Marc and Carl Dueck, owners of Sullivan Stone in Creston
Concrete and gravel are literally the raw materials upon which a modern town or city is built. From the foundation of your home to the layers of road bed neatly graded below freshly paved asphalt city streets, refined rock products are a staple of our community infrastructure.
Digging foundations and pouring concrete is in the Dueck family blood. Based in Creston, Marc Dueck and his brother Carl own Sullivan Stone, a full-service ready mix plant and aggregate supplier. Working in a farming community like Creston, the Duecks take on a wide variety of projects in both urban and rural settings.
In the beginning, Marc operated an excavating business and Carl had a concrete construction company, but eventually the brothers were ready to expand their businesses. Marc says, “I was going to do a small-scale gravel pit when a local operator offered us the opportunity to take over his concrete business instead.” The Duecks worked with the owner to purchase the business and Sullivan Stone was born.
Marc admits, though, that the financing end of things needed to be better organized. “We had invested quite a bit of money out of our own pockets as upgrades were needed at the time of purchase. We set up a wash plant, bought a crusher and upgraded our fleet of concrete trucks,” he says. Working with the Trust, the Duecks restructured the financing for Sullivan Stone to allow more direct control and some additional flexibility for their business operations.
The concrete plant received extensive environmental upgrades and a computerized batching system, both leading-edge technology, which greatly improves quality control of the concrete production. Thanks to the Trust, “things are running much more smoothly,” the brothers say.
The Trust is working with Basin-based businesses, to help them grow and maintain an active part in the local economy, such as the Dueck’s, whose business supports local employment, and contributes to the local community.
This article appeared in the 2016 edition of Our Trust. Click here to download the magazine in PDF format.
