Over 40 years ago, Chris Weston began his journey on the road to “Building Better Wheels”. With a stack of small wheels in the back of an old borrowed pickup truck and a desire to make a difference, Chris’ mission in 1976 was quite simply to give his customers what they wanted and needed. At first, he sold industrial wheels into British Columbia, Canada, for an American manufacturer. Soon it became clear that the wheels weren’t meeting the specialized requirements of his customers. Chris was a forward thinker and attuned to the changing marketplace – as mining trucks grew, the wheels had to be larger and stronger. He revolutionized the way wheels were manufactured by introducing the practice of fully machining the critical components that make up a wheel. This innovative style of manufacturing produced wheels that were stronger than any others on the market and could stand up to the extreme stresses being put on them by larger earth moving equipment and new tire technologies. Chris’s early efforts and hard work were not without setbacks and jogs in the road, but after 10 years immersed in the business, building a reputation from quality and growing his relationships with mining companies, he put everything on the line and opened a manufacturing facility in Surrey, British Columbia. As the demand and the size of vehicles continued to grow, so did RIMEX and its product offerings.

In 1986, Chris expanded the RIMEX manufacturing facility to 30,000 square feet, and in 1988 he opened two distribution offices in the United States. By 1990, Chris realized the company could grow even further, which led to expansions into Indonesia, South America, South Africa and Australia. Market diversification and the ability to create custom wheels based on the individual requirements of the customers has always been key to RIMEX’s success.

As the mining industry embraced RIMEX, market share continued to grow and so did Chris’s passion for expanding the business. In 1995, RIMEX swung open the door to China. That same year marked a major expansion at home, with both a warehouse and corporate office in Surrey. In order to keep up with the increasing demand for quality wheels, a new 40,000 square foot manufacturing plant was built in Agassiz, British Columbia in 1999. Continued success fueled deals with original equipment truck manufacturers and new sales outlets across the Canadian prairie provinces.

Bristol, VA, USA branch opened in 2001

• Over the past twenty years, RIMEX has evolved into more than just a wheels-and-rims enterprise. An area in which the company now leads is temperature and pressure monitoring inside tires, developing best-in-class technology to protect and preserve a safe, stable internal wheel environment. But RIMEX’s TyreSense system aims not just to perfect tire monitoring; it optimizes data for the most advanced overall asset and fleet management system possible. RIMEX’s expansion and global reach has continued year after year, growing to over 500,000 square feet worldwide. Notably, the Agassiz facility was awarded the Occupational Safety Standard of Excellence in British Columbia, Canada in 2015. Going further to streamline operations, RIMEX has adopted the industry-leading Lean formula to eliminate inefficient practices and excel at the essentials.