Sitting down with Gjere Construction founder, Don Gjere, and sons, Mike, Mark, and Brian, to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on a family-run business proved to be a lesson in entrepreneurship.
According to Dun & Bradstreet, dnb.com, Gjere Construction incorporated in 1961. Though listening to Gjere, it immediately becomes clear that the company’s beginnings can be traced back to 1956 when the elder Gjere was a Spring Grove High School student. At that time, Gjere unknowingly began his lifelong career in the concrete industry. According to gjereconstruction.com, the company specialized in poured foundations, residential, footings, walls, floors, driveways, feedlots, manure pits, rock, sand, excavation, demolition, and foundation waterproofing.
As a high school student, Gjere started doing chores for a farmer down by Highlandville, who was building a new hog house. After finishing chores, Gjere grabbed a wheelbarrow and started wheeling concrete. Gjere chuckled as he explained that he had never seen concrete before and was pleasantly surprised with what he could do with concrete. Gjere “took a liking to it” and worked for the man during the summers of ‘56, ‘57, and ‘58 for $2 an hour. At that rate, Gjere explained that he would have enough money to buy a new car in a month. He worked for the man until 1959 when a tragic head-on collision took the life of the man and his wife. Since he did not have a job, Gjere figured he “gotta start for himself.” The only tools Gjere had when he started were a $35 cement mixer, a wheelbarrow he charged at Mabel’s Larson Hardware, along with an old ‘49 Chevy pickup he purchased for a $150.
The Lang Dairy building in Decorah, built where the current Pizza Ranch is located, was the company’s first project. A few years later, a tornado destroyed the building.
Gjere graduated from Spring Grove High School in 1958. In the mid-’60s, he was hired to remove the high school’s glass windows and fill them in with glass blocks.
Over the years, Gjere kept busy every winter during a variety of projects. During the winters of ‘59 and ‘60, the harsh weather prevented Gjere from working construction. Instead, he worked at Mabel Lumber Company, unloading railroad cars of coal, chunk, and briquettes, which were then loaded into the back of a truck and delivered to Mabel families. He also unloaded bags of cement and stored the cement in a building located next to the railroad tracks. The next two winters, when he could not work for himself, he laid brick at the new school in downtown Caledonia. One winter, he successfully sold snowmobiles, and during the winter of 1972, he packed up the kids and hauled his equipment to Florida and dug basements.
Dairy barns were a “big thing all through the 60s” for the company. Gjere explained that “In the big dairy barns, they would dig the footings for the barns, laid all the blocks for the barn, pour all the floors and gutters, put in the barn cleaners and stanchions.” By the 70s, “all the little hog buildings were done, and the dairy barns fizzled out, and then the big hog pits came in,” explained Gjere. “we got an excavator and dug hog pits from Austin, Minn., to as far as Bangor, Wis. Got the Rolling Hills Feedlot over by Harmony, which was a huge project.” Gjere stated that they “poured thousands of yards of concrete.” Gjere designed all the pit walls and put all the steel in and figured out how to do it without a computer or cell phone. “It was a fun project.”
Gjere started in the business when Ready-mix didn’t exist. He had two great big mixers, and they were running all over the country pouring concrete. He explained that, “We would haul a couple of hundred bags of concrete at a time. Then we got us a power driven wheelbarrow and poured lots of big floors with the mixers.”
In the late 90s, the three boys, Mike, Mark, and Brian, took over. The boys continued to build the business on the foundation set in place by their parents. A diverse business portfolio, and staying ahead of the curve are reasons why the company is poised to weather COVID-19. The boys emphasized that they do not know what the economy will look like in six months, just as their dad did not know what the future held.
Since taking over, the boys had invested in better and faster equipment, thus making their work easier than when their dad started. Gjere asked his oldest son Mike to move back home and computerize the business. The grandchildren are called in to assist with the ever-changing technology.
Gjere Construction’s competitive advantage has been to stay ahead of the curve, which has allowed them to remain competitive. For example, the elder Gjere shared that one year when he attended the World of Concrete and purchased the region’s first concrete conveyor truck, his wife, the business bookkeeper, wondered if the truck was a necessary purchase because it was so expensive. This business strategy has not been overlooked by the second generation.
Brian Gjere emphasized the importance of needing to be “better and faster.” He went on to explain that, “The best thing to happen to the business that set them apart from other concrete companies is the recent purchase of the robotic total station.” Geo-matching.com defines the station as “an electronic/optical instrument used for angle measurement, distance measurements, and coordinate measurements. Total Stations can be remotely controlled and mounted on surveying tripods. A Total Station uses a surveying prisms as a measurement target, and the ability to remotely control or automatically track these targets eliminates the need for an assistant staff.” One can imagine the time and labor this saves.
In regards to the COVID-19 virus, Mark Gjere explained that they have not had any customers call in and cancel any jobs, plus they have a good list of jobs upcoming in 2020. He went on to explain, “That now with the weather warming up and the soil drying out, they will start rolling and get started on the jobs.” He added that, “There looks like there is plenty of work for this year but that things could change in a heartbeat.”
Mark Gjere shared that “you roll with what is handed to you.”
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