Grimes Sales & Service started as a farm implement dealership in the 1940's, owned by Clayton and Kathleen Grimes. In 1972, Clayton passed away, leaving the operation of the business to his family. Kathleen did the books and their son, Mel, took over running the business. In 1989, Mel got out of implement dealing and started his journey of buying and selling pumpjacks. In 2000, he met Paul Cheung. Paul and Mel became 50/50 partners in the pumpjack venture, distributing the HG Pumping Unit from a factory in China. In 2001, the first year of selling the HG Unit, they ordered 20 units. The second year they ordered 80. The next year was close to 200, and the year after that was 400. At this time, they bought into the factory, near Beijing, that was manufacturing the pumping units. By 2008, HG dominated the landscape.
In the spring of 2014, the business was sold to Schlumberger, the largest oilfield services company in the world. Around the time of the sale, Mel was diagnosed with cancer. He stayed on as a consultant, leaving one of his long time picker operators, Kent Lees, in charge of running the day to day business. Mel passed away on Nov 15, 2016 at the age of 69 after an almost 3 year battle with cancer. He treated his workers like family and had a great reputation throughout the oilfield for the way that he ran his business.
Mel Grimes
Mel and his wife, Margaret at the
Great Wall of China
In 2020, Kent Lees celebrated his 25th year with Grimes Sales & Service by purchasing the company back from Schlumberger. He partnered with Mel's daughter, Stacey Wempe.
We will continue to sell the HG Pumping Unit, which the company has long been known for. We are very pleased to bring our business back to the community as locally owned again.