Wisconsin Life

Have you heard of the fiberglass graveyard?

[gentle music]

Rebecca Lakowske: People have no idea what they’re looking at. It stands out just because it’s not something you see everywhere, every day.

Ryan Lakowske: Our mold graveyard has become an unintentional attraction to a lot of people. This weird oddity of a field that has a bunch of skeletons left over from projects. There’s a lot of life left in that graveyard.

I’m Ryan Lakowske, and this is my wife Rebecca. We own FAST Fiberglass. [hammering]

We make a lot of fiberglass animals and statues of all kinds. And waterpark slides, or anything that the industry calls for.

[television static]

Narrator: We found a clue in our mystery about where these big critters come from.

Rebecca Lakowske: The beginnings of FAST really started in the late ’60s, early ’70s. That’s where the whole idea had started. The business switched hands to another owner two more times, and then in 2020, Ryan and I purchased the business.

[equipment buzzing]

One of the cool things about having a business that is well established and well known is that there are a lot of notable projects that have already been done.

[bright music]

Ryan Lakowske: One of the most recognizable projects that FAST has been involved with is the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame up in Hayward, Wisconsin. A lot of people have seen the pink elephant. That’s a big known one.

Rebecca Lakowske: The Paul Bunyan in the Dells is another one that people recognize, especially for its size.

We have products that have gone all over the United States.

Ryan Lakowske: 30-foot eyeball, that was in Chicago for a while, and dogs balancing taxi cabs on their nose in New York. The company’s had a past history of quite a few cool projects. But we’re doing our own thing now too, and we got a few cool ones under our belt.

Some of the current pieces we’re working on here is a nine-foot dog that we’re making for service vet dogs. We’re making a Santa sleigh golf cart. We’re hoping to get that in the parade this year. We just finished up a shark. It’s for a car wash down in Georgia. And you drive right through the mouth.

Rebecca Lakowske: One of our bigger, more notable projects that we did was a flamingo that’s at the Tampa Bay airport, and this was one where we worked with an artist on it. It’s a 26-foot flamingo neck, as well as the feet. An airport has hundreds of thousands of people that view it, so it was a fun way to really get our name out there.

Some days, it feels like playing, you know? It feels like, you know, you can take other people’s ideas and dreams and try to turn ’em into reality.

The main thing that we’ve changed since owning the place is we’ve brought a lot more technology into it. A lot of the custom jobs that we do now are done through the computer, so it eliminates a lot of the trial and error.

Rebecca Lakowske: So Ryan and I have three kids. It’s been really fun as they get older to see them become more involved and more interested. They’re able to learn how a business runs and be able to see where they can fit into it.

After school, they run over and check the catalog box, and if it’s empty, they go get catalogs and they put it in the box. As our oldest is now 12, he’s becoming more and more interested in the business, and it’s really fun to watch him grow and learn. He is really into technology, definitely takes after his father.

Ryan Lakowske: See that?

Dexton Lakowske: Yeah.

Ryan Lakowske: Instead of it being so tight, it turns into a big, wide one.

Rebecca Lakowske: So he’s been learning a lot of the computer programs.

Dexton Lakowske: Some skills that I’ve gained in school goes directly to what I do here because it’s like, science, engineering, math, and technology.

Rebecca Lakowske: They find where they fit in here and what they can do, and they really enjoy it.

[child grunting]

Ryan Lakowske: Okay.

Rebecca Lakowske: It’s a pretty big space for kids, and what kid wouldn’t just absolutely love it here?

Ryan Lakowske: Get that laid out then and just start putting the black down?

Rebecca Lakowske: I think I would. The rest of the team too, I mean, honestly, they’re starting to feel like family too. The years of experience that they all have under their belt. They’ve been a part of this company before we owned it. They’ve taught me so much. I couldn’t do it without them.

Of course, I want the company to grow. I want it to be here for the kids. The most important part to me is the business itself is still running. And it’s still taking care of not only our family, but the family of all of the employees and people that we have here with us.

Rebecca Lakowske: FAST has built a good name over the years, and it’s not only our job but responsibility to keep that going.

[bright music]