27. History of Hahn Ready Mix

In this episode we're joined by Isaac Hahn, who helps bring some life to the story of Hahn Ready Mix, all the way back to it's founding as Hahn Brothers Commission Merchants in 1884.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:09

Welcome to Loaded the Hahn Ready Mix Podcast with Andrea Meyer and Griffin Hahn and producer Lex and a very, very special guest today. Would you like to introduce yourself, sir? Yes, I I'm Isaac. Welcome, Isaac. Welcome to the Hawn Ready Mix Podcast. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Isaac has been this is the number one thing he's talked about all summer.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Summer bucket list item here.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Summer bucket list items being on the podcast. How does it feel?

SPEAKER_03 0:37

Good?

SPEAKER_00 0:37

It feels good? You got lots to talk about today?

SPEAKER_03 0:41

Not that much.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Not that much.

SPEAKER_03 0:44

Let's hear it. What do you have to say? So, like a couple months ago or so, I washed my very first tooth.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Yeah, that was not a couple months, that was a couple weeks.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

A couple weeks, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:58

And what else?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

What is what happens tomorrow?

SPEAKER_03 1:02

Um I'm gonna have my first day of kindergarten. Going back into kindergarten.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Amazing. Do you think any other kindergartners have been on a podcast? No. I cannot wait to nope. Nope. Nope. I can't wait for you to tell them. They'll be so excited. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

It's gonna be great.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

What else was cool this summer? You got any cool stories from your summer?

SPEAKER_03 1:26

Um well, I catched a huge catfish, the biggest catfish in a pond.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Yeah, just last weekend.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

Yeah. How big was it? Um four ounces.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

No.

SPEAKER_03 1:45

That sounds huge.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

That would be a very small four pounds.

SPEAKER_03 1:48

Four pounds, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Big catfish. Say bigger than Chris Erickson's catfish.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Yeah. Way bigger.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Awesome. Well, thanks for being here. Is there anything else you want to talk about before we start talking about boring old concrete stuff again?

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Well, why don't you talk to us about like you always talk about what you want to do at Hon ReadyMix someday? Yeah. You wanted to be a loader operator for a long time, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:13

But then I changed it.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

You changed it?

SPEAKER_03 2:15

Now what?

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Now what do you want to do? Um uh you want to work in the shop, work on trucks?

SPEAKER_03 2:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Yeah? That would be fun. Grandpa would like that. Grandpa's big into watching the the shop. So you could be his his eyes and ears, huh? Yeah. You got if you can't if you nod, we can't hear you on the podcast, you gotta say. All right, cool. Well, should we get into it today?

SPEAKER_03 2:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Okay. Well, you just chime in if you hear us talk about something interesting, okay?

SPEAKER_03 2:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

All right. Sounds good. What do we got for announcements today?

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Okay, well, yeah, like Isaac said, school starts this week. So I just wanted to remind everyone to be conscious of those school zone speed limits. Uh, be very, very cautious around crosswalks and look out for those school buses when the red lights come on and the stop signs come out. We got to stop, make sure we stop in all the lanes. So just everybody have their back-to-school awareness back on.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

That's good. I also think in that kind of the same vein, we've had so many rolling stops show up on SamSara the last three weeks. Like we were going along where we'd have zero or one a week, and I think the last few weeks we've had like 10 or 12.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Double digits is not where we want to be.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Right. Right. So make sure we're coming to a full stop at Stop Signs.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Another announcement is regarding slump. I feel like we talk about this. We talk about this every day, every podcast, every three o'clock meeting. But it's worth saying again, we are continuing to work on adjusting at the plant level. But the only way we get better at the plant level is if the drivers communicate back. So I know it's it's definitely not easy at the river plant, but there are some places where it is easy enough to just stick your head in. And what the batchers want to know is is what slump you got out of the plant. You know, every we we can count on everyone to make the adjustments that they need to to get to the job correctly, but we want to know what slump you're getting out of the plant. So if everybody makes a little bit of an extra effort to communicate that, I think we can all keep keep improving.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Absolutely. And Isaac, what so when we're talking about slump, what are the ingredients in concrete? Do you know?

SPEAKER_03 4:35

Um water, rock, chemicals, and I forgot the name of it.

unknown 4:44

Cement.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Cement and what else? You forgot one more thing. Um you have rock and what else?

SPEAKER_03 4:50

Rock and gravel?

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Well, rock and gravel can be kind of the same thing. Sand.

SPEAKER_03 4:56

Sand. Oh yeah. They did that in for an hour. Lost track of it.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Yeah, that happens. So if we put too much water or not enough water, we're not getting the right slump, right?

SPEAKER_03 5:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:09

And we had a water issues, but is it still going or no?

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Which water issue is that?

SPEAKER_03 5:16

I don't know the really big one. The flooding. The flooding in the yard.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Yeah, that's a big water issue. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

We're working through it.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

I had uh one more announcement today. I forgot to talk about this last week. You know, Sam and Sheldon came on and did the top five nicknames for the company. And I find it offensive and criminal that they didn't include Haas from Geneseo in that list.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

That's a big miss.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

That is a huge miss. Huge miss. So um just I I don't know what that says for you know impartiality against uh uh the Edwards groupers or this whole podcasting job isn't as easy as it looks, guys. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

I I wanted to follow up also on the Juergens podcast. I I talked to him a little bit and in your intro, you said he wouldn't do it because of me.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

And I don't think that was the full that was the inference that I gained. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

What I heard from that was he didn't need to do it when I'm here, but he knew you couldn't possibly do it without him. So he filled in for me to help you.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Well not out of the kindness of his heart. Yeah. He did a great job. Yes so great.

SPEAKER_02 6:28

All right. Well, let's get started. We're gonna talk about the history of Han Redimix.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

Do you know Isaac? I know nothing about it. Well, that's why we're all here to learn today.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Yeah. Yeah. So the in preparation for this is actually kind of cool. I got on the archives of the Muscatine Journal and found so much uh neat stuff in the going way back in time. Some of it was different than what I'd always been told, and some of it kind of confirmed it. And um, so that was really kind of a cool exercise. But obviously, the story of how Han Redimix came today is kind of intertwined with the story of of Lex and I and Isaac's family. So there's a little bit of that discussion in in this, um, but also of some of the companies we've acquired. So we'll kind of jump around as we go through this timeline for for uh you know other companies that you know we didn't have anything to do with until later in time. So anyway, we ready?

SPEAKER_03 7:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Yeah? Okay. Let's do it. So the oldest we we go back, uh oldest date we have to talk about here, it's kind of wild, is 1785. Do you know how long ago that was, Isaac?

SPEAKER_03 7:46

No.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

That's like almost 250 years ago.

SPEAKER_03 7:51

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Yeah. Uh George Matthias Hahn was born in Bavaria in southern Germany. And um when he was a young man, Napoleon actually marched through his village in 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars, which is kind of a cool thing. He had a son named John Henry Hahn that was also born in Bavaria in 1831. And George moved John Henry and his nine siblings and their whole families over to the United States in 1851 and settled in Iowa. So it's kind of the origin story of our family arriving here. And then the the business didn't start for a little while after that. The oldest surviving business that's become part of the Honredy Mix group was actually Builder, Sand and Gravel, which became Builder, Sand and Cement down the line, was founded by Hans Kuß here in Davenport in 1853, which is wild. That's so long ago.

SPEAKER_03 8:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Yeah. They were the key material supplier for the construction of the Rock Island Arsenal in 18, starting in 1860, which is pretty neat. So um bringing sand and rock and and things like that onto the arsenal. Um I love this story. I don't I don't 100% know that they were related to us, but there was a George Hahn in Muscatine who was not the George Matthias, but it maybe was one of his other sons, that in 1863, he and three other guys that were described in the newspaper as quote-unquote notorious copperheads, um, were denied entry to a ball and decided to shoot the place up. Which um, yeah, it sounds like some of my relatives. So I think it's plausible.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

It's crazy. Entirely unrelated, but you thought it was a good story to add.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

It might be a good story and it might be related. So uh so that was 1863, 1869. Uh John Henry Hahn acquired some property off Stuart Road in Muscatine, where our plant is still located down in Muscatine today. And um and then in 1884, Hahn Brothers Commission merchants uh started in Muscatine. And I found the newspaper article um announcing the beginning of that company, so that's pretty cool. Um, and it was led by John Henry Hahn and and two of his brothers, um, but they were doing agricultural sales, so selling watermelon and peas and cantaloupe and things like that uh from the Muscatine Island, they call it down the south end. So that's pretty cool that we can trace the origins of of this company all the way back there. Don't you think, Isaac? That's new.

SPEAKER_03 10:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Yeah. Uh going forward in the timeline, WG Block was uh another company we acquired in 2012, was founded in Davenport in 1888 as a coal and ice supplier, which is actually it's interesting. I I know of a number of ReadyMix companies that started as a coal and ice um supplier. I think it was kind of a natural transition that as people stopped buying commercial coal and ice, that ReadyMix was just kind of bursting on the scene and it was an easy pivot. So um I I believe that that's Ozinga's story over in Chicago as well, that they were doing that.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

Um we should have stayed in ice. We sometimes run into trouble finding it. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Yes. Well, yeah, yeah, for sure. So moving along, in 1890, Henry Hahn, who was John Hahn's son, so we're now we're talking second generation, uh, opened up a ha a new division of Hahn Brothers was a lumber business and did that for five years. And there's also some stories in the family that at that time we got into doing sand dredging in Muscatine with partnering with somebody from Chicago, and that that also went under and they got back out of that business at some point. So uh I couldn't find anything in the newspaper on that, but that's been the story. Moving forward in 1905, a woman by the name of Ethel Delarue started working for Builder's Sand and Gravel, and she became a very important person. So I just wanted to mark that date. In 1908, Robert Henry Hahn, who was my great-grandpa, or Lex and I's great-grandpa, that's your great-great-grandpa, Isaac. Um was born in 1908. And so that would be the the him and his brothers were the third generation in the business. In 1917, it's pretty cool, Hahn Brothers was the largest supplier of cabbage to the U.S. military in World War I. What a random fact that is. But yeah. In 1923, we officially started uh the sand and gravel operation uh that was started by Henry Hahn and then his sons, including great-grandpa Robert, who was just 15 at the time. But Hahn Brothers uh started doing the sand and gravel, kind of changed their name to Hahn Brothers Gravel Company. And somewhere in between that time and when he retired, great-grandpa Robert invented the world's first roller-bearing centrifugal sand pump, which is pretty cool. And we actually still have that down in Muscatine. It's um the kind of rusted piece of metal sitting just just kind of north of the shop there or north of the office, uh, which is pretty cool that he was kind of an inventor. He designed it and built it, and then of course promptly refused to patent it. So we might not be doing this today. So uh it's kind of cool. So, okay, moving forward, 1932, Ethel Delarue, uh who was working for Builder Sand and uh gravel, acquired what was then uh known as Builder's Sand and Cement. In 1937, Lex and I's grandpa Tom was born, who some of you listening to this will remember. So that was 37. In 1950, Builder Sand and Cement moved from kind of just bulk material sales to they're the first kind of in the area to move to the ready mix concrete industry. In 1952, Edwards ReadyMix over in Genesee was founded, so that's when they started up by the Edwards family. And in 1954, great-grandpa Robert set up the first ReadyMix plant in Muscatine for a Han ReadyMix. So that was kind of a watershed moment there, and uh with Grandpa Tom working with it as well. What do you think of that, Isaac?

SPEAKER_03 15:04

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Yeah, good. Okay. Um so we've we've we're talking about four generations at this point. I think there's some great stories. You can listen to Darren tell some stories about great-grandpa Robert, was like one of the most frugal people that ever lived. When he passed, he had a a case of, you know, he's a depression kid, right? So but he had a uh a case of wire brushes that he would clean off parts on the sand dredge. And he had this case that he carried around for like 20 years. And after he passed, they opened it up and there were four wire brushes in this case, and one of them was worn all the way down to the nub, and the other three had never been touched. And just kind of um uh it tells you a little bit about his uh his personality. And I have a great story about my grandpa. So um Jeremy was there with me too. We went down, this probably was 15 years ago, 10 years ago. Grandpa was in his late 70s, I would say. And we went down to the hospital in Muscatine to get a picture taken for, we had the new pink truck for breast cancer research, and the hospital wanted us to come down and take some pictures. So Bear and I were there, and Grandpa walks out of the hospital with his arm in a cast. And we said, What happened? And he's like, Well, I was painting the ceiling of the of the church and fell off the ladder, broke my arm. And we went, Oh my gosh. You know, and so we we talk about it for a little while, and we say, you know, go home, rest up that arm. And he goes, What are you talking about? I gotta go back and finish painting the church. So uh that's I think those are some neat stories about kind of the work ethic and perseverance of our family. But uh okay, moving forward on the timeline, 1957. Uh that's when Lex and I's dad, Brian, was born, who would become the fifth generation working in the family. Uh Larry Otzman was hired by builders in 1962.

SPEAKER_03 17:13

He's still alive. His grandpa's still alive? Oh, yeah. He's my grandpa.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Very good question, though. I'm glad you clarified that.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Yeah. Uh my grandpa, Lex and I's grandpa Tom is not. No, if that's the question you were asking.

SPEAKER_03 17:30

No, I'll I would be my grandpa. I wasn't that for sure.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

You weren't for sure?

SPEAKER_03 17:36

It's my grandpa.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Yeah, yeah, he's for your grandpa's still alive.

SPEAKER_03 17:39

Yeah, he's still alive.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Yep. 1962, Larry Otzman, who so many of us know, he drove here for 62 years. He started in 1962, which is pretty great. Um, so it's uh uh awesome story that I remember some of the things that he said when he started was Ms. Delarue would give all the drivers wooden nickels to go down to the bar to hang out until they were needed for a big pour. And uh she would call the bar and send them back, but they'd be just sitting there drinking before they came back.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

So the bartender was the central dispatch?

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Correct. Yes, outsourcing the central dispatch. I love that. Yeah. And in those days, you would the drivers were um assigned to a customer. So they would actually kind of do their own dispatch. The driver would wake up in the morning, call their customer, and say, what time do you need to load and what do you need and how many yards? And you'd write it down and he'd go to the plant and say, you know, I need three yards of a 4,000-pound mix and go into this customer and and off they went. And so just totally different. Larry also always tells the story of when he started. He came in for the interview and talked to Miss Delarue, and she went through everything about the job and they get done, and she's like, Okay, great, can you start Monday? And he says, Well, yeah, what what is it? Pay? She goes, Nobody else complains. You'll be fine. So he worked two weeks before he knew how much he was even getting paid. Um, but must have been must have been good enough because you know, obviously he spent a whole career here, so uh that's pretty great. Okay, so moving forward, uh, and and Miss Delareux, I guess we should talk about her. She would like, she was like her own lobbyist for the industry, would go to Washington, D.C. on her own to meet with um Congresspeople. Like she was just kind of a force to be reckoned with in the in the Quad Cities business um industry and and community. So we still have a picture of her up in my dad's office, and uh yeah, it's uh someone to remember for sure. Okay, in early 1970s, a second plant was put up in Muscatine. And then in 1981, Han Brothers Sand and Gravel was reincorporated as Han ReadyMix, um, which is kind of a bummer, you know, that we like our actual articles of incorporation with the Iowa Secretary of State, say 1981, because we reincorporated, but I like to think, you know, it was kind of a continuous business. Um so I I like to use the 1884 as the better uh starting point. But um in 1984, we put up our first kind of batch panel operated automatic automatic plant in Muscatine, so that was a big deal. Um and then in 1988, uh dad and Grandpa Tom acquired Grunder and Sons Ready Mix that had locations in West Liberty, Wilton, Durant, and Walcott. So a few of our of our current employees, like Darren, started at that Durant plant um shortly after that acquisition. Um in 1991, we acquired Mercer County Ready Mix in Alito, Illinois, which is now the Alito plant. And also in 1991, so Altar Company had owned builders. Am I boring you?

SPEAKER_03 21:13

I was waiting for something to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Okay. Well you can chime in. But in 1980, in 1980, after Ms. Delarue uh passed, the builders was sold to Altar Corp, who's still a company here in town. And then they sold in 1991, they sold builders to Ira Weindrick. In 1995, we picked up one of the biggest jobs in the history of the company to build the new Ipsco steel plant, which is now SSAB in Bluegrass. So we bought a ReadyMix plant and set it up on site and then poured 90,000 yards with Johnson brothers to do that job. And then afterwards moved that plant to Eldridge. And that was 97, where we moved that plant. So that was our first kind of entry. Into the Quad City market for Hon ReadyMix. And then Dad acquired Builders, San and Cement in 1997 from Ira Weindrick. And then fast forward to 2012, we acquired WG Block and Edwards ReadyMix. So that's when kind of everything came together and how it looks now. And in 2017, Block and Builders were merged into Han ReadyMix. And then getting into real recent history, 2017 to 2021, we had the I-74 Bridge project that many of you worked on. It was 215,000 cubic yards. So definitely our biggest job.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

Yeah, one of my favorite jobs, too.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Yeah, you like to you like to go on the bridge and talk about the bridge, don't you?

SPEAKER_03 22:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:50

And at school I would talk about the bridge, and that's when my dad made it.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Well, we made the concrete for it, didn't we? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:59

Talked about the whole scene about it in school.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

That's cool. Okay. Um in 2023, Larry Otzman retired after 62 years. And so we had a nice little party for that. And in 2023, we also won the ACI Excellence in Concrete Award internationally for the uh top infrastructure project for the bridge, which is pretty cool. And then the last note I had was 2024 Braden Drake, so Jeremy's uh son, was the first seventh generation family member to work for the company, which is pretty cool. So uh hopefully, Isaac, you'll join that someday, be seventh generation. But I think it's um really kind of underscores you know the the weight of history with us when we talk seven generations. I think that's so rare for a company to even be thinking along those lines. And so that that's a lot of pressure for for us that you know to be stewards of of this thing that has been around for you know close to 150 years now, which is pretty cool. So what do you think about all that, Isaac?

SPEAKER_03 24:11

Nice. Can you talk about the watermelon thing now?

SPEAKER_00 24:15

The watermelon thing?

SPEAKER_03 24:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Which one?

SPEAKER_03 24:19

The Democrat watermelon.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

So there was a newspaper article from 1884 that said that Han Brothers had a 56-pound watermelon, and it said that um that they had a lot more of that size, and with all those watermelons, the Democrats are really gonna have a hard time this year. I don't really understand the um the political context for that comment, but it is kind of funny. I guess maybe things aren't so different now than they were uh 150 years ago. So yeah, is that what you wanted to hear?

SPEAKER_02 24:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

That's good. That's good.

SPEAKER_02 24:57

I like that. Do you have any loaded questions for us?

SPEAKER_00 25:01

You could ask us anything, Isaac.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

And no loaded questions. Any question at all? Nope. And no loaded questions. How about for Uncle X? Do you have any questions for him? Okay, I have a loaded question for you. What? Who do you think has the best job at Hon Ready Mix?

SPEAKER_03 25:19

I would say me.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

You do have business cards as a uh director of talking a lot and running around.

SPEAKER_03 25:26

Yeah, that's super easy.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

That's super easy.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

Keep it up. Thanks for doing a great job for us.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:34

Thanks for listening to Load of the Hon Ready Mix podcast.