WA's Fife Towing Celebrates 60 Years

Photo courtesy of Justin Kemp-Waldner

TOW TRUCKS FROM FIFE SERVICE & TOWING PULL A SEMI-TRUCK BACK ONTO THE STREET.

Congrats to owner Justin Kemp-Waldner and Fife Towing! Here's the story from the Fife Free Press:

Fife Service & Towing is celebrating 60 years of business this year.

Owner Justin Kemp-Waldner is excited that the company was able to reach this goal.

“It’s an honor,” Kemp-Waldner said. “I am proud of the work that we perform every day and how we involve ourselves in the community.”

Over the years, this locally-owned company has had a rich history dating back to the 1940s. The business’s original owner, Alex Hergert and his wife, Lydia, were the sole owners until 1965.

They had the only repair facility in the Fife area for more than two decades. In fact, Hergert’s claim to fame was that his business location was on the south side of old Highway 99 to capture all the Boeing traffic going to and from Seattle. Even back in the 1940s, Fife Service & Towing facility sold more than 100,000 gallons of fuel on a weekly basis.

By 1965, Alex Hergert had been stricken with brain cancer and his health was deteriorating rapidly. That same year his stepson, Ivan Waldner, decided to leave his home in Canada with his wife, Nadia, and three sons, Philip, Ricky and Kenton, to come to the United States. They moved to Fife, where Waldner resumed his work as an optician in Olympia. Every spare hour and weekend was spent working at the shop, though.

When Hergert passed away in 1966, Waldner left his position as an optician to assist his mother in running the family business. In 1969, he purchased the family business. Eventually, Waldner’s oldest son Philip married and moved to the Midwest. However, he returned in 1986 to work at the shop.

Deciding to stay in the Fife community – yet close enough to Tacoma and its port where growth is taking place – Waldner positioned the business in the heart of things.

The long-term goal for Fife Service & Towing, Inc. is to continue providing the kind of service that customers demand and have come to expect.

“It is remarkable that we have stood the test of time,” Kemp-Waldner said. “To think that we have made it this far and that we will continue to be strong for years to come is really quite symbolic of whom we are as a company.”