Welcome Aboard
Derb Hummel joined the DiamondBack team back in 2014, at the beginning of a wave of business that’s only grown since. He started in our parts department, but had a knack for spotting opportunities to make things better on the production floor. Each time, he’d quickly and quietly go to work on some form of tool or jig to make the job easier or more efficient. Then he’d happily present it to the relief of a frustrated team.
Derb learned a tireless work-ethic from his parents who owned a neighborhood grocery and worked 7 days a week for 58 years. He developed his troubleshooting chops during his time in the strip mines of central PA, where he worked in drilling and blasting, ran a drag line, and encountered all manner of obstacles and inefficiencies. Real-world headaches that he met with an optimistic search for a solution.
The Perfect Cast
One amazing benefit of the “all hands on deck” nature of small business is the opportunity it creates to discover talents and skills. Derb has a clear talent for problem-solving and flourished as our company and its production challenges grew.
Now DiamondBack’s Continuous Improvement Engineer, Derb arrives at many of his solutions when he’s able to get away from the noise. Sometimes on the shop floor, in the early morning hours. More often, while he’s on his boat or in a mountain stream. He’s been an obsessive angler since his youth when he’d hitchhike to the lake while his parents ran the grocery. Derb scratches his itch for tinkering by tying flies and jigs. Each one better than the last, precisely tuned as you’d expect.
Bringing Our Passion To Work
Derb’s ideas are unique, but his inspiration isn’t. Most of DiamondBack’s “ah-ha” moments have come from our experiences outside the factory walls, in the waters and wilderness surrounding Philipsburg, Pennsylvania. Building the world’s best truck bed covers depends on that experience. It’s why we celebrate a parking lot filled with mud-covered trucks. It means the wheels are turning. When we’re working to solve a problem and Derb’s out on Glendale Lake, we know better than to interrupt him.
