From Steelwork to Smoked Meat: Wahoo Shows the Growth of Nebraska Manufacturing

During Manufacturing Month, Nebraska celebrates the builders, creators, and fabricators making quality products in The Good Life. The state’s manufacturers are especially concentrated in rural communities like Wahoo, a town of nearly 5,000 people in Saunders County. Wahoo boasts one of Nebraska’s fastest-growing fabricators, one of the nation’s newest steel foundries, and one of the state’s most successful butcher shops. Boosted by the growth of its manufacturers, Saunders County enjoyed 50% GDP growth from 2018 to 2023.

Rebellion Fabrication

“We Build Cool Sh*T.” That is the brash motto of Rebellion Fabrication in Wahoo, and it is a claim the shop backs up with spectacularly crafted steel creations. Rebellion built the grand staircase in Joslyn Art Museum’s award-winning addition, fashioned the adventure path (green, slinky-shaped play equipment) at Omaha’s Kiewit Luminarium, and performed the specialty steel work inside Kearney’s new SportsPlex.

Rebellion relishes the challenge of tackling unprecedented projects. “One of our mantras is that we are innovative problem-solvers,” said Greg Morehouse, the company’s Director of Strategic Growth. “We take on miscellaneous, off-the-wall jobs—one-off creations that we’ll never make again. Almost everything we do is specialty, custom work.”

When Ross Gredys and business partner Matthew Cade bought and rebranded the Wahoo fab shop in 2019, it had 11 employees. Since then, Rebellion has increased to a team of 54 and is outgrowing its main building. There is a particular need for a separate facility to do painting and high-performance coating. While seeking to grow its physical plant, Rebellion has invested in automation such as a cutting robot and virtual-reality goggles. “We’re very tech-forward for being a relatively small fabricator,” said Morehouse.

One of Rebellion’s distinctives as a fabricator is the value its team brings to the initial, creative stages of a project. “We like to engage early in the process to give a design team perspective on whether their concepts can actually be built,” said Morehouse. “A lot of times, really cool design features end up getting cut because they can’t be constructed or are too expensive. We want to honor a designer’s intent while making sure the designs can be built and, where possible, find ways to drastically reduce the cost.”

Rebellion’s workplace culture may be the best of its many creations. “Our culture draws people,” said Morehouse, who personally illustrates the point. He joined Rebellion earlier this year because of its creative work environment. “We’re a people-first fabricator building a unique culture.It’s not just that we’re fun. There’s accountability too. Our people want to be responsible for something big.

Omaha Steel

Rebellion Fabrication manufactures in an artistic way, participating in the design process with customers and then creating one-of-a-kind products. Two miles south, Omaha Steel takes a scientific approach, casting replicable products that precisely meet customer specifications and conform to stringent industry standards.

“We don’t do design,” explained Andrew Francis, Omaha Steel’s general manager. “We are a contracted manufacturer. The customer designs and specifies the product, and then it’s our responsibility to confirm that we’re making it according to their specifications.”

Omaha Steel is one of the newest steel foundries in the United States—and one of the few located west of the Missouri River. The company makes a variety of products, including valves for the oil, water, and natural gas industries. They also make components for off-highway trucks, such as axle housings. “We do components for large mining and construction companies,” said Francis. “For example, we make frame components for the dump trucks that are multiple stories tall, where there are two flights of stairs for the operator to get into the cab.”

The first step in Omaha Steel’s manufacturing process is to create the specific pattern of a product. Using the pattern, they then create a mold, pour metal into it, and fabricate the product. “Making patterns used to be done by hand,” Francis said. “You would give a skilled artisan a 2D print, and they would figure out how to make it.”

Over the past 30 years, the process has been computerized, with patterns being made with CNC machines using computer-automated design (CAD) files. However, Francis said the number of places where you can send CAD files to get a pattern made has decreased, leading to higher prices and longer lead times.

To reduce costs and avoid delays, Omaha Steel recently invested in a large-format 3D printer. “We’ll be able to [make patterns] internally to control lead time,” said Francis. “After printing, we only have to machine a very small amount to get the surface finishes that you get with a traditional machine.”

Omaha Steel takes pride in being an incredibly clean manufacturer. “We’re all-electric,” said Francis. “There is no combustion anywhere in our melting process. We run electricity through a coil, and it heats up the metal so much that it melts. We get our steel up to about 3,000 degrees before we transfer it into the container that we use for our pours.”

The majority of Omaha Steel’s power consumption comes from a carbon-free energy source. Wahoo Utilities provides the facility with a portion of the electricity from an adjacent solar field. In total, Wahoo Utilities provides 68% carbon-free power from local solar, hydroelectric power from Western Area Power Administration (WAPA), and carbon-free power from Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD).

Wahoo Locker

While Rebellion Fabrication and Omaha Steel are relatively new names in town, Wahoo Locker has been a fixture in the community for decades. The butcher shop got its start in the mid-20th century, and it has enjoyed tremendous growth since current owners Charlie and Kristi Emswiler bought the business in 1998.

At that time, Wahoo Locker did not have a single full-time employee or retail store. “I always wanted to sell retail meats, so I went to a vitamin store down the street that had gone out of business, bought their sliding glass door cooler, wheeled it down the sidewalk to my store, and began selling stuff,” Charlie recalled. “I liked cooking products, making things better and, well, manufacturing,” he said. “I started developing recipes, making new products, and we kept selling and selling.”

In 2013, the business suffered a major setback when a smoker caught fire and Wahoo Locker’s original location burned to the ground. “I was in shock,” Charlie said, remembering the financial pressure he felt after the disaster. “I had little kids at home then [to provide for].” Just three days earlier, Charlie had closed on the purchase of an old lumberyard, intending to spend a year fixing it up before moving Wahoo Locker there. The fire put that project on an ultra-fast track.

With Wahoo Locker’s future in jeopardy, the local community rallied behind it. Someone came up with an idea to sell t-shirts to support the business. “I sold over 1,000 shirts!” Charlie exclaimed. “People would come in while we were doing construction. I’d kick drywall out of the way and open a box to find the right size for them. They’d hand me cash and out they’d go!”

Charlie worked feverishly to renovate Wahoo Locker’s new home, opening only 155 days after the fire. “The only money I had coming in [during those 155 days] was from T-shirt sales,” he recalled.

Wahoo Locker not only rebounded from adversity; it reached new heights. At the time of the fire, the business had five employees. It has since expanded to a team of more than 30 full-time and six part-time workers.

This team includes the next generation of the Emswiler family. Jake, the oldest, leads new product development. Connor oversees the on-site retail store and manages heating, air, and refrigeration. Bethany handles accounting, payroll, and HR. A fourth Emswiler child, Leah, has been running a store register by herself since she was ten years old. “She’s in 8th grade and wants to work at Wahoo Locker already,” said Charlie. “She’s going to be the big boss when she comes!”

Wahoo Locker specializes in beef and pork products like jerky, snack sticks, sausage, bacon, ham, and the original Wahoo wiener. Yet each fall during deer season, Wahoo Locker dedicates 100% of its processing capacity to serving area hunters for a few weeks. “We used to make 900 pounds per day of deer product [during deer season],” Charlie said. “Now, we make 10,000 pounds per day.”

Since 2023, Wahoo Locker has opened retail locations inside Wine, Beer & Spirits stores in Fremont, Grand Island, Lincoln, and west Omaha. With these expansions, its products are now within a short drive of 70% of Nebraska’s population.

Interested in learning more about manufacturers in Nebraska? Check out the award winners of Nebraska Manufacturing Alliance’s annual “Coolest Thing Made In Nebraska” competition.