This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: August 20, 2008 - To the 60 workers at Wicks Organ Co. in Highland, Ill., the shrill hum of the factory equals harmony, not just noise.
And the harmony is personal. Wicks employees refer to their co-workers as family members. The sounds that go with building a pipe organ from scratch represent vocational stability and homey working conditions. Sometimes, this stability lasts more than half a century.
After 53 years at Wicks, Maekn Abel still finds her job "interesting." She says she is tone-deaf -- "I don't know one note, I sure wish I could. I hold the keys while the other ones do the tuning" -- but has enjoyed adding her signature to the interiors of organs she helped build.
As with most things, organs change with technology. Wicks sells great consoles with ranks and ranks of pipes down to a more affordable digital model (the Royal Classic) and has built about 6,400 organs. All parts are assembled and designed in-house, in a 110,000-foot facility about an hour outside of St. Louis.
"It always was interesting to see the changes from 1955 to now," Abel said. "I don't understand some of the technology. ... But I feel like this is my family, to be honest with you. [President] Mark Wick's dad and I share birthdays. We've just always had something in common."
Abel remembers holding then-baby Mark Wick, who now oversees the company's workers. "It's clean here," Abel said. "I've always had steady work for all those years. I don't think I missed half a dozen days all those years for being sick." Wick agreed.
Abel is only one of 60 workers, but her feelings toward her job seem to represent the company's philosophy. The family-owned business was managed by several generations of Wick sons since 1906, when three Wick brothers (a cabinetmaker and two watchmakers, one of whom was a trained organist) built Opus 1, the company's first instrument.
Mark Wick has been president since last fall. But he began working for the factory at age 9. "My summers weren't spent watching TV, let's just say. Instead, I was making pipes, taking grafts, making organs," Wick said.
Wick bolsters the sense of familiarity at work as he strolls throughout the facility, greeting each worker. He knows each by name, department and personality. Some often tease him, one declaring "Mark is a four letter word, you know."
Wick knows his organs as well as his employees, even when they're in pieces. Upon seeing a pipe rack or console, he describes its destination. Wick and Abel represent only a smattering of the intensive factory devotees at Wicks.
Larry Walcheck has worked 10-hour days for 24 years. He voices the pipes that turn the organist's work into music. That is, he adjusts the pipes so they resonate at the proper pitch and volume. By widening the hole, he can make the pipe speak louder.
Walcheck previously worked as a pipemaker, and the tonal director helped him ease into his new position. Now, he seems more than comfortable in his office: A Post-it that says "mafia roll" on top of his paper, so that his co-workers don't grab some when they visit.
And Walcheck has extended his work beyond the aural. "I do some cleaning work on the side here, spend a little time after regular hours, sometimes if I have extra cleaning I come in on Friday," Walcheck said. "I started out volunteering to do that because the restrooms got out of hand. The regular cleaning people quit so the supervisor asked me if I wanted to do it."
Wick said Walcheck even painted some areas of the hangar-like factory. "He ... does it on his own time. We ask him not to, but he does it anyway."
The factory does things on a grand scale - a 40-foot tower is needed for some parts - and a small one: Mark Wick can fit in his hand what he calls the reason for the company's growth since 1906.
The Direct-Electric Action, a patented organ part placed under each pipe, is a Wicks invention. The device - which replaced the mechanical, electric slider and electro-pneumatic actions - looks like a small spool. It uses electro-magnetic pressures to control the valves that let wind into the pipes. According to Wick, the Direct-Electric Action guided the company to success since, unlike other actions, it has no perishable components, is unaffected by weather conditions and makes the pipe design more flexible.
The special action, Wick says, testifies to the longevity of organs his company makes. When retooling instruments from 1945, he doesn't even need to replace the actions. The action functions as a small-scale analogy of the company at large: in the age of chain companies and buyouts, the local business still has everything under its roof and closely guards its magic ingredient.
Joy Resmovits, a rising junior at Barnard College, is an intern with the Beacon.