Continuing to grow, adding new product lines and increasing sales
SafTCart, a major anchor of the economy in Clarksdale, started as the metal fabrication department of Walker Welders, a mom-and-pop business with Jimmy Walker, Sr. and his wife, Helen, driving down country roads selling welding equipment to farmers.
Walker said he was peddling oxygen and acetylene gas to farmers. In a good year, farmers would buy; in a bad year, they would not.
“Mr. Walker wanted a product that was recession proof,” says Jim Herring, Executive Vice President, SafTCart. “He got the idea to make a welding cart safer by having the gauges and cutting torch apparatus enclosed in a lockable cabinet—the first SafTCart. That idea launched the SafTCart brand. Years later OSHA came out with a standard that stated that the oxygen and acetylene must be either separated by twenty feet of space or, if on a cart, be separated with a fire barrier sixty inches tall.”
The addition of this firewall meets OSHA standards designed to help prevent injuries and save lives. After starting to offer SafTCart, the company started getting orders from all over and the brand just kept growing.
“We have spent a long time building up our brand equity,” says Herring. “It is a smaller market but has done very well for us. We’ve been very fortunate. Sales have gone crazy. Nearly forty years after it was introduced, this is still our most purchased product. We sell firewall carts daily along with our complete line of welding carts, cages, pallets, cradles, pallet beds and trailers.”
And it has done well providing good jobs in Clarksdale. The company has increased from 100 employees a few years ago to 145 currently, and another twenty at a business purchased in North Carolina, Carolina Piping.
Walker, Sr. is still active in the business. His son, Jimmy Walker, Jr., is current President and CEO. There are eight family members in the business including Herring, who is married to Melinda Walker.
“We are fortunate we all get along,” says Herring. “We all go to church together. It is a very good dynamic that the Walkers have established. All the folks who work here are one big family who take care of each other.”
The door-to-door sales that launched the company were long ago replaced by trade shows like the FABTECH conference held in the Chicago Trade Center where the SafTCart was first introduced in 1986. An estimated 30,000 to 40,000 people attended FABTECH 2025 held recently.
Herring says they are on the road a lot going to shows, conventions and regional meetings. Those give the company a larger geographic reach. He describes these events they attend as like a family reunion.
“We have a good time,” says Herring. “The other people in this business are very moral, decent folks, and some started out like Jim and Helen Walker as a mom and pop.”
They primarily sell through distributors. Some of their customers prefer SafTCart because it is American made.
SafTCart is only one product out of a vast product line. Herring says they have been able to grow in part because of good fortune. For example, one company said it wasn’t going to be able to build something a couple years ago. Would you build this?
“We were able to get their business,” says Herring. “Happenstance has a lot to do with it. Our truck and trailer business has done well. That is probably the greatest growth that we have seen of late. We do get a lot of special orders with different combinations. We continue to expand our product line and go to shows to keep our name in front of folks.”
Carts are the top sellers. Pallets are second followed by PODS (Portable on Demand Storage). They also manufacture products like truck beds with lift gates that can help people prevent back injuries.
“We are all about safety every which way,” says Herring.
Another major focus is on customer satisfaction. Herring said SafTCart’s growth can only be attributed to the loyalty and dedication from the company’s customer base, which remains SafTCart’s primary focus to this day.
At times the company has been urged to move to a more “business friendly” climate like Southaven. But Herring says the company has gotten great support from the Clarksdale Chamber of Commerce, the Crossroads Economic Partnership and the City of Clarksdale.
“They are willing to work with us,” says Herring. “They are good folks. We are fortunate to be where we are. Mr. Walker says he was raised in Clarksdale and this is where the company will stay. Clarksdale is his home and he’s going to take care of these folks who work for us. It is just what you do. He has a good outlook on things. He has a lot of confidence in the people who are here. And Mr. Walker is still active here and inventing new things at the age of 89.”
A couple of major events called attention to SafTCart. After 9-11, the family was watching live coverage when they saw a SafTCart being lowered into ground zero with gases needed for cutting metal. The company has a lot of customers in New York, and the use of SafTCart after that major terrorist attack may have contributed to sales.
It was also used in an episode of Orange County Choppers where it was made into some kind of battering ram. They made a copy of that episode for customers to view at trade shows.
The company moved three times after initially being housed in an old school. A truck terminal was purchased that the company thought would be more space than it would ever need. But then when more space was needed, they moved to an old abandoned mobile home factory that had gone bankrupt.
“My father-in-law is superstitious, so he asked a priest to come out and bless the property,” says Herring. “It took six months to move everything.”
The company spends about $10 to $14 million per year on steel. Tariffs have hurt, Herring said. But, for the most part, the price customers pay for the company’s products have not increased. Herring said they expect things to level out as far as steel prices.
SafTCart prefers domestic steel.
“Our experience with foreign steel is that it is not as good as what is produced in the U.S.,” says Herring. “Steel from overseas has a tendency to crack; however, all the rubber we use for wheels comes from overseas.”
With low unemployment, and the requirement for manufacturing skills, keeping fully staffed takes work. But many of Sat-T-Cart employees have been with them for a long time. And SafTCart is open to hiring people formerly incarcerated.
“We try to be decent,” says Herring. “We have people who have made mistakes but they learn from them and make great employees. People who have a good job are less likely to get in trouble. We all make mistakes. A person who doesn’t, well, they aren’t doing anything. They are sitting on the couch somewhere.”
SafTCart sells to all fifty states, Canada, Latin America and beyond. With the acquisition of National Metal Products in 2000, SafTCart has more than sixty years’ experience in the industry. Herring said they are constantly developing new innovations which change the way cylinder transportation is accomplished in the packaged gas industry.
Walker Welders, launched as a package gas distributor in 1969, also thrived and had operations in eight different locations when it was sold in 1997.
“Mr. Walker could have made more money selling to others, but he sold it to a Dutch company that promised to keep the current staff,” says Herring.