Doug and Ruth Parsons

Owners of The Boise Foundry & Machine

Douglas E. Parsons was raised on a farm in the rural city of Melba, Idaho situated SW of Idaho's capital city of Boise. He met his bride, Ruth E. Meredith of Youngstown, Ohio; a city in the NW corner of the state while he was stationed at Lockbourne AFB in Columbus, Ohio. 

After serving 20 years in the US Air Force they retired to Idaho and purchased Gibbons Foundry, a small one man shop with one saddle horn pattern. Over the next 20 years the renamed Boise Foundry & Machine has grown to employ 4 full time employees and 2 part time. The foundries capabilities have grown to include a wide variety of castings but the greatest area of growth has been in the saddle horn and hardware industry. Their patterns now number well over 100 and more are added every week.

Their son, David, himself retired from the US Air Force is now working in the foundry as General Manager and is taking over a large part of the daily management, plaque and pattern making. Their daughter, Debbie graduated from the University of Idaho with a degree in graphics design and helps by using her education to design plaques and logo's for brochures and websites. (Well, Debbie got married to a Navy man who retired and is now working for Homeland Security. Ruth has taken on the duties of plaque and logo design.)