The commercial crew came off the road just after Thanksgiving.  They finished up the rock shoulders on Republic Avenue in Jasper County.  I didn’t think we would ever get that job done.  Dale and the crew went through some tough times this year as people came and went more than normal.  Dale seems to handle these setbacks with a good attitude and work ethic.  I feel very lucky to have such a person in charge of this side of the house.  I probably don’t tell Dale enough how much I appreciate him.  With Dale spending a lot of time running the plants, Dale put Steve Jordan in charge of the road.  Steve, Kevin, Ramone, Walter, Trace and Matt put out some really fine work on a daily basis.

     Equipment was another challenge for these guys.  We got a new paver that just would not work.  They fought it for a while with daily phone calls back to me telling me where I could put this machine.  We finally got the factory and sales representative at the asphalt plant to show us how to make this machine work and they couldn’t do it.  We got a new paver but didn’t get it till late August.  We used our old paver till then.

     We got a new (used) asphalt plant.  Did a lot of work to it prior to start up but had break -downs quite often.  Many days we thought we would reach 3500 ton but we couldn’t get past 2800 ton.  It is going to be a good plant once we get through the bugs.

      Just before we started our Jasper Co. work and fired up the new plant.  John Habick walked through the door.   I was wondering who the h _ _ _ was going to run this plant.  John came in with strong asphalt plant experience in operation, troubleshooting and repair.  He is very knowledgeable in this field and as I stand in the button shack and he is telling me this and telling me that, I just nod my head like I know what he is talking about.

     The Newton Asphalt plant produced 35,0000 tons this year.  The Reasnor plant produced 41,000 tons and the Malcom plant produced 10,000 tons.

     Once again Jasper County was the driving force behind our workload and we only did a small piece of the 3.5 million dollar project we picked up for next year.

     I bit off more than I could chew towards the end of the year.  I was really banking on the portable crew being done on I-80 in the middle of October.  Denny, Steve and crew came to save the day and completed Harvester Road in Jasper County, Poweshiek County paved shoulders and teamed up with Dale and crew to get Bittersweet Acres in Jasper County completed. 

THANKS GUYS.