The drilling industry is a “whole new world” today, compared to what it was around 60 years ago, according to David Haupt, MGWC. The co-owner and vice president of Haupt Well & Pump Co. Inc., located in Auburndale, Wis., says that much time has passed since his water well drilling and pump installation experience kicked off. He was raised in a family of well drillers and grew acquainted with drilling equipment at a very young age. “We used to ride along and help some of the guys on the rig carry water and dump buckets,” he says.
Haupt’s father started the business back in 1914, making this year the company’s 102nd anniversary. He has seen drilling methods and speed evolve “big time” over the years, which is especially important in the area he works in. He says back in the cable tool era his crew would drill into the bedrock of Wisconsin. “It’s actually Precambrian age rock that is, in some folks’ opinion, the core of the Earth. In any case, we used to classify that rock as 3-foot-a-day rock or 5-foot-a-day rock or whatever, depending on how hard it was and how much footage you could make in a day’s time. That’s part of the reason that a lot of the wells in this region of the country were shallow, because they would not care to spend that much time drilling a well.”