ContiTech USA, Inc. - Latest News

Today, Continental announced that the company has acquired family-owned belting manufacturer, WCCO Belting, headquartered in Wahpeton, North Dakota, USA. With this acquisition, the technology company complements its conveyor belting customer portfolio and strengthens its Conveying Solutions business in the agricultural industry.

Three years ago, WCCO Belting set the goal of restructuring our safety program to better support our employees both on the job and at home. Stefani Mikkelson, WCCO's Environmental Health and Safety Manager, recently wrote an article that ran during National Safety Month in June about how the company has successfully cut its safety incidents in half over the past several years.

Our CEO/president, Thomas “Tom” Shorma, recently earned the Global Ambassador Award from the North Dakota Trade Office (NDTO). The award recognizes an individual or organization that selflessly assists in the promotion of North Dakota products worldwide and helps strengthen the relationships between North Dakota companies and their international partners.

With National Safety Month in June and WCCO recently earning four new workplace safety awards from the North Dakota Safety Council, we are highlighting how we have embraced and implemented new and robust safety protocols over the past several years. We talked to Stefani Mikkelson, Environmental Health and Safety Manager at WCCO, to learn more.

WCCO Belting earned four workplace safety awards from the North Dakota Safety Council (NDSC), including Emerging Safety Champion Award, Workplace Safety Milestone Award, Workplace Safety Merit Award and Lifesaver Award. Additionally, WCCO employee Stefani Mikkelson was acknowledged at the awards ceremony for earning her Advanced Safety Certificate in 2021. The awards were presented at NDSC’s Safety & Health Awards Ceremony which took place on Wednesday, April 27.

WCCO Belting is proud to announce it has received two awards from the Manufacturing Leadership Council, a division of the National Association of Manufacturers. The company earned the 2022 Manufacturing Leadership Award for Transformational Business Cultures in the Engineering and Production Technology Category, and engineering employee, Danielle Renham, earned the Next-Generation Leadership award as one of manufacturing’s brightest future stars.

WCCO Automation Engineer, DuWayne Cookman, authored an article about how automation can enhance roles and processes to help avoid employee fatigue and burnout.

We are deeply saddened by the Russian invasion in Ukraine and by the worsening humanitarian crisis caused by the continued escalation of these attacks. We strongly condemn these acts of violence and aggression and stand united in our support of Ukraine and her allies around the world. Read on to view our full statement.

Our CEO, Tom Shorma, was included in an article about the idea one local lawmaker had to bring Ukrainian refugees to North Dakota to give them a fresh start and to help them gain employment at manufacturing businesses, like WCCO Belting and others, in the area.

Aggregates Business magazine wrote an article about transformation in the conveying industry and included information from our own belting product expert, Mike Schroeder.