Walter Doebler gets dirty every day at the Williamsport Foundry Co., his dirt-streaked face and blackened hands testament to the daily toil.

Never mind that he’s the president of this long-standing Lycoming County business.

But Doebler, known as “Bud” to his family members and others who work here, wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I do everything and anything,” he said as he stood in the dark and dusty subterranean foundry room at the small plant located at 164 Maynard St.

Bud is the third generation of his family to oversee the production of metal castings

“It’s pretty much a family business,” said his daughter, Val Doebler, the company’s chief environmental officer. “I’m fourth generation.”

Bud’s brother, Frank, serves as corporate secretary/treasurer. And when the calendar turns to 2016, family members will celebrate their company’s 100th year of operation. Bud noted the company for a time operated on West Street originally out of a chicken coop near the site of Wegman’s before moving to its present location in 1938.

While employees have come and gone and changes have occurred, many aspects of the business have stayed the same.

Bud said the company, which employs about 20 people, remains the only one left locally that continues to produce metal castings using a cupola furnace.

“You get better quality out of a cupola than an electric one,” he said.

The furnace, heating up to 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit, melts the iron scrap for the metal castings used for machine parts and other industrial and household products. The company even makes novelty items.

“It’s not the majority of our work,” Val said.

It would be impossible to say how many different patterns the company has produced since Bud’s grandfather and Val’s great-grandfather Walter Ertel started the company in 1916 with his brother, William Ertel.

“We used to make moldings for the textile industry,” Bud said.

Over the years, the company has done work for local companies such as Andritz (formerly Sprout Waldron) and Young Industries, both in Muncy.

Much of the scrap iron they use comes from nearby Staiman’s Recycling as well as Brazil. In recent years, Chinese imports have made it tough for operations along with tougher environmental and safety restrictions which have driven up operating costs.

Bud, who lost part of a finger from working at the family business, doesn’t hide the fact that the work is anything but clean.

Will Rump, a molding foreman with the company for 46 years, concurred.

“”It’s a dirty job,” he said.

Black dust covers the foundry’s work floor and machinery and many of the moldings stored away in other rooms.

“The environment is not the best. No question about it,” Bud said. “Nobody can open up a foundry like ours because of the government regulations.”

He noted that at age 72, he’s still working, however.

Wilson Doebler Sr., his father, lost an eye to a workplace accident when molten metal explored. Still, he continued working in the office and pattern shop into his 80s and lived to the ripe old age of 95.

Bud can’t imagine doing anything else.

“I started here scrubbing floors and cleaning out the boiler room,” he said.

He later took up pattern making at the former Williamsport Tech, now the site of Pennsylvania College of Technology.

He said the work is never boring. Many of the jobs the company does amount are small and fill individual needs, say, part for a stove at someone’s home.

“We do what other foundries cast off,” he quipped.