Author: Allison Barwacz

  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,…

  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…

  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…

  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…

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…

  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…

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…

  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…

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…

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…