April 4, 2022

This paid piece is sponsored by Knife River Corp.

The team, the vehicles, the equipment and – most importantly – the service at Concrete Materials Co. won’t be any different – but soon you will start seeing one obvious change.

Concrete Materials is transitioning to the name Knife River, recognizing a relationship that began four years ago and has proven to be the right fit for the future.

“It has been a good thing,” said Clark Meyer, longtime Concrete Materials executive and president of Knife River South Dakota.

“We’ve been able to share resources and knowledge, and most importantly this has been a cultural match from the start. Both companies place a very high value on integrity, safety and treating people right. It has been a smooth transition and is business as usual.”

In 2018, North Dakota-based MDU Resources Group acquired Sioux Falls-based Sweetman Construction Co., which operated as Concrete Materials Co.

Concrete Materials became part of MDU’s Knife River Corp. It is in the company’s North Central Region, which includes North Dakota and South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska.

“In some regions, Knife River also does construction – asphalt and concrete paving – and we wanted to assure our customers that our business model was not changing, that we would continue to be supply only,” Meyer said. “So we didn’t change our name right away to reflect that – from our customers’ standpoint, really very little was changing.

“We’re not getting into contracting,” he continued. “That’s been a consistent dialogue for several years, and I think our customers also have seen the benefit of us becoming part of a broader organization.”

For instance, within Knife River there are enough resources to shift as needed based on demand.

“When they’re short of work in some areas and we have plenty of work, we can bring resources down here to cover our needs,” Meyer said. “In North Dakota, they did that when the oil surge was booming. As a stand-alone company, you don’t have that flexibility and ability to shift and share resources.”

The relationship also has brought valuable exchanges of ideas, he added.

“If you have a question, there’s always someone in the group who has encountered it before and can tell you how they approached it in Oregon or Texas and what to look out for,” Meyer said. “There’s a sand plant processing genius who came out and gave us tips and took home ideas from us too, so the sharing of knowledge has been big.”

And Concrete Materials has been a great addition to Knife River, said John Quade, president of the company’s North Central Region.

“As we looked to grow our business, we looked right away at Concrete Materials because of all the similarities our companies have,” Quade said. “They were – and still are – a company that does things the right way. To move into a dynamic new market for us like Sioux Falls, we needed some important qualities: a strong team, many years of aggregate reserves and a cultural fit for our organization. We found that with Concrete Materials.”

Now, the public will start to see more visible signs of the relationship. Logos will be changing on equipment, building signs will be updated, marketing materials will evolve, and employees will be wearing new branded clothing, hard hats and vests.

“The rebranding will take some time, and our team can still wear Concrete Materials logo wear as it helps tell our story,” Meyer said. “But we’re looking forward to having one unified identity.”

In the meantime, the year is off to a busy start.

“It’s going really well. The snow is off the ground, we had some warm temperatures, so we’re off to a good start,” Meyer said. “We’re busy at The Steel District. We have Cherapa Place going on, so we have big jobs kicking off.”

That also mean the 250-person Sioux Falls-based team continues to grow. New and existing team members see benefits from being part of Knife River too.

“There are seven regions that roll up into the broader Knife River, totaling about 6,000 employees, which means excellent benefits,” Meyer said. “Our insurance costs went down, our cost of health care improved, and we continued to be able to offer the family culture that draws and keeps employees. There’s a lot of positive energy on our team right now. We’re getting good applicants for the positions we have open.”

Click here to learn more about current openings.

Tours of the quarry

Knife River is hosting several tours of its main Sioux Falls location for anyone who has questions or who just would like to visit the facility and see how it operates.

“You’ll get a true sense for what we do and the importance of being able to access our supply within the city,” Meyer said. “We look forward to welcoming as many people as possible into the quarry through tour events we have scheduled.”

Members of the Greater Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce can learn more about Knife River at a mixer from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. April 12.

The public can learn more about the quarry thanks to Knife River’s partnership with  Siouxland Heritage Museums to offer tours throughout May and June. The tours begin at the Irene Hall Museum Resource Center at 9:30 a.m. Tour dates are:

• May 17, 19, 24, 26, 31.
• June 2, 9, 16, 23, 30.

 Registration will start in May. Keep an eye on siouxlandmuseums.com.