It only takes one word to describe the start of the season down here at Illowa Investment, Inc. Rainy!!           However, in between showers, Larry Sammon, Larry Senger and crews have been able to find enough sunshine and dry weather to complete work in Clinton County, and Scott County.

           From there Larry Sammon has moved the crew to Benton County for another 43 miles of crack sealing.  This crew will be extremely busy this season with work still being bid, and already having a full roster with jobs in the city of Des Moines, Linn County Dallas County, and Ringold County.

Mike Weir and crew still have to apply the cushion surface and color on 8 indoor courts at the University of Iowa. Delays there, with the condition of the surface has caused scheduling problems for us. We had hoped to have this job completed by now. There are other courts to color in Dubuque, Iowa City, and Fairfield. This crew will stay busy with color coating as well as helping out with crack-sealing jobs.

Larry Senger along with Travis Porter have more seal work scheduled at this time than they ever have. As of right now, they have around 30,000 gallons to spray.  This is an extremely respectable start to their season. A large portion comes from the Davenport Schools.

Jeff Herington and his guys have been hammering away with asphalt work at Ipsco Steal, Hon Industries, and the Hoof & Paw Clinic. With the decline of county work this season we have been aggressively perusing the commercial market, (along with the other 4 asphalt contractors in a 30 mile radius). However, we have been able to pick up a job or two a week since the season kicked off. The good thing about many of these jobs is we do all of the grading, excavation, removal, and paving.

Since my last article we purchased a Leica Rugby 300 single grade laser, this piece of equipment combined with a few grade sensors that I hope to demo soon will help make our motor grader more operator friendly. This system is not as sophisticated as Topcon or Trimble’s on-board systems, but is a huge step in the right direction for accuracy and cutting down hours while grading, and excavating.