Manatt's Very Own Hillbilly Division
This crew is so proud, they even 
had a sign made just for this occasion!

Duane has been down in Wichita, Kansas, running a project we got a month ago (see pictures below). It is a reconstruction of 1½ miles of I-135 in Witchita. We have hired some good people from Wittmer Construction and would like to welcome them into our family.

We also have a small paving job by Lancaster, Missouri just south of the Iowa border with Norris Asphalt. This was a win-win as we helped Brady get the contract on a large asphalt job.

The estimators have been very busy chasing work. We have two county jobs, Jackson and Lee, and on city work we have Boone, Ames, Sully, Story City and Baxter.

Another project we obtained is in Johnson County on I-80 by Coralville. We are working with the prime contractor, LL Pelling Co. Our portion of the work is the dirt, pipe, removal, rock and a small amount of PCC paving for the reconstruction, with Pelling doing the full depth ACC paving. We have a nice start and will get more.

Along with securing work, one of our biggest challenges is insurance. We have not had the best track record in the safety arena. We have had too many claims with some of those being very large. As with everything, costs keep rising, but in insurance some drastic changes have occurred. 

We no longer have fixed cost for insurance, but have up-front cost insurance with a very large deductible. This pertains to our worker’s compensation and general liability on auto. We are now responsible to pay the first $250,000 of any claim. It does not take a brain surgeon to figure out a few large claims could wipe out our profits for a year.

What needs to be done? We must hold everyone accountable for their actions. We must think safety first. We have set up some safety committees and plan to establish more. We need more people involved in these committees to determine how to become a safer company and how to implement a way to achieve this.

On the accounting side, we plan to charge each division or plant their share of costs for insurance claims. This will make more people aware of these costs and will warrant more accountability. This is an important issue and we must all be safer to survive.

Enough preaching! On the brighter side, things are starting to look better. The war in Iraq seems to be going our way and, hopefully, is about over so the loss of life can stop. This should improve our economy and people will start spending again.

Manatt's crew are busy in Wichita, KS with a reconstruction project of 1.5 miles on I-135.