Multi-generational Springville ladder company still going strong [Video]

SPRINGVILLE, Utah — Art Wing still fondly remembers when his late dad Hal Wing, the founder of Little Giant Ladders, said: “If you concentrate on building the company and not the person, you will fail. If you concentrate on building the person, the company will take care of itself.”

That motto is still at Little Giant’s core today.

In the early 1970s, Hal was a salesman living in Germany, forging a friendship with an inventor who created a ladder that Hal thought was a technological marvel. He took the idea back to the United States, perfecting it and pattening it before heading out on the road.

“He bought a pinto station wagon and he loaded it with ladders, and he went on the road upwards of 250 days a year just selling them out of that thing,” Art recalled.

Art says the roadshow worked, and people quickly took note of their sturdy ladders and all they could do.

In …