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1775
Old 6 Road |
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 Cal Paup |
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Here
it is again, the Eighth month of the year. It seems like only
yesterday that we were sitting around the big table in DeWitt
wondering if we had enough tons to keep the plants crushing all
year. As it turns out we do. Not only enough for the Wendling
group, we have the Manatt crushing crew as well. Brian and crew
are at Troy Mills crushing about 55,000 ton to fill a couple
contracts for Carlsons and Linn Co.
Russell and crew are currently at Bowser. (Their home away from home). They saw some new territory this year. We had a contract for some asphalt stone out of the Iron Hill quarry, north of Maquoketa. Normally, we would send Oats and crew there, but he was tied up over in Illinois. Oats has been busy in Cedar, Jackson, and Clinton counties. Oats has a new stockpiler this year so welcome aboard Tom Budde! Steve Fisher and the guys started at Garrison this year producing asphalt stone for Manatts portable plant. This is the 4th or 5th year in a row that we have been able to supply stone for our parent company out of Garrison. Hopefully, this is a yearly tradition that we have started. Steve has a new face on the crew this year. Welcome, Frank Dedrick. Frank brings about 20 years of quarry experience with him. Steve and the guys currently are in Montour. Tim McPherson and crew have been bouncing around from Robins in the spring, Tri-con, Vinton, 4-Co, then back to Robins. He still has about 3 moves to go yet this year. Tim has 3 new employees. Welcome aboard Lance Zerbe, Pete Caspers, and Gary Brunscheen. Dave Kagemann has been busy with asphalt stone as well. We have an asphalt plant setting in our Behr quarry. Dave has been there for about 9 weeks. He has since moved on to Joinerville. He has one new employee. Welcome, Leroy Yaddoff! The stationary plants are busy as well. Scotty at CR South had both the asphalt plants in Cedar Rapids doing major jobs right out of the chutes this year. LL Pelling had an overlay on Hwy. 30. Cedar Valley had 2 big jobs as well. The crew at South have produced around 55,000 ton of asphalt stone so far this year with that much more to go. Scotty also has a contract with Manatts for concrete stone at the airport. There is a new face at CR South as well. Joe Ruley. Even though we hired Joe right out of high school, he has a quarry background. His grandfather worked for Alpha Crushed Stone for many years. Shawn at Moscow is having a somewhat slow year overall. A lot of jobs are coming out of Moscow this year, but all fairly small. They have base stone, concrete stone, and several asphalt jobs to make the stone for. They love the screen changes this year. The Moscow AC plant has had some work, some of which has involved exotic oils and the difficult material. It’s not just making asphalt anymore. Two new utility people were hired this year and are doing most everything. They are Ryan Feller from Maquoketa and Kyle Voss from Tipton. The wash plants are keeping busy as well. Terry Adler and Ben Miller are at Robins. They are also in new territory, requiring them to live out of a motel for a few weeks. (Thanks guys) Bryan Simmermaker is at Bowser. We added a truck dump at the wash plant site this year. With the increase in washed stone there, it is almost becoming another permanent site. Ray Taylor is at Montour. He was at Robins early in the spring and Garrison after that. Both Terry Nichols and Tom Sturms have put new drivers on board this year to help with the material hauling department. So welcome aboard Rob Clark, Bob Clark, Herb Spies, and Fred Maxwell. Not only do they deliver rock, when that business is slow they jump in a redi-mix truck out of Preston. The stripping crew is currently at CR South. They say it is their favorite quarry to strip in, (or at least, I thought that is what they said). Unfortunately, they will be leaving there soon. Steve Frett joined the crew this year as well. Welcome Steve. “DeWitt to 20.” That’s a familiar sound to everyone. I do believe Alan Laufenberg must say that in his sleep, as much as it is heard on the radio. With the potential of 500 pieces of equipment to move you can imagine it keeps them moving, and moving safely I might add. Thanks to Roger T. and all the guys. With all this work going on, you can imagine what the shops have been up to. They are the behind the scene kind of guys. Without them, production wouldn’t go as well as it does. Keep up the good work. Thanks to Roger Kremer, Tom Gaffney, Dan Shield, and all their guys. With all the new faces this year I hope to see everyone at the Kernels game or the golf outing in September. One of the main keys to making all of this come together is teamwork. There is no better place to meet the rest of the team then at one of our outings. Work safely and thank you! |
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