Gallatin Toppers thriving after more than a decade in business

He’s the guy who keeps the dead deer and elk dry while they are hauled home. He keeps tools from being stolen and saves chest waders from flying down the highway.

By NICK GEVOCK Chronicle Staff Writer

For more than a decade, Bruce Wiegand’s Gallatin Toppers has been the local place to get a lid for a pickup.

In an industry dominated by big manufacturers, the company is one of two small topper builders left in Montana, Wiegand said.

"There used to be one in every major city in Montana," he said. "Now there are just two of us left in Montana."

Gallatin Toppers builds aluminum toppers from scratch, fitting the aluminum tube frames, cutting sheets of aluminum siding and then putting it all together before setting it down on a truck bed. The company is also a distributor for fiberglass toppers.

In southwest Montana, which is loaded with sportsmen, contractors and water sport enthusiasts, many people with a truck need to cover up the back.

"Everybody’s got a pickup and a dog, and you need a topper to haul them around," the 47-year-old Wiegand joked.

The company sells about 500 toppers a year, but its beginnings were pretty humble, starting out as mostly as a hobby in a Bozeman garage.

Chad Groth, a retired Montana State University electronics technician, bought a new truck in 1967 and needed a topper.

"I looked around and there wasn’t anyone selling toppers in Bozeman," Groth said.

He had to drive to Butte to get an aluminum topper kit. All it needed was assembly, putting together the frame before stapling on the aluminum sides.

Groth knew friends who were also looking for toppers, so he started bringing them back and fitting them to trucks in his garage. A cottage industry was born.

But Groth said he was happy to make $25 on a topper and never expected to get rich selling them.

"It was just something fun to do and I made a little extra money," he says. "I always enjoyed anything that I could use my hands on."

Groth would custom fit each topper to an owner’s truck, in whatever color they want. He called it Champer Toppers, a combination of his name and topper.

Soon Groth found himself with a second job, making up to 100 toppers a year. It had grown to the point where the garage was a little cramped, prompting Groth to move the operation into his son’s business, where he worked in the evenings.

But a couple years later, the business was getting too big, so Groth decided to sell.

Wiegand, returned to his hometown in 1993 after four years in Boise, Idaho, working in computers. He says he wanted to come back to a small town to raise his kids and was looking for a small business to buy.

He bought the topper business for $30,000, which came with the name, some equipment and the inventory of topper parts.

"It was interesting, because this was a small business I could get into without a terrible amount of capital, but still be able to make a living," Wiegand said.

Wiegand had never welded in his life. But Groth helped him out the first year, teaching him the ins and outs of the business.

The topper industry has changed a great deal over the years.

Up until the late 1980s, trucks had standard bed sizes, and a small topper company could stock just a handful of models.

"You had basically four choices," Groth said. "You had the short bed and the long bed, and the Ford and the Chevy."

It was a far cry from today. Trucks come with tapered beds, flares, crew cabs — dozens of sizes and oddball shapes.

"Some of them are a real nightmare to fit," Wiegand said. "You just couldn’t stock enough inventory to fit them all."

So Wiegand and his two part-time employees custom make every aluminum topper. They special order every fiberglass model from the factory.

And Wiegand makes special toppers, within limits, for special needs, including a peculiar, tall topper that cantilevers over the cab of a little truck that Wiegand calls the "weirdest thing we’ve ever built."

The aluminum models are thinner than a fiberglass topper, but they’re also lighter and easier to take on and off. They make sense for the person on a tight budget — costing around $500, compared to roughly $1,200 for a fiberglass model — and for people who sometimes need to take them off.

The Gallatin Topper building on East Peach Street is tailored to the business. It was once a railroad loading dock that was expanded to handle a number of businesses through the years, including a tree trimming business, which explains the exceptionally tall back section.

Wiegand has built storage areas throughout the upper reaches of the building. Aluminum tubes and topper windows hang on a rack over the welding area. Other parts are stocked in a platform over the truck bay. Jigs and routers are in another area.

Wiegand even has a custom-made "poor man’s forklift" to lift the toppers and lower them down on trucks.

"When you’re throwing a couple-hundred-pound toppers around, this is the only way to go," he said.

There’s no extra space in the shop, but it isn’t cramped, either. Every area is set up with tools to solve a particular piece of the topper puzzle.

"That’s the great thing about this place," said Brian Seneker, one of Wiegand’s employees. "Bruce has all these specific jigs and all these tools for specific purposes. You can’t buy them anywhere, but you can make them."

The tough part about the business is getting away. Wiegand said it has been a couple of years since he took a one-week vacation.

He’s not fond of the bookkeeping and is trying to be mostly a manager, a big change from the days when he did everything solo.

But Wiegand said he still welds and assembles toppers, which he likes.

"I kind of end up all over the place," he said of his duties. "I can keep my hands in it just enough and still participate in enough aspects of it."

http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2003/03/16/news/toppersbzbigs.txt