It looks like our ready mixers are having the second best year ever (1998 was the best year with over 100,000 cy many going to Barilla). The plant's been running great. The drivers have been having one of their best years in terms of safety and their trucks are looking pretty clean for the most part.

As I write this, the date is November 28^th, what a great weekend we just had. If you hadn’t heard, the Cyclones just handed the Iowa Hawkeyes their fourth defeat in the last four years in a row. Now I know a little of how it felt for the previous fifteen years and I hear Hawkeyes saying, “Just wait until basketball season”. It was a good game; both teams were in it till the very end.

In our shop we have a new mechanic, Ryan Thompson. Prior to working here Ryan was with Archway in Boone for almost 20 years until they decide to close their doors. Ryan lives near Ogden and is married with two children. If you get an opportunity, stop by the shop and welcome Ryan.

One of our most overlooked operations is our lab. Cindy Dela Rosa manages all of Ames quality control tasks. Her lab is fully equipped for production control as well as asphalt and concrete mix designs. Cindy has been working with our ready mix division to design a three aggregate blend instead of the typical two aggregate mix. So far the lab results show we have high compressive strengths, which means we can reduce the amount of cement going into each yard of concrete. This has the potential to save us quite a bit of money and make us more competitive.

Cindy has put together all our asphalt mixes, from super pave to FAA P-401 as well as a comprehensive QA/QC plan for the Ames Airport project. Under her watchful eye, I don’t believe we had any production penalties and she kept us from getting into trouble several times. Cindy is truly a professional lab manager and I don’t know what we’d do without her.