movies come out this fall, I still don't have time to read 100,000 books....

We love to play games at the Chapin house. We realized that we had outgrown our small game table as our family had grown. So recently, we got a new table that will accommodate more people, more games and allows more room for the puzzles that the Pandemic has given us...

At Willmar Electric, we try to use Lean Principles in our day to day operations and one of our core values is being Thrifty. Often people equate lean with being thrifty.  A few days ago, somebody did it in front of me, and I lost it. Let me explain why. Lean is the...