‘He treated it like his own’

After working 80-plus hours every week for 36 years, Harvey Farr is working hard at … not working hard.
He retired last month after 37 years at Metal Services of Blooming Prairie, a metal fabricating, welding and laser cutting company owned by Dennis Heimerman.
Farr has also owned J&H Liquors for 36 years; he and his wife, Nancy, have put the business up for sale.
“No, we’re not going away,” he said, “because I just became a great-grandpa, and (the baby lives) in Hope. We may go away for a while in the winter, but we’re never moving.”
Last week, he and Heimerman reminisced about their time together at the business that was just a year old when Farr was hired.
Sitting at a table inside J&H, the two have an easy give-and-take, forged through nearly four decades of hard work and friendship.
“I’m still struggling to not wake up at 4:30 in the morning,” Farr said of his adjustment to just one full-time job.
“You still wake up that early?” Heimerman asked.
Farr, who spent the last 17 years at Metal Services as the shop foreman in addition to his welding duties, always arrived at 5 a.m.
“I listened to the news, had everything ready by 7 when the guys arrived,” he said. “Now I get up, ramble around the house, watch a little TV, then go back to bed and sometimes I sleep until 7:00.”
“I told him he’d learn, eventually,” Heimerman laughed.
The two men graduated from Blooming Prairie High School two years apart, but knew each other from their participation in FFA.
After graduation, Heimerman worked in metal fabricating for about six years, but knew early on he wanted his own business.
Meanwhile, Farr said, “I wasn’t really doing a whole lot.”
He worked on that farm, then at Oriole – now Tandem Products, then for a national tree company, which had him on the road and away from his little boy. He didn’t like it.
A year after Heimerman opened Metal Services, he hired Farr as a welder, doing mostly ag and commercial repairs.
He’d picked up welding from the farmer he worked for during and after high school, but an uncle had planted the seed years earlier.
“I’d stand there with a helmet, watching them do that, when I was just a little kid,” Farr said. “I thought it was pretty interesting, watching that bright light.”
“He’s obviously very skilled,” Heimerman said. “He took welding to a whole new level, doing anhydrous ammonia welding.”
Farr has taken his welding skills to jobs throughout the Midwest, in Washington and New Hampshire. He and Heimerman worked together on the road, piping fertilizer plants, connecting tanks to pumps on co-ops.
“We found out we work well together,” Heimerman said. “Some people, you can be upset at each other, then you can let it go, and Harvey and I could always do that. Sometimes I had to pull the boss routine, but a lot of times, he was right. We always got along well. As far as employees go, he was loyal and dedicated.”
Now starting its 39th year, Metal Services has 42 employees. When Farr started?
“One, two,” he said, pointing to Heimerman, then to himself.
Farr had been there about a year when another opportunity presented itself: Friends were selling their liquor store, “and they made it pretty appealing,” he said.
Heimerman had his doubts.
“He came in and said he and John were going to buy this, and I said, ‘that’s really good,’ but I thought to myself, ‘oh, wow. This is never going to work.’
“But honest to God, those guys worked every other night, they both worked Friday and Saturday nights and I honestly couldn’t tell you when he walked in the shop in the morning whether he worked all night or whether he slept all night,” Heimerman said. “Never could. He came in charging every day; I don’t care if it was 3 a.m. when he went to bed.”
How did that happen?
“Just … a farm kid,” Farr said. “I was raised on a farm. You started at 5 in the morning, no matter what.”
“I think Harvey got a lot of satisfaction out of having his own place,” Heimerman said. “He proved that he could take something on and succeed at it.”
Three years later, Farr married Nancy, who worked in Owatonna at the time. When their full-time bar manager moved on, Nancy stepped in – and has been there since.
“I always tell people I’m Harvey’s other boss,” Heimerman laughed.
Farr’s retirement from his day job is allowing him to “give Nancy some relief. She’s been up here for 35 years.”
Before he left Metal Services, he played a role in hiring his successor, Justin Steinbach, of Austin.
“I was getting a little bit worried, because nobody was applying for the job – and I wasn’t going to leave Denny hanging,” Farr said. “If I had to stay, I would’ve. I want the shop to continue, because 37 years …”
No need for that, but the offer to return is open, Heimerman said.
“If he sells this place, he can work part-time if he wants to, but he’ll find plenty to do.”
That’s a bit of an understatement.
In addition to those 80+ hours every week, Farr has organized the Bikers of Blooming (BOB) Ride for the Toys for Tots campaigns in Blooming Prairie and Steele County, spearheading drives that have brought in thousands of dollars; served as president of the BP Lions Club; was just elected vice-president of First Lutheran Church Council, and keeps busy with his three children, three grandchildren and that new great-granddaughter.
Still, he admits, “I was getting tired – but I still enjoy doing things, no matter if I’m tired or not.”
All that hard work, Farr said, “teaches you if you work hard, you’re going to be successful, no matter what, but you’ve got to keep your nose to the grindstone.”
It’s about more than hard work for Heimerman.
“I guess it’s just about the dedication for me,” he said. “You couldn’t ask for anybody more dedicated. My dad used to work for us part time, and sometimes he’d be kind of upset when guys weren’t working as much as they should, and I’d say, ‘you know, Dad, this isn’t theirs. I’m your kid and it’s mine and you get it, but it isn’t theirs.’ But in Harvey’s case, he treated it like it was his own.
“In fact, many people – many people – thought he owned the repair shop,” Heimerman said. “Seriously.”
“I couldn’t have asked for a better boss than Denny and Ryan; they kinda kept an eye on the place when I was on the road,” Farr laughed.
A retirement celebration is planned for Farr from 3 p.m. to close on March 26 at J&H Liquor, with drink specials and munchies. The public is invited.