Wells Concrete Products continues to be solid

Sara Gilbert Frederick

It’s a good thing that John Rivisto has his pilot’s license.

It only takes the president and CEO of Wells Concrete Products an hour to fly from the company’s newest factory in Albany, Minn., to its original site in Wells. A trip back up to the third factory, in Grand Forks, on the same day is possible too. “I can be productive in both places,” Rivisto says.

Since he can’t be everywhere that Wells Concrete is — besides the three factory sites, there are also ready mix batch centers in Wells, Blue Earth, Mapleton and Mankato — being able to get from place to place as quickly as possible is a plus. But although he takes to the skies when he can, Rivisto admits that for most of his trips, he still puts four wheels on the road and two hands on the wheel.

Rivisto has been driving the growth of Wells Concrete Products for the past three years. Since he took over the reins of the 58-year-old business in 2006, the company has expanded its production of high-end architectural wall panels, opened a new ready mix site in Mankato in 2007 and just this year, built a new factory in Albany. Precast and prestressed wall panels from Wells Concrete have been used in office buildings, parking ramps, even residential homes — some as far away as Chicago.

Even the economy can’t put a damper on future plans for expansion.

“We’ve made smart budgeting decisions,” he explains. Instead of hunkering down, they invested in employee training and went ahead with the construction of a new factory. “We’ll be positioned for growth when the economy rebounds.”

But Rivisto isn’t counting on the economy alone. He knows exactly why Wells Concrete has grown in the past and why it will continue to grow as well. “I attribute it to two things,” he says. “First, we respond to our customers demands and needs. And second, we have some pretty imaginative people working for us. They help us move in a new direction.”

One of those people is Steve Kloos, the vice president of ready mix and concrete products.

About five years ago, Kloos began suggesting that the company consider building a ready mix site in Mankato. The city was going through a growth cycle of its own, and demand for concrete products was high. Although Kloos was able to service the city to some degree from the plant in Mapleton, he was turning down several calls from clients as well.

“We can haul concrete in our trucks about 30 to 35 minutes,” Kloos explains. “Mapleton to Mankato is about 20 minutes. We were able to handle some of the jobs coming out of Mankato, but there were many jobs I had to turn down because I knew we wouldn’t be able to service them properly. That’s why we had to move to Mankato.”

Two years after it opened, the Mankato plant now accounts for about 55 percent of the company’s ready mix business. “Our other plants are much more rural,” Kloos explains. “It seems like when one market is up, the other is down — and right now, the agricultural market is hurting a little bit more.”

The ready mix business is primarily concrete poured from Wells Concrete’s orange and yellow trucks, although some precast products are also available, including septic tanks, steps, splash blocks for gutters and even hog slats for confinement barns. But the footings, foundations and floors that Kloos and his crews pour are just the beginning of Wells Concrete’s capabilities.

Precast and prestressed products — including structural beams, columns and girders as well as architectural wall panels and decorative elements — have become a major part of Wells Concrete’s operations. The company’s expansion into the high-end architectural market also came about at the urging of an employee — Spencer Kubat, the vice president of sales and marketing.

“Spencer began pushing for that almost 10 years ago,” Rivisto says. “Everyone was comfortable with what they were doing, but he said we need to try this. The high-end market was a big unknown and there are a lot of risks. There are a lot of costs associated with it; it required a big ramp up in training, people, equipment and processes.”

But the initial investment has already paid off. Architectural wall panels, which are cast at one of the company’s factories before being shipped to the building site and installed, now account for between 60 and 65 percent of Wells Concrete’s total precast business. “Spencer was spot on in his recommendation,” Rivisto says. “That is now our biggest growth area. That’s what spurred the need for an additional plant in Albany.”

The precast/prestressed and ready mix sides of the business (Wells Concrete also offers sand and gravel services as well) complement each other well. “They open doors for each other,” Rivisto explains. “Steve’s ready-mix projects open doors for precast, and the precast work we do with contractors opens doors for ready mix as well. The contractors we work with often say, ‘We should get Wells in here to do the ready mix work as well.’”

Combining ready mix services with precast products adds value to its offerings and allows it to provide complete concrete services to its clients. “We want to be a one-stop option,” Kloos says. “We can take care of it all.”

Of course, they want to take care of even more. Rivisto and Kloos confirmed that additional expansion in the ready mix division is already in the works, although they could not comment on specifics yet. “Things are definitely in motion,” Kloos says. “We are working on plans for another significant expansion.”

Rivisto is committed to continue looking for new growth opportunities wherever they arise. Concrete, he says, is the second most used product per person in the world — just behind water. “Look around; it’s everywhere,” he says. “Sidewalks, the fittings for buildings, buildings themselves. Concrete is everywhere.”

But the industry itself, Rivisto adds, “is not necessarily known for innovation.” He’d like to change that. “We spend a lot of time on strategic planning. Innovation is important for us.”