Category: 2013

 

Nearly 70 years have passed since Arthur Taggart completed the “Handbook of Mineral Dressing,” and more than 85 have gone by since his “Handbook of Ore Dressing” was first published. But despite nearly an entire century passing between then and now, Taggart’s works remain essential text for almost every aspect of the aggregates industry.

“The handbooks embody the evolution of the art of ore dressing to the science and technology of mineral processing,” says John Bennington, district manager at Metso. “Taggart was the primary contributor to this evolution.”

Bennington keeps one of Taggart’s handbooks in his office, and he’s used it multiple times throughout his career.

“When I was at GreyStone, I used it to redesign their screws to meet the specs that were needed,” Bennington says. “He wrote the textbook on how to do this stuff. He did most of the modern crushing and screening.”

Taggart, who was born in 1884, spent some of his early years at Stanford, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in 1909 and an engineering management degree in 1910. Taggart took to mining early, gaining experience as a machine operator, mill sampler and surveyor at different mines in the Western United States. During one stretch of his early career, he even worked in South America as a designer and consultant for the opening of some of the continent’s great 20th century mines.

But Taggart’s career shifted to the classroom, specifically to Yale from 1911 to 1919, and later to Columbia, where he served as professor of ore dressing. It was while at Columbia when Taggart began compiling practical information from milling operations for his “Handbook of Ore Dressing.” Today, the handbook represents the great shift from ore dressing as an art to mineral processing as a science.

The “Handbook of Ore Dressing” was updated and once again published as the “Handbook of Minerals Processing” in 1945. Many of today’s producers and manufacturers still reference the handbook as their mineral processing bible.

“I don’t know what was going on back then, but somebody was eating their Wheaties from 1880 to 1910,” Bennington says. “My degree is in aerospace originally, and almost all of the airplane stuff we use today is from the 1800s too.”

“None of us are mining engineers, but even to the lay observer the handbook seems like a monumental work,” says Christopher Hall, one of Taggart’s grandsons. “To think that it was largely his original thinking and that many of the processes and devices described in detail were of his own design is even more impressive.”

In addition to his aggregates industry contributions, Taggart was a botanist, chemist, photographer and champion golfer.

 

Paul C. Mellott Jr. has been on what is now NSSGA’s executive committee for 23 years, and he served the National Stone Association as chairman in 1996. But when his tenure as chairman was up, a friend encouraged him to get involved in another endeavor to add value to the industry.

That’s when Mellott, chairman and CEO of Mellott Co., took over ROCKPAC, which is now the 19th largest political action committee in the United States. Mellott has been the chairman of ROCKPAC for 15 years.

“Paul is ROCKPAC,” says John F. Steele Jr., chairman of Hilltop Basic Resources Inc. and vice chairman of ROCKPAC. “He has grown that thing. The one great thing about Paul is he knows everybody in the industry. He’s a great leader for ROCKPAC because he’s extremely energetic, he leads by example and steps forward.”

Gus Edwards, president of NSSGA, has known Mellott for the 16 years in which he’s been involved in the association. Edwards says Mellott’s industry contributions extend far beyond ROCKPAC.

“In addition to his outstanding service as chairman of the association board, he helped guide our members through a merger between the National Stone Association and the National Aggregates Association in 2001,” Edwards says.

“He’s been extraordinarily successful in building the industry’s influence on Capitol Hill. His work with STONEPAC and now with ROCKPAC has advanced the aggregates industry policy position and helped educate the public about what the industry does and how our products are used.”

Mellott, who is celebrating nearly 40 years at Mellott Co., helped mold his family business into one of the premier contract-crushing companies in the United States. He began handling contract-crushing leadership duties in 1991, and he helped launch an equipment distribution and manufacturing company in the same year.

“We had seen our quarry and ready-mix business grow in the boom years from 2004 to 2006,” Mellott says. “We had seen it grow so much that I was a little concerned, and we took an opportunity to sell those assets at a time in which companies were paying high multiples of EBIDTA. The sale of that part of our business in August 2007 was very timely.

In 2008, H.B. Mellott Estate Inc. and Mellott Enterprises Inc. officially merged to form Mellott Co.

Beyond having the foresight to guide his company as he has, Mellott has instilled a values-based leadership culture for his 200 employees built around safety, integrity, commitment, respect and excellence. He has reached out to his community in unique ways, too, such as adopting a local school 22 years ago.

“Now, we have a senior day, and we invite the senior class to visit our campus,” Mellott says. “Each student experiences a mock job interview with one of our managers and is graded on their performance. While on our campus, we give them a complete tour of our facilities with presentations on what we do and what skills are needed within our company.

“I love the industry,” Mellott adds. “It’s given me and my family and our employees so many opportunities. I respect the people in our industry and their commitment to mutually beneficial partnerships.”

 
The roots of McLanahan Corp., which celebrated its milestone 175th anniversary three years ago, trace back to founder James Craig McLanahan. But it is largely James’ son, Samuel Calvin McLanahan, who is credited with taking a company with an iron foundry and launching it onto the course for which it’s on today.

“We honor him a lot around here because he changed the overall face of the company,” says Michael McLanahan, chairman and CEO of Pennsylvania-based McLanahan Corp., who is Samuel Calvin’s great-grandson. “Up until his time, we were basically an iron foundry. His inventiveness is what took us into machinery.”

Samuel Calvin McLanahan, who developed the first accounting system for his father’s company at age 14, purchased one-sixth of the family business more than a decade after serving in the Navy during the Civil War. He continued as the company’s general manager for more than 20 years.

Between 1880 and 1902, Samuel Calvin brought numerous inventions and modifications to the aggregates industry. Perhaps his greatest contribution is the Log Washer, for which Samuel Calvin secured a patent in 1891. The Log Washer was originally designed for iron ore, but McLanahan discovered it could be applied to other areas. Now, over the course of 122 years, the Log Washer has become an industry staple for its ability to remove tough, plastic clay from natural and crushed gravel, stone and ore feeds.

“Up until that time, hardwood was used to produce the energy needed to smelt iron ore,” Michael says. “All the hardwood trees in this area were stripped.”

Samuel Calvin later recognized another industry need – one for a simple primary crusher that could handle wet, sticky feeds that contained pieces too large for the Log Washer. The single roll crusher, which came to market in 1894, was McLanahan’s answer.
Originally used in limestone crushing, the single roll crusher was an ideal alternative at the time to jaw crushers, which would pack with clay.

“The Log Washer and the single-roll crusher were the two machines that were instrumental in changing the face of our company from a foundry to a machinery manufacturer,” says Michael, whose grandfather, Ward, told glowing stories of Samuel Calvin.

Samuel Calvin, whom Michael says was capable of drawing up a complete machine over a mere weekend, continued to update and improve the company’s equipment designs during his tenure. Some of the other things he modernized or modified were screens, conveyors, crushers and dryers.

“We have a great deal of pride in honoring our ancestors,” Michael says.

 

What are your options if you’re in the road construction business and in need of stone? Well, you can find a supplier. Or, if you’re Charles Luck Jr., his father and brother, you can buy a quarry.

That’s exactly what Luck Jr. and his family did in 1923, when the three purchased their first quarry, Sunnyside Granite, in Virginia. Luck Jr. made the quarry all his in 1927, buying the business from his father and brother. From there, Luck Stone was on its way to becoming the company that today has 15 quarries, one sand and gravel plant and about 800 employees.

Luck Jr. purchased a second site in Virginia, the Boscobel Quarry, in 1930, and he bought three others in Charlottesville, Burkville and Fairfax throughout the 1930s.

As Luck’s son, Charles Luck III recalls, one of his father’s greatest strengths was having the foresight and intuition to buy the real estate he did for Luck Stone.

“He had great foresight and intuition,” Luck III says. “He had great timing for buying real estate and finding locations for the company’s future.”

Luck Jr. also believed strongly in maintaining the appearance of his company’s plants, and he was a believer in taking care of his employees. He always reminded Luck III that if the company’s employees are taken care of, they’ll take care of the business.

“He was very passionate about the company and taking care of the people,” says Luck III, who has taken his father’s values and incorporated them into Luck Stone’s modern culture with his son, Charles Luck IV.

“We’ve always had a mindset of treating people right,” Luck III adds. “Our greatest asset is our people. People have asked me over the years why we have been as successful as we have been. I say it’s simple: the people who work for us.”

According to Luck III, his father also helped start the Virginia Aggregates Association back in the 1940s.

“He was the president of it for about five or six years,” Luck III says. “Three or four men started it. He was the leader of it. They all wanted to get people together to discuss the industry’s needs and how to deal with government on regulations.”

Luck III has had a number of people over the years ask him what he thinks his father’s impression of the company would be as it stands today. The answer is a simple one, Luck III says.

“I think he would be extremely proud,” he says. “He was a person who liked to start new operations. He was innovative, creative and very dedicated to the industry.”

 

The top crushed stone-producing company in the United States, Vulcan Materials Co., would not be the mega-producer it is today without the vision of Charles W. Ireland, who developed a plan after World War II to expand his family company, Birmingham Slag.

In the early 1950s, Ireland saw an opportunity for Birmingham Slag to became a major supplier of the crushed stone that would increasingly be in demand for President Dwight Eisenhower’s $175 million interstate highway system. Ireland, however, knew his company could only play a major role in the system’s expansion if it grew quickly. Becoming a publicly traded company was one way to achieve such rapid expansion.

Ireland orchestrated a merger along with Barney Monaghan, the company’s outside legal counsel and longtime advisor, to purchase New Jersey-based Vulcan Detinning Co., which was being traded on the New York Stock Exchange at the time. Birmingham Slag made the acquisition on Dec. 31, 1956, officially incorporating Vulcan Materials Co. Initial shares sold for $12.69, and 13,800 shares were exchanged after the first five days of trading.

Over the next few years, Ireland steered Vulcan through a series of mergers and acquisitions that elevated the company into the national spotlight. In 1959, he appeared on the cover of Business Week magazine and was featured in an article that praised his role in the creation of the company.

“Charles was a man who operated with vision and imagination, and was not afraid to stick his neck out for something he really wanted,” Monaghan once said.

Ireland was actually part of the third generation of his family involved in the business. Vulcan’s roots trace back to 1910, when Henry L. Badham and Solon Jacobs founded Birmingham Slag. Ireland’s grandfather, Charles L. Ireland, purchased the business from Badham and Jacobs in 1916. He turned operations over to three sons years later.

In the 1940s, the company passed on to William C., William R., Glenn and Charles W. Ireland, who remained active in the business until 1983 and served as Vulcan’s chairman of the board for many years. Ireland died in 1987, but his imagination and vision set the stage for Vulcan’s success as a public company.

“The people who survive are problem solvers,” Ireland once said. “By survival, I mean the ability to cope with change – and take advantage of it when need be.”

 

Some people see failure when they identify a problem. Others see an opportunity to provide a solution.

LeRoy Hagenbuch, co-founder, president and chief engineer at Philippi-Hagenbuch Inc., is the kind of person who sees problems as opportunities. Whether he’s inventing or building off-highway truck attachments or designing and developing heavy equipment solutions, Hagenbuch applies the same attitude and takes a similar approach across challenges.

“Somebody a few years ago said I had an ability to go right to what the problem is,” Hagenbuch says. “For me, this is just sort of commonplace.”

Hagenbuch, or “LeRoy The Experimenter,” as his mother lovingly called him, is the oldest of five children born to Charles and Ethel Hagenbuch in Utica, Ill. Now at the helm of Philippi-Hagenbuch for more than 40 years, he developed a penchant for working with heavy equipment on his family farm. His parents instilled a hard-working attitude in him on that farm, and he learned from his father that if the family needed two of something – anything – they would make them rather than buy them.

Even today, Hagenbuch uses experiences on the farm as he explores solutions for Philippi-Hagenbuch customers.

“We have our rear eject bodies,” Hagenbuch says. “We were having a problem with the first one with the ejector plate hanging up, going back and forth. I went back to something from when I was 8 or 9 years old. “We had a Ford tractor, and I had to change a tire once. After I changed it I felt tired. I adjusted the tie rod between the two front tires and started off down the lane. But you couldn’t steer that tractor straight for anything. There was no tow end.”

That experience on the family farm was the inspiration Hagenbuch needed to develop a solution for rear eject bodies.
“These life experiences is what it’s all about,” he says.

From that Illinois farm, Hagenbuch took his parents’ disciplines to the University of Illinois, where he received an education in agricultural engineering. Hagenbuch met L.B. Philippi by 1969, and the two founded the company that’s now 44 years running.

Hagenbuch brought his design talent, while Philippi brought a sales background and an idea for commercial tailgates. They parlayed their skills into business, bringing the Autogate tailgate to market.

In the 1970s, Hagenbuch was the first to introduce lightweight bodies to the industry. He also introduced water tanks to minimize confined-space issues, as well as the on-board weigh systems commonly found on haul trucks today.

A more recent Hagenbuch patent refines rear-ejection technology, allowing operators to push the load from the back of a haul truck rather than raise the bed.

“The greatest enjoyment is meeting with a customer, identifying a need they have and creating a solution,” Hagenbuch says. “We continuously have done things that other people would have just turned off because it couldn’t be done.”

He has written whitepapers on vital topics, shared his knowledge at conferences and tradeshows, and been active with a number of associations.

 

Deister Machine Co. wouldn’t be the company it is today without the founding influence of Emil Deister Sr., who served as president and general manager from 1912 until his death in 1961.

Deister, who was born in Germany in 1872, migrated to the United States with his parents in 1878. They settled on an Indiana farm, and by the time Deister was 21 he had embarked on a career as a lathe operator at the Bass Foundry & Machine Co. in Fort Wayne, Ind.
About a decade later, after becoming a draftsman and an erecting engineer, Deister began to study ore separation. He later patented his own equipment, including the invention of ore separating tables. According to Deister Machine Co., Deister built his first separating table in his basement. Once completed, Deister won over Arizona mill owners with demonstrations of his development.

His very first ore separating tables, which are praised in fellow Pit & Quarry Hall of Famer Arthur F. Taggart’s “Handbook of Ore Dressing” as the first serious competition to the only kind of ore separating table available at the time, were manufactured in 1906 under Deister Concentrator Co. Woodwork for the tables was done in a nearby barn.

According to Deister Machine Co., Deister’s differential-motion ore separating tables had riffles attached to their surface. The riffles collected heavier ore particles and transported them toward a collector, while water washing across them carried away light impurities.
By 1912, Deister sold his interests in Deister Concentrator Co. and established Deister Machine Co. Fourteen years later, Deister brought vibrating screens for the separation of materials according to particle size to the forefront. Later, with a need to size the aggregate used in hot-mix asphalt plants, he introduced a screen for that unique purpose. Vibrating feeders and foundry equipment such as compaction tables, oscillating conveyors and reclaimers were subsequently introduced.

Today, Deister Machine Co. focuses entirely on its core business, providing feeding, scalping and screening equipment to the aggregate and mining industries. Emil Deister’s legacy extends to all 50 states, Canada and an assortment of countries throughout the world, where his 101-year-old company’s equipment is widely used.