Behlen Country, a business unit of Behlen Mfg. Co., creates a wide range of products and equipment for farmers, ranchers, and landowners. In Baker City, Oregon, however, the Behlen name might be best known for how a shared opportunity grew into a three-decade-long community partnership.
Baker City marked its 30 years of Behlen Country operations in August 2026 with facility tours, a companywide picnic, and other activities. But that doesn’t reveal the full depth of the Baker City-Behlen connection.
In 1996, Baker City was facing the loss of a major manufacturer. At the same time, Behlen Mfg. Co. was seeking a strategic location in the Western U.S. to expand Behlen Country production and better serve regional customers. A combination of vision, hard work, and good timing allowed both the community and Behlen to achieve their goals.
The story of how the community and Behlen leadership navigated this journey is a superb example of two entities seeing a unique opportunity and working cooperatively to deliver long-term success.
Here are 3 key takeaways from the Baker City Herald article:
- Visionary leadership is needed not only to see the right opportunities, but to convert them into operational reality. Former Behlen CEO Tony Raimondo and his team partnered with Baker City leadership to align regional workforce strengths with long-term business goals.
- Long-term investment creates lasting impact. The Baker City facility has produced Behlen Country core products since 1996, demonstrating how strategic expansion can benefit both a company and its community over decades.
- Regional manufacturing can have broad reach. Each week, the 114,000-square-foot Baker City site manufactures more than 2,000 models of tanks and 3,500 ranch gates and panels, plus other welded equipment. The service area includes the western U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, and Canada.