Pictured from left are Don Rush, production manager; Mark Ankrom, local 667 Union representative; Chris Williams, engineering; Jim Stackpole, shop foreman; Darlene Morgan, vice-president; Janet Wells, president and CEO; Don Chambers, estimator; Zach Morgan, foreman; Jason Hayes, quality assurance; Rick Hendershot, quality assurance manager; Vance Ash, city crew manager; Dianna Dalrymple, secretary; Jennifer Sharpe, secretary; Richard Mayo, engineering; and three representatives from Phoenix.

Janet Wells broke ground for the expansion of the office at Sistersville Tank Works, 51 years to the day that her career with the company began.

Wells, now president and CEO at STW, shares the ownership of the company with her daughter Darlene Morgan.

This expansion project comes in anticipation of an increasing workload, and on the heels of the formation of the the Woman Owned Small Business (WOSB) Federal Contracting Program (also referred to as the 8(m) program and the “women’s procurement program), in which the mother-daughter management team currently participates.

On Oct. 7, 2010, the U.S. Small Business Administration published a final rule effective Feb. 4, aimed at expanding federal contracting opportunities for women-owned small businesses (WOSBs). The Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) Federal Contract program authorizes contracting officers to set aside certain federal contracts for eligible Women-owned small businesses (WOSBs) or Economically disadvantaged women-owned small businesses (EDWOSBs).

In a seemingly unstable economy, Wells says business is good. In fact, STW has hired additional staff and hopes to further increase those numbers in the future as their facilities expand and business continues to grow.

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Janet Wells and Darlene Morgan are no strangers to adversity. . . or triumph. In fact, in the 27 years since they purchased Sistersville Tank Works, they have witnessed the rise and fall of the economy, but their business has survived.

After decades of drift, Sistersville Tank faced certain closure in 1984. But, while the owner’s commitment to the company and its products seemed to have been lost, the vision and dedication which brought the company’s founding had not disappeared.

Wells, who served as Sistersville Tank bookkeeper, and Morgan (Janet’s daughter and STW purchasing agent) made a bid to purchase and save the company. And against great odds, their effort paid off as they assumed ownership on Oct. 15, 1984.

During the past 27 years, Sistersville Tank has made an astounding turn around, thanks to prudent investment in equipment and skilled workers. First, there was a renewed commitment to quality and service.

In 1985, it was the purchase of an advanced Computer Assisted Design (CAD) system. Sales began to increase dramatically. Sistersville Tank’s reputation for meeting tight specifications and demanding tolerances spread internationally. Defense contracts were once again awarded to the company as the United States Navy purchased tanks to be used on the U.S.S. America, JFK, Coral Sea and Trident Submarines.

Sistersville Tank Works saw its backlog of orders increase from $700,000 to $4 million, and its employees increase from seven to fifty. In 1988, Sistersville Tank Works bookkeeper-turned-president Janet Wells was named U.S. Small Business Person of the Year and was featured in TIME MAGAZINE and dozens of national trade and business publications.

Unwilling to rest on short term success, Sistersville Tank completed a modern reactive metal shop in 1990. The company now competes successfully with larger companies through an expanded line of equipment fabricated from titanium, zirconium, aluminum and silver alloys in a dust free environment. The new high-alloy shop has allowed Sistersville Tank to expand from traditional carbon steel, stainless steel, nickel, hastelloy and Inconel nickel alloy.

Sistersville Tank’s reputation for quality is now maintained through nondestructive testing using x-ray, magnetic particle, dye penetrant and trace element testing, in addition to pressure testing by hydrostatic test or pneumatic test. As meeting the demand from global corporate customers for extremely close tolerances and material strength has become a fact of daily business, Sistersville Tank maintains its own metallurgical lab for destructive and non-destructive testing and Laser facilities are used for testing column alignment, nozzle alignment and other tolerance testing.

Even after more than a century of existence, the company’s original product lines continue to roll out of the fabrication ship bearing the ASME code for fabrication of steam boilers, pressure vessels, heat exchangers, power piping and the performance of alterations and repairs. Sistersville Tank Works will continue to exist on into the next century “because of quality. We employ no salespeople. All of our business is generated by a reputation for quality, accountability and responsiveness to customer needs,” stated Wells.

Sistersville Tank continues to move further into its second century on the forefront of fabrication and testing technologies. A 30,000 square foot plant area allows the fabrication of large and small pressure vessels, storage tanks, heat exchangers, reactors, processing columns and other special applications efficiently and with a constant eye on quality. The company’s growing list of customers, including chemical processors and manufacturers, oil refiners, power generators and pharmaceutical companies in the United States, France, England, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Canada and Japan, depend on Sistersville Tank to keep pace with their technologically complex requirements.