It’s looking like 2004 will be another busy year at Metro. We already have numerous jobs on the books for paving and ready mix and look forward to a safe and productive season.

There have been some personnel changes at Metro this winter. Pat Jackson has accepted the position of Safety/HR director for Manatts Metro. Pat has been a ready mix driver, dispatcher, batched concrete, and has worked in the Johnston shop.

Kelly Adair has agreed to come to Johnston to run our parts department and help with work orders. Kelly has been the mechanic on our paving crew for the last couple years, and was working as an operator and lowboy driver on the paving crew prior to that.

A special thanks to Steve Armstrong, with the Newton Portable Asphalt crew, who has agreed to let us hire his mechanic, Pat Stoffell, to fill Kelly’s spot. Pat lives in Norwalk and was hoping to find a job that didn’t require as much time away from home.

Brad Gillum came to work for us this winter and will be working with Dick Tingley and Dave Charter on our plant maintenance. Brad previously worked for Eagle Iron Works in Des Moines.

Drew Manatt helped Duane McDonald on the Wichita project and came to work here when that job finally finished in January. Drew will be helping in the office and in the field with both the paving and ready mix projects.

Jerry Carlson, our new Johnston plant manager, started on March 1^st. Jerry comes to us from Marshall, Missouri, were he worked for Lafarge.

Congratulations to Pat and Kelly on their promotions and welcome Pat, Brad, Drew and Jerry to Manatts Metro.

With the addition of new jobs and additional people, it quickly became apparent that we wouldn’t have enough office space. The first job for Drew was to come up with a solution to our lack of space. With the help of Jim Bim, Dick Tingley, Mike Viehdorfer, Steve Miller and others, we now have the portable office trailer set here that Duane bought for the Adair County job a couple years ago.

One of the larger maintenance jobs we completed this winter was the relining of the bins at the West Des Moines Plant. This job became a little larger than we had anticipated. The bins had been relined several times in the past, and each time they just covered the old lining. This made cutting out the old steel difficult and very time consuming. So, even though this job took a little longer than anticipated, Dick, Dave, Brad, Bob Doyle, and Carey Courtney kept at it and safely did a very nice job that should last for a long time.