Somerset, WI

As a boy on the farm, Stan Krueger liked his toys. Today, he still enjoys them, especially those made by Standi Toys, Inc.

Yes, the "Stan" in Standi comes from the male influence of this husband-and-wife-founded business. Meanwhile, wife Sandi contributes the "di" to the tile

By the time 1981 rolled around, Standi Toys was born, and its first product - 1/16 scale replacement fenders for tractors - had hit the market.

The part-time business that began in the Kruegers' home has since been moved to three consecutively larger warehouses. The most recent move came in January of 1993, when they transplanted the toy company from the Gopher State and set up shop in Somerset, a community of about 1,100 in Wisconsin's St. Croix County.

Standi is likely the fourth or fifth largest farm toy maker, based on sales volume. It rolls along behind such big boys as Ertl, Scale Models, and Spec cast.

While being smaller, Standi has been able to fit into and fill a niche market. In this case the niche was fenders, and later rims and tires.

These days Sandi and Stan hands-on manage a business that employs two people full-time and two part-time. Their list of toys, parts and replacement parts – both 1/16 scale and 1/64 scale – covers both sides of an II by 16 1/2-inch sheet of paper. On it you'll find such things as grain bins, corncribs, "blue silos," cultivators, trailers, feed and hay, dairy barns, crawler tracks, fuel barrels, truck rims, air cleaners, cabs, mufflers, combine augers, and decals.

Stan credits much of the firm's success to its smallness. Stan says Standi's size allows it to make decisions rather quickly. When the inspiration for a new product strikes, they can have it ready "in six months or less."

A good example is Standi's scaled-down version of a Merritt cattle trailer. The company's earlier version represented a 48-foot long, eight-foot-wide trailer, but a gent at a toy show wished aloud that he could find one scaled to 52 feet by eight-and-a-half feet and with triple axles. No problem. The result is a shiny aluminum toy trailer complete with 432 holes on each side. Sandi and Stan ought to know how many holes a Merritt trailer has.. Stan photographed a rig at a truck stop one time and counted each and every hole.

At other times they wrangled their children into helping with the sleuthing. Sandi recalls with a laugh asking one of the youngsters to do something acrobatic in the line of toy making duty: "Try to climb up that auger. We have to get a measurement."

Sandi and Stan take pride in getting the details of their farm toys right. As evidence that they've succeeded, Stan points out that one of their toy augers was once used in a court case, to prove that the fullsized machine was "tippy."

At last year's World Dairy Expo, a woman from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation bought a Standi livestock trailer, Stan reveals. Seems she wanted to show the folks in her department what "triple" axles look like compared to a "spread" axle.

Learning how to make toys that are so realistic didn't happen overnight. 14 years ago, Stan quit as a CPA and went full-time into toys. Sandi ended her a real estate secretary position a little more than 6 years ago. Along the way, Stan invested in a plastics company and handled all the price quotes for customers. Sandi at one time ran a plastics press, specifically so she would learn about that end of the business. "I smashed a few molds, too," she confides.

Thanks to his experience, Stan can come up with a ball park figure on what it will cost to make a mold for a new toy. He likes not having to wait for someone else to tell him.

He has also learned now to work with the companies involved in the various manufacturing process that go into making farm toys. Stan routinely deals with two rubber shops that makes Standi's tire Then there are two or three that make plastic molds, a plating company, and a thermo-forming company. Most of those are in or near the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, and Wisconsin.

Once the pieces of a feeder wagon, for example, are formed, they arrive at Standi headquarters. Depending on the toy, or on the workload, the job of cutting the pieces apart, and of drilling holes, might be subbed out to nearby people who want to make some extra money at home. Some of that is also done at Standi's unobtrusive white building on Main Street, along with all the final assembly, plus boxing and shipping.

You’re likely to spot Stan and Sandi at many a show. Stan pegs the number at "50-plus" a year. In Wisconsin, they include World Dairy Expo, World Beef Expo, the Farm Materials Handling Expo at Green Bay, and some FFA-Sponsored shows. Others include the Minnesota State Fair (for which they often make custom tractors), and the National Farm Machinery Show and Wisconsin Farm Progress Days.

When it comes to collecting, the Kruegers have been bitten by the bug. Stan lists International, Oliver, Minneapolis-Moline, Steiger and Cockshutt as one he focuses on. But he adds, "John Deere's my favorite one."

Though their name is well known, don't look for a Standi toys in the major chain stores. Instead, Standi has a network of distributors throughout he U.S. For instance, a lady at Wisconsin Dells sells them out of her gift shop. Some are sold through implement dealers, and Stan says you can hopefully find some at your local Cenex co-op.