Long-Time Gusher Production Manager Tim Bowen Retires

44-year career included many roles and titles-including ‘husband‘

Tim Bowen began his lifelong Gusher Pumps career in 1979 at 18 years old. With 44 years of service under his belt, Tim retired from Gusher in the spring of 2023.

He started on second shift, and still remembers his first night in assembly, building pumps for an order from Hardinge Brothers. During his time on night shift, he found each night to be different and did a bit of everything–from machining to welding to shipping.

After a year on second shift, Tim moved to first shift in machining and drilling. When the Pioneer Pumps product line was acquired, he became the sole assembler for the new line. He eventually earned a leadman role working alongside former company Vice President Tim Vallandingham to grow the Pioneer line. At this time, the two were also heavily involved in the early era of developing Gushers multi-stage pump line.

In the late 80’s, Tim was tapped to replace retiring floor foreman Joe Linkugal. Despite a short one-month transition period, he took on the intimidating task with little training but lots of grit and determination.

In 1990, Tim took all his years of pump manufacturing knowledge to Sales at the request of former Executive Vice President Les Smith. He worked inside sales with fellow Gusher pump legends Tom Day, Gary Smith, and Darrell Cooper until 1996.

While he learned a great deal and enjoyed his turn in sales, the plant manager, Mark Milburn, asked Tim to move back into a production role doing scheduling. In 1998 that role was expanded to add management of assembly and shipping to his scheduling duties. Over the years, the role continued to grow, with Tim taking on additional tasks until his retirement as Production Manager, handing over the reigns to Tim Keeton.

During the last 25 years, Tim was deeply involved in inventory control and the yearly inventory process, as well as the implementation of Net Link.

Tim recalls countless large automotive jobs that helped his team fine-tune scheduling to better manage larger orders. Despite these processes, and a core group of guys he counted on to make his job easier, he still remembers the sense of relief he felt in seeing the last truckload of a large order leave the dock.

When asked to share his most memorable moment, Tim found it hard to pick just one from his more than four decades at Gusher. However, he landed on a memory of being cursed “like a sailor” by Bruce Calesbeck the first time they met at Ruthman in Cincinnati. Despite the rocky beginning, Tim and Bruce became good friends over the years.

Greater than Tim’s career achievements, the best thing to come out of Gusher was meeting Becky, his wife of 34 years. They have four children between them-Dustin, Kyle, Erin, and Makayla-who have blessed Tim and Becky with five grandchildren.

“It’s been an honor to work alongside Tim and to be his wife,” said Becky. “I’m so proud of him.”

While he misses working daily with the guys and gals that he made friends with over the years, Tim is enjoying his retirement. He takes care of their small farm, takes on a few side jobs, and works on his ever-growing favor list for the kids and grandkids. He doesn’t mind keeping busy, though. According to Tim, “There’s nothing like being needed. There’s never a dull moment.”

Tim’s legacy will continue to live on in the people and processes he impacted at Gusher. A small fraction of his pump knowledge has been preserved in some of Gusher’s most recent training videos.