Category: 2014

Ralph Rogers laid the groundwork for what is now the largest privately owned aggregate company in the United States. The company that started in 1908 with a single roadside operation in Bloomington, Ind., now operates quarries, asphalt plants and construction units in six states across the Midwest and Southeast.

According to grandson Rick Rechter, a past Rogers Group chairman of the board, his grandfather started his life with little to his name. Rogers was not educated beyond the eighth grade, and it’s a mystery to the family how Rogers was able to finance the rapid growth of the company during World War II years.

Regardless of how Rogers financed his company early on, he had the foresight to make investments at a time of great opportunity.

“When the war began Mr. Rogers had anticipated it and had purchased and put in storage a vast amount of construction and crushing equipment,” Rechter says. “He stored it in an underground mine in Louisville, Ky. When the war broke out and things started getting hectic, his companies built a lot of the bases that trained our soldiers.”

The most famous Rogers Group project from that era was related to the Manhattan Project and the race to build a nuclear bomb. The U.S. settled on a valley in Tennessee to do this research and development. The city of Oak Ridge, Tenn., emerged from that valley, and it immediately became one of the largest cities in the state because the production staff there needed housing.

Of course, behind Oak Ridge’s rise and the Clinton Engineer Works facility was Rogers.

“The reason he was a supplier was that he promised once he got a contract to be producing stone in 30 days,” Rechter says. “You can’t get a permit from the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) in 30 days today, let alone local board approval. But he understood that the people who were going to have the opportunity to produce materials for the country had to have the equipment to do it.”

Adds Ben Rechter, Ralph’s great-grandson and current chairman at Rogers Group: “He was very tenacious like a pitbull. Some people said that couldn’t be done. He asked what resources were needed to get it done. Usually, his people put their mind to it and got a job done.”

Unique legacy

In addition to Oak Ridge, Rogers Group was the primary aggregate provider for several other military installations. Among them were Camp Forrest in Tennessee; Fort Campbell in Kentucky; the U.S. Naval Ammunitions Depot in Indiana; and Redstone Arsenal in Alabama.

“If you look at the history of war and all of the major Army bases in the Midwest, Ralph had an aggregate operation there,” Rick says.

In later years, Rogers and his partners were among the first major road builders involved in President Dwight Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System. Rogers Group supplied stone for major interstate sections in Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee, and it built some of those sections as well.

“He had the spirit of a true entrepreneur because he expanded the company into various geographic markets based on his concept of where opportunities would be,” says Jerry Geraghty, president and CEO at Rogers Group.

Rogers was a bit unique in that he largely chose not to operate in big cities. Despite having roots in Indiana, Rogers never had an operation in Indianapolis. He avoided Illinois, as well, because the politicians there concerned him.

“He chose states and communities within those states where politicians did not have their hands in [businesses],” Rick says.

According to Rick, Ralph was effective at managing operations in multiple states because he was highly mobile.

“Many times when I was a kid he would fly down to Nashville or Tennessee on a Sunday afternoon,” Rick says. “He wanted to go alone. He’d spend two or three hours talking with the management, much to their chagrin, and then he would fly home.”

Man of the people

Perhaps Rogers’ greatest asset was his people. He was a good judge of men, Rick says, and he surrounded himself in post-war years with middle managers who were war veterans.

“His ability to pick that group after the war propelled us and left me with a really good bunch of engineers, construction people and miners,” Rick says.

Rogers also created a corporate culture in which the “man in the pit” was just as important as the company’s executives and elected officials.

“Ralph really appreciated the people because he was one of them,” Ben says. “He started out digging ditches and those sorts of things. He wasn’t highly educated, so he really appreciated the workers.”

According to Ben, Ralph paid his workers well and offered health and welfare insurance to employees ahead of the industry.

“I think by doing that he got a lot of loyalty,” Ben says. “That helped when he decided to branch off 200 miles into another state. His workers were willing to go and open up those operations.”

Ralph also put his workers’ safety first, and that probably endeared many workers to him.

“He made safety a priority before it was required,” Geraghty says. “He put the mantra out there that safety was important. In our core purpose, we have something called the Rogers Way. Together, we create opportunities for people to succeed. I believe [Rogers] is the individual who created that philosophy and culture in the company.”

Rogers actually began working around 1905 on a construction crew in southern Indiana. He learned the road-building industry through his work as a driver for a crew supervisor, and in 1908 he and his business partners launched Bloomington Crushed Stone in Indiana. The stage was set for Rogers Group, and within 20 years Rogers had expanded the business to three other states.

Key to the company’s rise was Ralph’s belief in maintaining partnerships and sharing risk with others, Geraghty adds.

“Ralph envisioned opportunities and acted on them,” Geraghty says. “Many times he would take a partner and mass enough investment power to go into a new market. He was very open to new structures, whether it was a joint venture or partnerships to enter new markets.”

Bruno Nordberg founded the Nordberg Manufacturing Co. in 1886, and he achieved his first recognition and success in steam engines. Born in Finland, Nordberg emigrated to the United States with little in his pockets around 1880, eventually settling in Milwaukee. He found work at age 22 as a draftsman concentrating on Corliss steam engines, but his career took off when he formulated the idea of a poppet valve engine and a cut-off governor.

“Cut-off refers to the end of a cylinder stroke where you want to stop allowing high-pressure steam into the cylinder,” says Pekka Pohjoismäki, president of crushing and screening equipment at Metso Mining and Construction Technology. “At startup or during acceleration, you would want to continue to allow the steam into the cylinder until the end of the stroke to get maximum force for the full stroke.”

But at a high speed, Pohjoismäki says, more efficiency is achieved if the flow of high-pressure steam is cut off and the high-pressure steam already in the cylinder is allowed to expand through the end of the stroke.

“So you would need a cut-off valve that closes the steam valve earlier in the stroke as the speed increases,” Pohjoismäki says. “Cut-off governors were built with a safety device, which caused the engine to stop in case the governor belt breaks or runs off. The governors were built in such a manner that the engine was brought into [synchrony] by the operator at the switchboard who could vary the engine speed.”

According to Pohjoismäki, cut-off governors helped to increase the efficiency and safety of the steam engine process. Steam engines were used to operate pumps, compressors, hoists and ore stamps, he adds, and Nordberg’s design reduced downtime and increased safety for mines.

“Nordberg continuously improved his early designs and found new ways to utilize steam,” Pohjoismäki says.

To market and sell cut-off governors, Nordberg persuaded a friend, Frederick Hornefer, to finance a patent application, and he partnered with an entrepreneur named Jacob Friend to launch the Bruno V. Nordberg Co.

Long-lasting decision

Nordberg’s company quickly established itself in the field of steam engines, and it grew mightily through the first third of the 20th century. But just as technologies change today, they changed then.

Steam power gave way to diesel, and although Nordberg never felt steam could be replaced, he completed a license agreement in 1914 to manufacture diesel engines.

“All leaders realize a constantly changing business environment will impact their ability for continued success,” Pohjoismäki says. “Great leaders are the ones who anticipate these changes and have the willingness to accept them as something other than a passing fad.

“What is truly remarkable about Nordberg’s willingness to adapt is that it came during a time where marketplace changes were nowhere near as rapid as in today’s environment. It would have been very easy for Nordberg to stay the course, and in fact initially Nordberg felt nothing could take the place of steam. But his desire for improvement and willingness to change motivated him.”

By 1922, Nordberg had built 27 engines for Phelps-Dodge. And despite his death two years later, Nordberg had set the path for his company to venture into crushing, grinding and screening equipment for the aggregates and mining industries.

In the early 1920s, Nordberg’s company was already manufacturing horizontal disc crushers for Symons Brothers Co. Nordberg’s company later acquired the Symons cone crusher business.

“The work and relationships he developed with Symons Bros. paved the way for the future relationship and eventual acquisition,” Pohjoismäki says. “Symons invented the cone crusher in 1926, which revolutionized the crushing practice of the mining and quarry industries. Nordberg Manufacturing Co. acquired the Symons cone crusher business in 1928, and Nordberg engineers continued to improve on the original design.”

In his time, Nordberg held 58 patents on various machines and devices to his name. He was a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Institute of Mining Engineers. He authored several papers on engineering subjects.

Nordberg was active in his company throughout his life, and he was described as most happy when working at his drafting board.

“As an immigrant from Finland, Bruno Nordberg had little more than his engineering knowledge and willingness to work hard,” Pohjoismäki says. “He might have easily been content with his first job as a draftsman at the E.P. Allis Co., but he had an idea to improve the efficiency of steam engines, and he had an entrepreneurial spirit.

“He was driven by a genuine curiosity that kept him searching, striving and wanting to learn and create. He also was wise enough to know that his strengths were engineering and design, and brought in knowledgeable business associates to manage his growing company’s day-to-day operations.”

Today, thousands of rock-processing products bearing Nordberg’s name are still in operation at quarries around the world, and the Nordberg name remains a source of pride for the people at modern-day Metso.

“Nordberg’s name is still synonymous with highly efficient, innovative crushing and screening solutions,” Pohjoismäki says.

Pete Lien & Sons, which started in 1944 near Rapid City, S.D., with Chuck Lien, his father, Pete, and brother, Bruce, has grown from a company that had $16,000 in gross sales in year one to one whose 2013 gross sales hovered around $110 million.

Today, the company employs nearly 400 people at 30 different sites across South Dakota, Wyoming and Colorado. And Chuck Lien, now 89 and still chairman of the board, is celebrating 70 years as an employee.

“I work every day and I’m interrupted a little bit with dialysis, but they still put up with me,” says Chuck, who continues to advise his son, Pete, the company president.

From humble beginnings

After serving in World War II, Chuck Lien and his brother joined their father in the quarry. Chuck says the three of them didn’t get a paycheck the first five years they were in business, taking just enough so the three could survive and the business could get off its feet. The business eventually did, and key to its success over many years was Chuck’s belief in reinvestment.

Chuck’s company is positioned to thrive for years to come because he reinvested in it, but also because he invested his family in the business. Chuck and his wife Barb have nine children, and they requested all of them to work outside the company for five years before making a commitment to work in the family business – if they so chose.

Five of Chuck’s and Barb’s children are working in the business today, either as members of the board of directors or in a management capacity. In addition, two son-in-laws are active in Pete Lien & Sons.

“We are a family-owned business and we think long term,” says Chuck, who also served in the Korean War. “We’re in our third and fourth generations now, and they’re already planning for the fifth and sixth generations. They’re doing a better job of running the company than I ever did.”

One reason the company has excelled over the years is because it expanded in the areas in which it thrived and recognized when other areas just weren’t working.

“We stayed within our realm of expertise,” Chuck says. “We have stepped out several times. We tried construction and other avenues, but we weren’t as successful when we stepped out of that ring. We learned to concentrate on what we do best and get as many reserves as we can.”

According to Chuck, who’s also lovingly known as “Rock Chuck,” the company’s ability to seize reserves in the areas it serves was one key to achieving the growth and success it’s had.

“We were good enough friends with many businesses around us that when they passed out of the picture, we were there to pick up that business and add to ours,” Chuck says.

Preparation for the future

Another key to Pete Lien & Sons’ success was a pilot company Chuck and Barb started called the Nine Liens. Chuck and Barb started the Nine Liens so their children could learn about free enterprise in a way that provided them training yet did not put Pete Lien & Sons at risk.

“The Nine Liens encouraged us to start our own businesses,” says Pete Lien, Chuck’s son and current president of Pete Lien & Sons. “It created better owners.

“I’ve been very blessed to be in a great situation,” Pete continues. “Not only do I experience him as a great father, but he’s a great friend, a great mentor and a business partner. It’s been really enriching to have exposure to him and his selflessness, humbleness and great sense of humor.”

Sam Brannan, Chuck’s daughter and the vice president of corporate development at Pete Lien & Sons, has had the pleasure of working with her father as well.

“I have to step back as a daughter and look at him as an employee,” Sam says. “I’m getting older, and I’m starting to see that the best leaders I’ve ever been exposed to are people like Chuck who have a military background and a team sports background. That’s how he manages. He has a clear vision, but he also involves the entire team.”

According to Pete, Chuck’s willingness to continuously solicit input from employees earned him the loyalty and support of his team.

“We’re very proud of our turnover being very low,” Pete says. “All employees are very proud to say that they work for Chuck Lien.”

Further demonstrating Chuck’s foresight is how he encouraged employees to participate in their respective communities. Chuck led by example, serving on chamber of commerce boards and in the industry’s state and national efforts. He served as chairman of a national association that later became NSSGA, and he remains a staunch advocate for less industry regulation.

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Did you know?

Pete Lien & Sons earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Earth Care Award in 1970. According to the Lien family, Pete Lien & Sons is the only mining company ever to receive such an award for its reclamation efforts before mandatory laws were passed in 1972. Robert Redford presented the award to the company.

Ninety years have passed since the Iowa Manufacturing Co. got its start and more than 40 have gone by since its founder’s death. But Howard Hall’s legacy is still felt on every jobsite where portable equipment crushes rock today.

After serving his country in France during World War I, Hall, an Iowa-born man, and longtime friend John Jay purchased the assets of a bankrupt company, Bertschey Engineering Co., in 1923. They shaped that company into the Iowa Manufacturing Co., which rose like a rocket after Hall and Jay discovered a young engineer, Guy Frazee, who had designed a rock crusher unlike any before it.

“It was a fledgling company that was for sale,” says Ernie Buresh, 87, who served on Iowa Manufacturing’s board in Hall’s later years. “I think he put together the funds, and maybe his wife’s family helped him to borrow the money to buy the company.”

The crusher Iowa Manufacturing developed combined crushing, conveying and screening into one machine, and its portability allowed it to play a vital role in the nation’s developing road campaign throughout the first half of the 20th century. The timing of the company’s inception was impeccable as the automobile was taking off and demand for better roads was quickly growing.

Road building itself demanded better equipment, though. Multiple pieces of equipment were necessary to build roads prior to Iowa Manufacturing’s rise. And more equipment meant more capital costs and high labor costs were necessary to move equipment from jobsite to jobsite.

But Hall revolutionized road building, constructing a chassis-mounted machine that could handle raw material at one end and produce sized, finished material at the other.

His original concept later morphed into a unit that added a second crusher, as demand for even more roads – and even better ones – increased. A horizontal vibrating screen replaced a barrel-like revolving screen in this unit, creating a faster, more compact and more accurate machine. Iowa Manufacturing’s original crusher design was also the impetus for other crushing, screening and washing equipment it developed in future years.

“The growing highway construction industry requires on everyone’s part considerable work and planning,” Hall wrote in 1961. “The future holds a great challenge, both for the contractor who must undertake and complete these tremendous projects and also for the equipment dealer who must have the necessary qualified service available to his customers and finally the manufacturers like Cedarapids who must work and plan ahead, develop better equipment, newer operating techniques and to make available efficient and lower cost-producing items for handling the big jobs as well as the small jobs.”

Historically, Hall’s rock crusher also proved critical to the United States’ success in World War II, giving the military a machine that could construct land strips and roads for U.S. troops and be moved at up to 50 mph.

“The loyalty and cooperation of our customers has been our greatest asset,” Hall wrote. “They have greatly contributed to our growth and have helped our company to maintain our leadership in the field of aggregate producing, bituminous mixing and bituminous paving equipment. Cedarapids customers have always felt free to offer suggestions for improvements in our products. Their many suggestions have enabled our company to develop new methods, to improve our products and to expand our research facilities.”

Hall, the man

Although Hall’s legacy in the aggregates industry is the portable rock crusher, his legacy in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, extends far beyond his role as Iowa Manufacturing’s president. Hall was a great community leader and philanthropist. In one instance, Hall had an employee who had a son with cancer, and the only place the son could receive treatment was in Canada. So, as an alternative, Hall led an effort to start a radiation center in Cedar Rapids.

“He was going to find a solution to a problem – not that it was curing cancer – but he helped people find resources that were right in their backyard,” says Kristin Novak, program officer at The Hall-Perrine Foundation, a foundation that bears Hall’s name and has distributed nearly $140 million in capital grants over 61 years.

Hall left quite a mark on Cedar Rapids. Not just within his own businesses, but in recruiting other industries to settle there. Buresh points out that that Cedar Rapids cancer center bears Hall’s name, as does a radiation center in the city.

In addition to philanthropy, Hall was an animal lover, accepting a cub lion as a gift from a friend in the circus. Hall’s social circle included President Herbert Hoover – he once hosted Hoover and President Harry Truman at his home – and he had ambition, common sense and a welcoming personality, according to Buresh.

“He’d walk through a plant and he knew every worker by their name,” Buresh says. “That’s the way he ran the company, asking them how they were doing; do you have any new ideas. This is the way he operated. He was just an ordinary guy. He never intended to have anybody think he was more than what he was.”

Hall rose to great heights in his career despite a limited education. He did not earn a high school diploma, but Buresh says other qualities drove him to success.

Pioneer. Mentor. Class act.

These are just a few of the words colleagues of Bernie Grove choose to describe the longtime Genstar leader and former chairman of the National Stone Association.

“Bernie was a real visionary,” says Kim Snyder, the recently retired Eastern Industries president who at one time worked alongside Grove at Genstar. “He was so knowledgeable about the industry and the operational end. He was one hell of an operator.”

According to Snyder, Grove was also an industry leader in a number of other areas, including community relations, the environment and gender equality during the 1970s and 1980s. As NSA chairman and through a number of the association’s committees on which he served, Snyder says Grove led a cultural shift for the industry.

“If you look back at NSA, now NSSGA (the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association), a vast majority of the past chairmen came through the government affairs division or the environmental end,” Snyder says. “The whole focus was predominantly operational and focused on plant design [before Grove]. Then the focus became funding for highway systems, environmental stewardship and building community relationships.”

Leading the shift

The cultural shift for the industry was one that first took place at Genstar. Under Grove’s leadership, for example, the company’s attitude toward the surrounding community changed.

“There was a philosophy among companies before this time that the best thing you could do as an aggregates operation was to sit back very quietly and try to act as if you didn’t exist,” says David Thomey, executive vice president of Maryland Materials, who worked closely with Grove through NSA and the Maryland Aggregates Association. “The approach was to be very secretive and private.”

Grove cast aside that concept in favor of an unproven approach: He welcomed the community to get to know Genstar.

“He wanted people to know that his company was there and the community was not alone,” Thomey says. “He wanted the community to know Genstar was somebody to come to when things needed to get done and there were times of need.”

Grove, whose career at Genstar spanned nearly 40 years, started a community day as part of his mission. Each year, Genstar’s quarries would host a picnic, inviting neighbors and elected officials so they could be informed on that respective location’s activities. In addition, Genstar could address the community’s concerns at these events.

“He got the social contract better than anybody at the time,” Thomey says of Grove. “The fact that we were operating only because of the good graces of the communities in which we lived was a [foreign concept] at the time. He was the one who, early on, got that and understood that things would go much better from a permitting standpoint if we were upfront.”

Although Grove was the first to grasp this concept, he convinced other companies to embrace it through his association work.

“Community days and community relations are fundamental to what we do now,” Snyder says. “Bernie was absolutely one of the leaders not just in Maryland, but on a national level. He got it so there was some real traction on this in the industry.”

Grove, who served Genstar as vice president of operations and later as president, made national headway on environmental stewardship, as well.

“Genstar had some pristine quarries in regards to aesthetics and how they looked to the general public,” Snyder says. “That carried through the entire Genstar company because of the mindset Bernie had. His motives were twofold: It was the right thing to do for Genstar and the industry.”

According to Grove, he embarked on this endeavor by first addressing noise and dust.

“They were the primary concerns of the public,” he says. “A lot of quarries were out in the country when they started out. There weren’t any neighbors except farmers.”

But properties around quarries developed over the years, leading to more families and mounting concerns from the surrounding area.

“They didn’t want bright lights and all the things that went with quarries,” Grove says. “You were crushing material at night, making noise. So we addressed it, and we also cleaned up the entrances and the boundaries so we literally hid it from the operation.”

Genstar added pavement, gates and fencing. Dirt played a key role in enhancing the company’s relationship with surrounding communities, as well.

“We always have a lot of dirt that we have to take off the quarry to get to the stone we’re after,” Grove says. “For years, we just piled dirt and left it. We realized we could take that dirt and make berms, which are literally manmade hills around the quarry. Then, we planted grass and trees on them. After a while, I had many people say after we took them into the quarry that they had no idea how big this place was.

“That was the goal all along. Not to be deceptive, but to screen the property from the public.”

Equal opportunity provider

As for gender equality, Grove gave three women the opportunity to be sales representatives at a time when few, if any, women had that position in the industry.

“I’ll never forget the experience we had,” Grove says. “They were our best salespeople.”

Grove remembers one Genstar customer who initially resisted the concept of buying from a female sales rep.

“We sent this young lady down to call on him,” Grove says. “Very foolishly I didn’t go with her the first time. He called me as soon as she left the office and said, ‘Do not send that lady down here again.’ I said, ‘Joe, I’m sorry. Can you give her a chance?’

The customer eventually agreed. A month later, Grove received another call from the customer.

“He said, ‘Bernie, don’t send anybody down here but Karen,’” Grove recalls. “She was just that helpful. She’d take the phone call and address the problem right there.”

All three of the women Grove named sales representatives proved their worth, he adds.

“One came up through our personnel department; one came out of operations; and one came out of maintenance,” he says. “All three had worked in the business for a number of years. I believe in people deserving a shot if they deserve a shot – not just because they’re a woman or [a minority]. These women earned their shots.”

Starting out

Grove’s roots in the aggregates industry stem to his youth and his family’s Maryland-based company, MJ Grove Lime Co. Grove started as a salesman for the company, working at two Virginia operations.

The family-owned company was sold during Grove’s early years, and it passed hands four other times throughout his career. Grove jokes that he worked for five different companies in his time, including Genstar, but that he never had to leave the office.

As vice president of aggregate operations in the 1980s, his peers considered Grove an innovator in manufacturing techniques. More than $30 million was invested to enhance three specific Genstar plants that decade, positioning the company well off a recession that occurred early in the 1980s.

Five. That’s how many customers Don Brock, chairman of Astec Industries, tries to reach each day. It’s a daily goal for Brock, and one he encourages others within his company to achieve each day.

“Don is an engineer and technical by background, but he has a great business acumen,” says Joe Vig, president of KPI-JCI and Astec Mobile Screens, one of 18 Astec companies. “His real love is selling the product to customers. I’d venture to say that of any corporation, no chairman talks to more customers than Don Brock does. He’ll ask each of us if we’ve talked to our five customers, and I’d be the first one to say I do not talk to five per day. I talk to as many as I can, but I guarantee you he does talk to five per day.”

Brock’s passion and dedication to sales is one of many reasons why he’s been inducted to the Pit & Quarry Hall of Fame. His crowning achievement is Astec Industries, which he founded in 1972 with partners and expanded over many years. Now, Astec is roughly a $1 billion company, Brock says. It didn’t reach that mark overnight, though.

Instead, a series of periodic acquisitions brought products such as pavers and crushing equipment to the company. One key acquisition that launched Astec into aggregates occurred when the Barbara Green Co. and the Telsmith brand were brought into the fold. The opportunity Brock saw in acquiring such companies was to vertically integrate Astec to bring the aggregates, asphalt and concrete industries together.

“Entrepreneurs who want to sell their businesses come to us versus us going to them because we keep the same management; try to put the money in they need; and give them the technology to grow their business,” Brock says. “Yet we let them stay in the town where they started. We’ve hardly done any merging or moving from one town to another. I think that model attracts entrepreneurs because many are more interested in seeing their people continue to have jobs and see the business stay in the current town.”

Steady growth

Brock’s first exposure to engineering was through his father, a welder who did boiler repair work. According to Brock, he was re-tubing boilers with his father by the time he was 14 years old. Asphalt plants, which used to contain boilers, were one machine Brock re-tubed during his early years.

Brock later earned a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Tennessee, and he obtained a Master of Science and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Astec Industries was founded seven years later as a company that built heaters and asphalt plants.

Equipment for the aggregates industry was eventually integrated into Astec Industries because Brock saw an opportunity to unite industries.

“Aggregate people don’t understand asphalt and they don’t understand concrete,” he says. “And the concrete people don’t understand aggregate. They all talk but they don’t understand. We saw an opportunity to be vertically integrated. We could not only build equipment to crush the rock, but we could make the most efficient mixes and get the most utilization out of the aggregate.”

For Brock, the most exciting part of expanding into new areas and acquiring companies is watching them grow.

“When we bought Telsmith it was doing $18 million,” Brock says. “Now it’s doing $100 million. Kolberg-Pioneer went from $20 [million] to $80 [million]. All of these have been able to grow.”

Astec has grown, too, in part because of its investment in and commitment to modular plants. The FastPack system, which Brock fathered, demonstrates the company’s growth well. FastPack is an innovative combination of crushing, screening and stockpiling. Brock’s vision was to provide producers with a system they could set up in a matter of hours without a bunch of stationary structures and timbers. Brock saw his vision through with the use of hydraulic drives and other elements that were ahead of their time.

“He dreamed of setting up a complete crushing and screening plant anywhere you wanted in a matter of hours, without a whole bunch of stationary structures, timbers and so on,” Vig says. “

Investment in people

As mechanically minded as Brock is, he is also a man of the people. Brock believes in educating employees and customers, as a number of his companies have facilities dedicated to training and innovation.

“He’s a great teacher,” Vig says. “He really believes in training. He’s got a beautiful training center in Chattanooga, [Tenn.] at Astec. He pushed us and didn’t have any problem with spending millions of dollars here at KPI-JCI and Astec Mobile Screens on building a nice training center so we could train our customers and dealers – and our people.

Although chairman is Brock’s title, Vig says the teacher in Brock continues to emerge.

“He’s great at pointing out a suggestion,” Vig says. “He doesn’t grab you by the shirt collar. He’ll throw out a suggestion for you and hope you latch onto it, and he’ll help you come up with a solution. Once he throws out a solution he will ask you about it again later to see if any action has taken place.”

Vig recalls one story at an Astec factory that further illustrates Brock as an effective teacher.

“We were walking through a factory one time and there was a simple chain drive,” Vig says. “Kind of a roller chain drive. Basically, when you put on one of these chains, there’s a forward way and a reverse way of doing it. If you do this the correct way it will not wear as quickly as if it were put on the incorrect way.

“Don says to [the worker], ‘I think you may have the chain on backward. He stopped and demo’d how it moved over the sprockets; how you could have more wear going one way versus another. He’s done things like that just observing. He’ll point it out as a suggestion.”

Brock, who’s been battling mesothelioma for a couple of years, remains active with the company.

“I’ll be chairman as long as I’m able to, but I don’t want to be in the way,” Brock says. “I still like to be in R&D, and I’m still a peddler at heart. I still sell a few asphalt plants and crushing plants per year. I’ve been blessed to have a lot of customers whose dad and granddad I knew.”