DALTON – On a rainy Saturday morning earlier this month, Scott Cresswell told a visitor inside the showroom of Cresswell Drilling Co. he did not have the time for a long conversation. The owner of Cresswell Drilling Co., founded in 1879, was anxious for his son and his foreman to accompany him out the door.

“Business is busy,” Cresswell said. “I can’t complain. Maybe it could be considered too busy. It’s a job where you can’t just hire anybody and they’re ready to go. They need to be trained.”

Cresswell, his son, Brian, and the foreman Tom Stec would soon depart in company trucks on a service call at another jobsite. Their work often involves the repair or replacement of pumps in wells.

“Some people, when we pull the pump out, have never seen one before,” Brian Cresswell said, pointing to a sectioned pump display inside the store. The smallish pump was in a canister shaped like a can of spray paint. “They think it’s going to be this big thing. But the standard household pump is 4 inches in diameter.”

Cresswell Drilling Co., which has nine employees, provides assorted water-related services to customers having wells and those on municipal water lines. In addition to working on pumps, the company’s technicians service water softeners, filters, purifiers and the many other components of a water system. Customers include water utilities, dozens of commercial and industrial clients and homeowners.

Water is a necessity, and the techs are routinely dispatched to disparate venues.

“You could be working on a trailer this morning, and a $3,000,000 mansion tomorrow,” Stec said.

Brian Cresswell, 28, is vice president of the company. He rarely sits behind a desk and often gets dirty at work.

“You have to know how to do electric, plumbing, use heavy equipment, welding, just all kinds of different skills that take years to accumulate,” he said.

His older brother, Geoff, works as an engineer for ITT Goulds Pumps. The showroom of Cresswell Drilling contains various parts, pieces and products used on water jobs that are purchased by do-it-yourselfers and other contractors.

In one of the aisles, Brian Cresswell stopped at a sump pump, the GSP0311, a 1/3 horsepower unit whose metal parts were painted in the light blue color used by Goulds Pumps.

“This is his pump. He designed this and it’s a really great pump,” Brian Cresswell said of his brother. Brian began working for the family firm during the summer when he was 13, continued doing summers in Dalton until he started college, and then worked whenever he was not attending a class.

“I knew I wanted to do this,” Brian said. “My dad never pushed me to really do it, but I always loved the work.”

Brian’s great-great grandfather Isaac founded the Cresswell Drilling Co. 140 years ago in Forty Fort. The founder’s son, Grant, moved the shop to Dalton after he married a local woman.

The retail section of the store, alongside Routes 6 and 11, was once much larger and contained an inventory of general hardware items. Scott Cresswell has owned the company since 1990, when he purchased it from his father, Bill.

“He went to Syracuse and had a summer job working at Sears, in the hardware department, and he kind of liked it,” Scott said about his father. “This was a big hardware store, way back before Home Depot, Lowe’s and big-box stores.”

Scott did not have the same affinity for hardware and after, he bought the business, began shrinking the hardware part of the operation and increasing the service side of the business. Additional service trucks were purchased and more technicians were put on the road.

A portion of the building, formerly filled with hardware stock, was emptied, walled off and is now sublet as office space to a financial advisory firm. Early last year, the retail store was reduced again when a rear wall was pushed out to accommodate more storage space for the parts inventory used by the company’s service technicians.

“We’re at a size right now that we’re happy with,” Scott said. “We’re doing all we can and we’re busy, and things are pretty good.”

Scott said it was time to go. Stec, the foreman, followed the owner through a pair of swinging doors between the showroom and the storeroom, and then to the service trucks parked out back. Brian Cresswell lingered a moment to explain they never know exactly what problems they will find on a jobsite, particularly when establishing a new well.

“You have a general idea of how the water will be in the area,” he said, “but you never know until you drill down and see what you’ve got.”

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CNG@civitasmedia.com

Story and photos from Charles Erickson – email 1 of 1

Photos, taken by Charles Erickson, for use in his story about Cresswell Drilling Co. in Dalton:

Brian 1 and Brian 2

Showroom 1 and Showroom 2

All in the family:

Cresswell 1 and Sign 1

Brian Cresswell works behind the front counter of Cresswell Drilling Co. in Dalton. The company, in business since 1879, sells and services pumps and other hardware used in water systems. “You get to see the whole area,” Cresswell said. “We travel a lot and go as far as New York and New Jersey.”
https://www.theabingtonjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/web1_Brian-1.jpg.optimal.jpgBrian Cresswell works behind the front counter of Cresswell Drilling Co. in Dalton. The company, in business since 1879, sells and services pumps and other hardware used in water systems. “You get to see the whole area,” Cresswell said. “We travel a lot and go as far as New York and New Jersey.” Charles Erickson | For Abington Journal

Cresswell Drilling Co. opened in Forty Fort in 1879, but later moved to Dalton when the then-owner married a local woman. The company has always been owned by a member of the Cresswell family.
https://www.theabingtonjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/web1_Cresswell-1.jpg.optimal.jpgCresswell Drilling Co. opened in Forty Fort in 1879, but later moved to Dalton when the then-owner married a local woman. The company has always been owned by a member of the Cresswell family. Charles Erickson | For Abington Journal

Brian Cresswell, vice president of Cresswell Drilling Co., stands in one of the aisles of the company’s retail store, in Dalton. The sump pump on the top shelf was designed by his brother, Geoff, for Goulds Pumps. Cresswell Drilling was founded 140 years ago and is still family-owned.
https://www.theabingtonjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/web1_Showroom-2.jpg.optimal.jpgBrian Cresswell, vice president of Cresswell Drilling Co., stands in one of the aisles of the company’s retail store, in Dalton. The sump pump on the top shelf was designed by his brother, Geoff, for Goulds Pumps. Cresswell Drilling was founded 140 years ago and is still family-owned. Charles Erickson | For Abington Journal

By Charles Erickson

For Abington Journal

Reach the Abington Journal newsroom at 570-991-6405 or by email at news@theabingtonjournal.com.