Jake Boyer

This Winter, the Illowa crew has been busy locating and bidding asphalt, crackfill, and seal work. We are experiencing vast reductions in the amount of work being let by our local cities, counties and state government agencies. To remain competitive, we are bidding work at or near cost, effectively minimizing our profit margin. With less work being let and a profit margin steadily approaching 0%, we are desperately fighting for every ton of HMA and every foot of crackfill.

On the asphalt side of the company, we begin the year working on our latest acquisition. In early March, Terry Travis and Randy Soedt submitted a successful bid for completion of the first phase of a street improvement project in the City of Durant. This job has close to 7000 tons of HMA and a significant amount of underground work. Phase One of the street improvement project will cover twenty-one blocks in the City of Durant.

Our next large project will begin soon after the Fourth of July holiday. Bill Miller and a young crew will move in and take over a 1.28-mile stretch of Highway 38 in Muscatine. With 6500 tons of HMA, over 110 fixture adjustments, and a challenging traffic control set-up, the asphalt crew will have their hands full on this project.

Between and after these projects, the asphalt crew will be busy paving driveways and, if we out-bid the competition, paving some city streets for the City of Muscatine. They currently have 4000 tons of paving estimated for this season.

Larry Sammon and his veteran crackfill crew will soon be traveling to Clinton County to begin work on a twenty-six mile HMA crackfill job. Larry’s crew will proceed to Cedar County where Randy recently picked up another ten miles of HMA crackfill. As soon as the crew completes their work in Cedar Co., they are off to a fifteen-mile stretch of crackfill in Cass County. There are four crackfill jobs coming up in Iowa’s May letting that we would really like to acquire.

Larry Senger and the seal crew will begin sealing some of the parking lots and driveways on our growing list of seal work. As soon as our evening temperatures consistently remain above 50ºF, Larry will be back in action.

There are several jobs still on the verge of being let that would contribute greatly to our confidence going into the season. To make this a productive season, we will all have to identify new and better ways to get the job done safely and efficiently.