about

The history of Manatts Inc. began in 1947 when Junie Manatt, with a single Studebaker truck, started his own trucking firm in his hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa. At first, Junie and his one-man company focused on jobs such as hauling grain and livestock for farmers and other general trucking jobs.

     “I had wanted to drive a truck from grade school on,” Junie Manatt recounted. “So when I got out of the service, the only kind of truck I could buy was a Studebaker. I started out by driving this truck. When I got it paid for, I bought another one. And I just kept going like that.”
    While the young Junie worked a couple of years on his own in this way, soon he would take his first small step toward expanding the company to include other members of his family.
    By 1951, Junie had about five trucks in his fleet. That year, he and his brother Clair – who also trucked different materials and had a couple of trucks of his own – decided to join forces. Simply, the two brothers saw the opportunity to go further together than they could individually.

Junie Manatt standing by a restored model of his first Studebaker

    Though now one company, the two brothers operated by each of them handling his own fleet of trucks and customers. It lasted that way until Clair was called back into military service and the Korean War. When that happened, Junie oversaw Clair’s trucks until his brother returned to Iowa from his most recent tour of duty.
    By 1953, the company was hauling construction materials as part of its workload. That year, it took another step toward expanding and becoming more involved with construction when it established its first ready-mix plant in its hometown of Brooklyn. This was about the time Highway 6 was being relocated, from Brooklyn to Victor, and the Manatts felt a ready-mix plant in the Brooklyn area could prove beneficial to the company.
    “It wasn’t wildly successful,” Junie recalled recently of the company’s first venture into this particular business. “But, it went alright. It must have been fairly successful because we kept adding to it.”
    The Manatts operated this plant with two ready-mix trucks – a four-yard mixer and a six-yard mixer.
    In 1957, the company added its second ready-mix plant, this time in Montezuma.
    The next year, it continued on its evolution into the construction field with the purchase of a sand and gravel plant in Tama. 1958 was a big year for the company. Not only was it the year it added the Tama sand and gravel yard, but it was also the year in which the firm bid its first construction project. Finally, it was also the year the company was formally incorporated as Manatts Inc.
    The period of the late 1950s and early 1960s was an important time for the company. In early 1959, the third Manatt brother, Merlin Manatt, came on board. Until just prior to coming to work with his brothers, Merlin had owned an implement distributorship. While that worked out well for him, Merlin said he came to a crossroads in that endeavor in about 1958. “I called a meeting and said, ‘I’m either going to get bigger or I’m going to get out,’” Merlin explained recently. The decision was made to get out.
    As it turned out, it was also a perfect time to join on at Manatts Inc. By this time, with a steady stream of trucking jobs, Junie and Clair needed someone else to help them out with the growth the company was experiencing in the area of building roads.
    At the time, much of the company’s construction activities were in the area of rolled stone bases and seal-coat work. Merlin was put in charge of this area of work for Manatts. Considering the fact that he didn’t have any background in construction, this was going to be a challenge for Merlin. He remembered his first construction job recently: “I went down to Muscatine County and I was to lay some rolled stone base – and I didn’t know the difference between that and home base,” Merlin Manatt recounted, laughing heartily. “I didn’t know what they were talking about, but I went and built the job.”
     Fortunately, several county engineers helped the young Manatts considerably in this regard, which enabled them to eventually become experts in the trade.
    With the three Manatt brothers working together, their responsibilities were divided so that Clair supervised the company’s trucking operations, Merlin handled the road-building work, and Junie took care of financial and administrative matters as well as backing up both of his brothers with any help they needed on a job – getting equipment to a project, driving trucks, supervising a job, etc.   Or, as Merlin stated, “Whenever we got in trouble, we’d call on Junie.”
    Tragically, this set-up would only last a few years. Clair died on the evening of Halloween, 1962. Only 32 at the time, he left behind seven children, the oldest of which was Mike.
    By the early 1960s, highway work resulting from the original Interstate Highway Act in 1956 finally started gaining momentum in Iowa, especially in the Des Moines area (which is just about 70 miles west of Brooklyn). Manatts, which was still a trucking firm as well as being a ready-mix supplier and contractor, saw its workload increase steadily at this time.
    “About that time, we set up a ready-mix plant along the Interstate down by Marengo and poured a lot of concrete,” Junie Manatt remembered. “The Interstate did help us a lot in our trucking and in our ready-mix. We furnished ready-mix for all around there.”
    Also around that time, Manatts Inc. started doing its own P.C. paving, as well as some curb-and-gutter work. This area of business has continued to grow steadily since that time.
    Later that decade, the first seeds of change were planted, as the sons of Junie, Merlin and Clair – Brad, Tony, John, Tim, and Mike – began working summers for the company. Though no one knew it at the time, this would mark the beginning of a new era for the company.

Company Growth

     As “the boys” began spending more and more of their high-school summers working at their dads’ company – doing such tasks as sweeping floors (a job Brad today admits he wasn’t very good at), doing odd chores such as filling up pop machines and generally hanging around – Manatts Inc. continually to grow.
    In 1970, Manatts established a partnership with the P.C. concrete paver K.C. Carter Co., forming Manatt-Carter Paving. That partnership lasted until 1982, when Manatts bought out Carter’s assets.
    In the earlier 1970s, Manatts entered into asphalt paving for the first time, a market that has also increased steadily over the years.
    By the mid-1970s, the company’s construction was focused mainly on concrete paving, asphalt paving and seal-coat work.
    In 1980, the nation economy went south – and Manatts Inc. did the same. It won large contracts in Texas and Louisiana at about this time. The company also did work for military owners in the early 1980s, performing projects at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Ellsworth Air Force Base in Rapid City, S.D., and McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita. These out-of-state projects enabled the company to weather the economic downturn better than other companies.
    In fact, as the national economy eventually started to turn up, Manatts Inc. hit a real growth spurt. Take a look at these moments in Manatts history since then:

In 1977, Manatts purchased United Concrete, a ready-mix supplier in Waterloo;
In 1982, Manatts grew into the Ames market when it bought out the asphalt-paving assets and ready-mix plant of Iowa Road Builders; and, along with partner Robins Jackson, formed Basic Materials Co., a construction materials supplier in the Waterloo and Clear Lake areas;
In 1985, bought interest in the L.L. Pelling Co., located in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City;

In 1986 bought block manufacturer Marquart Block in Waterloo

A big year in 1987 – bought the ready-mix supplier C.W. Shirey Co. in Waterloo; purchased Wendling Quarries, which had facilities in Muscatine, Cedar Rapids and Linn County; and purchased Illowa Investments Co., Blue Grass, Iowa, an asphalt paving company that also saws, seals and does crack sealing in Iowa;

In 1990, purchased the quarry operations of Aggrecon in the Iowa counties of Clinton, Jackson, Jones and Linn as well as three Illinois counties;

In 1991, purchased a considerable interest of Norris Asphalt Paving, Ottumwa, Iowa; and

In 1995, bought out the interests of Vulcan Materials, evolving those into its Wendling Quarries operations.

In 1998, entered into the Des Moines market by buying GNA and its interest in Iowa Paving

In 1991, the second generation of Manatts began the gradual process of buying the company from Junie and Merlin. This second generation and their responsibilities included: Brad Manatt, company president; Tony Manatt, President and general manager of the Wendling Quarries divisions; Mike Manatt, vice president of the P.C. paving, underground and heavy construction division; John Manatt, vice president of the ready-mix operations; and Tim Manatt, vice president of the ready-mix operations in northern Iowa and president of United Concrete.
    In addition to the Manatts, Jack Gustafson, who first started with the company in 1957 was also a member of the board, serving as vice president. He recently retired. J.C. Miller, company CPA, serves as treasurer.
    Additionally, it should be stated that all of these purchases involved companies that came to Manatts to see about making a deal. “Any major expansion we’ve done has been from the people coming to us and asking us if we wanted to buy them out,” explained Brad Manatt. “It’s not like we went somewhere and tried to run somebody out of business. We’ve never done that. And we never will. People who offered their companies for sale to us offered them because Merlin and Junie were good friends of theirs.”
    Tony Manatt agreed. “It was the character of Merlin and Junie had,” he said. “I keep hearing that people selling their companies to us want their employees treated well. And I think we carry that reputation. We at least try.”
   Junie and Merlin themselves agreed with this assessment, adding their insights on why the company is well regarded by so many of its competitors in the industry. “Some of our very best friends are our competitors,” said Merlin Manatt. “If somebody got in trouble and needed some equipment that we had, we’d loan it to them. Later on, they’d loan something else back to us. It’s been that way all the way through.”
    Added Junie: “Bottom line, we did what we were supposed to do. And I think it paid off for us. I think we earned the respect of people.” And let that be Junie’s epitaph as he died in March of 2000.