Manufacturer fills many ag storage needs

HOUGHTON - We pass grain buildings and farm equipment in Henry County almost everyday and some of us rarely have time to think about where they come from or who makes them. Well, Hawkeye Steel does.

Hawkeye Steel Products Inc. is comprised of five companies - "old" Hawkeye Steel Products Inc. (whose principal brand name is Pride of the Farm), Conrad-American Inc., Eaton, Brower and Marlor.

Martin Lorenzen of Marshall-town started the company in 1920. He moved his small factory to Waterloo in 1923. His son started a second company in Council Bluffs in 1963. He named the company after his father, "Marlor."

Leonard Conrad started Conrad-American Inc. in 1968 in Houghton. Conrad was a producer and marketer of hybrid corn. He began selling his grain bins to his seed customers in the 1960s and then began manufacturing his own bins in 1968.

Brower manufacturing was founded in Quincy, Ill., in 1922 by William J. Brower. The company originated as a mail order house distributor. Brower started manufacturing in the 1930s.

Albert Nathaniel Eaton of Omaha, Neb., established Eaton in 1903. Eaton's first livestock related product was a stock tank patented in 1909. He expanded into grain bins, welded tanks, packaging and washing equipment and energy-free waterers.

The five companies merged into "new" Hawkeye Steel Products Inc. in 1986. Operations were consolidated in Houghton. The Brower brand name was added to all Marlor products. The other four brand names have been maintained. The company is privately owned.

Hawkeye Steel manufactures equipment for these four markets: Grain and oilseed storage, livestock production, poultry production, and poultry-meat processing.

The company's products are sold in all 50 states and in about 25 countries each year.

Mark Spinner, sales manager of the Grain Bin Division points out how good business has been.

"Our business is very good because of ethanol. Ethanol business is a good deal. Iowa will have to produce more corn and cause the need for more storage in grain bins." Spinner has worked at Hawkeye Steel for 30 years.

Another longtime employee of 35 years, Jim Counts manages the Grain Bin Division. As we walk through the plant, he explained how the steel is manufactured. The steel comes from all over, but mostly from Chicago. The raw steel arrives in giant rolls that are rolled out, cut and corrugated. Workers use manual/electrical presses to shape the steel. Counts says that they can press up to 500 tons.

Jim Counts lives in Bonaparte and has driven the 12 miles every workday to Houghton to a job that he loves. "I've always enjoyed it. We're a family-orientated company."

At the conclusion of the tour, Jim received news that more steel was coming from Chicago. It's a busy day. Then he smiled and said, " I don't feel like retiring yet as young as I feel."