Allied Construction
By Kristin Buehner
Of In Business

Friday, September 30, 2005
Section: News, Page 19
Dateline: Mason City

By KRISTIN BUEHNER

CHARLES CITY - With concrete paving, aggregate and ready-mix concrete, Allied Construction Co. Inc. of Charles City is three companies in one.

Today's company is the result of a 1976 merger of two separate companies, Allied Construction Co. Inc. and Greene Limestone Co., said Tom Green, 61, president/CEO.

"Allied was a very strong company, as was Greene Limestone, with similar type operations," he said. "We had some related activities. We thought it would make our companies stronger."

Allied Construction, the parent company, also denotes the paving end of the company. The aggregate division is Greene Limestone Co. The ready-mix division is Allied Redi-Mix.

A fourth company, Allied Land Development, is not part of the company, although it has many of the same owners, Green said.

Allied Redi-Mix was founded in Greene in 1951 by Bob Swab. He moved the operations to Charles City a few years later.

Greene Limestone Co. was founded by Harry Green - Tom's father - in Greene in 1946. Harry Green died in 1971. Bob Swab is retired and lives in Charles City.

Both entrepreneurs started their respective companies with "very, very little," Tom Green said.

Bob Swab started Allied Redi-Mix with little more than a dump truck. Harry Green started Greene Limestone in a shop with a dirt floor, Tom Green recalled. The elder Green's first office was in a quarry scale house on the south edge of Greene, near his first quarry.

Tom Green remembers his father once going to his father-in-law for $100 so he could make payroll.

"Financing was a huge hurdle back in those days," he said.

Tom started working with his father when he was 14. He graduated in 1966 with a civil engineering degree from the University of Notre Dame, then entered the Navy, serving 3 1/2 years and two tours of duty in Vietnam.

He then worked for Fluor Corp., a large contractor in San Mateo, Calif., that did tunnel and mining projects.

He returned to Greene Limestone in 1974, three years after the death of his father.

Allied Construction's three divisions today employ 110 people in their peak season. "We have a great work force," Green said.

Employees own a third of the company through a stock ownership program.

Allied's aggregate and ready-mix work is generally within northeast Iowa. Paving construction extends throughout the northern half of Iowa.

Allied Construction produced aggregate for a portion of the Avenue of the Saints, did one of the paving projects for the Saints highway and furnished ready-mix concrete on several structures. The company also paved the approaches to the new 12th Street overpass in Mason City.

Current projects include the relocation of U.S. Highway 71 in Spencer, a Menards parking lot in Spencer, two city paving projects in Spencer, downtown reconstruction in Lake Mills, reconstruction of Story Street in Boone, airport runway work at Emmetsburg and Jefferson, and county road paving in Palo Alto County.

"We serve city, county and state agencies, the farming industry and commercial industries," Green said.

During the early 1990s, the company invested in a computer system that helps monitor costs much more closely in an attempt to ensure efficiency, Green said.

"Technology has played a very important part during my career," he said.

In the paving division, a process called "batching" - combining the ingredients that go into concrete and loading the mixture into a truck - is significantly automated compared with 25 years ago.

"Due to the advances in technology, we can produce more cubic yards of concrete, crush more tons of rock and pave more square yards of concrete on a daily basis," he said.

Aggregate production has increased with the advent of newer and higher-speed crushing equipment.

Paving has progressed from form-riding equipment - in which pavement is supported by steel forms - to slip-form equipment - in which the wet pavement stands vertically on its own. The change has reduced the work force for the paving division by nearly half, Green said.

"We used to have 70 people just in the paving division. Now we have about 40 due to automated grading and paving equipment," Green said.

Financing for expansion or improvements has been accomplished by borrowing from local banks.

Green declined to talk about sales figures or earnings. "The years vary so much," he said.

The company paves approximately 250,000 to 300,000 square yards of concrete a year. Diversification into three divisions has helped ensure the company's viability.

"When one division is down, the other may be up. It tends to level out over time," Green said.

The business he is in is highly competitive and always has been, Green said.

The challenge is to operate efficiently to make the company more competitive. "That has been and always will continue to be a challenge for us."

Reach Kristin Buehner at 421-0533 or kristin.buehner@globegazette.com. in biz sep/1