Immigrants bring quality and craftsmanship to plumbing industry

In a recent post I mentioned I used to be an SAP software consultant. While I was camped out on a project in hog country Illinois, other people within my company were on another project in Kohler, Wisconsin. I had always heard about how the other consultants were in the lap of luxury on the Kohler project, but didn’t understand how nice they had it until my husband and I visited their golf course Black Wolf Run several years later. The Kohler company has a nice history as well. It was started over a century ago when Austrian immigrant John Kohler purchased the Sheboygan Union Iron and Steel foundry. The turning point for the company happened ten years later, when Kohler came upon an idea to enamel a horse trough, making their first bathtub. Many of Kohler’s early employees were immigrants who needed housing. They were driven to be successful in their new country, and brought to Kohler their European craftsmanship. In the early 1900’s these immigrants used to stay on the Kohler premises in a place called the American Club. Today this facility operates as the only 5 star resort in the Midwest. Kohler has spent the last one hundred plus years on the cutting edge of plumbing fixtures. It is one of the largest and oldest privately held companies in the US.