Rooted in Mt. Pleasant: Quality Equipment named 2025 Small Business of the Year

MT. PLEASANT — Matt Schimmelpfennig didn’t set out to win awards. He set out to work. But after 31 years of running his family-centered business with grit, humility and deep local roots, the owner of Quality Equipment was named the 2025 Mt. Pleasant Small Business of the Year.

“When I was in high school, I always wanted to own a business,” Schimmelpfennig said.

That ambition wasn’t random — it ran in the family. His parents owned their own business when he was growing up, and though it was a different kind of work, the lessons stuck.

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“I’ve been in the business for a long time,” he said. “And I’ve got connections with the community I grew up in.”

He turned that early example into something uniquely his own.

“I like equipment, and I’d like to go to auctions, and I buy a lot of stuff,” he said. “It just kind of snowballs. I’ll try anything once. If it works, it works.”

Last Friday, May 9, that snowball became something bigger. Schimmelpfennig’s company, Quality Equipment, was honored by the Mt. Pleasant Area Chamber of Commerce during its annual Small Business Breakfast — a recognition that surprised the man behind it.

“I didn’t realize I had won at first. My daughter had to tell me,” he said. “I was surprised. Very surprised. It is a really great honor.”

Schimmelpfennig started Quality Equipment in 1994 with a few lawn mowers and an instinct for what people around town might need. Three decades later, the business now rents and sells construction equipment, trailers, containers, and tents — and hauls just about everything in between. It’s still small with two employees besides himself, most of the year, but Quality Equipment is deeply embedded in the rhythms of Mt. Pleasant.

“No, I didn’t think I was going to win,” he said. “I was just honored to be nominated.”

Schimmelpfennig doesn’t talk much about business strategy or branding. His success comes from something simpler: he grew up here. He stayed. And he made himself indispensable in the quiet, cumulative way small businesses often do — by solving problems, showing up, and helping others succeed.

“Small business is very important in this community,” he said.

What makes Quality Equipment stand out, according to his daughter Kate Schimmelpfennig, isn’t just what it offers — it’s how her dad gives back.

“His wanting to give back to the community and always wanting to support like different athletics in Mt. Pleasant community as a whole,” she said. “He goes to all the sporting events. Anyone that needs a sponsor — he’s there to support them.”

Kate, a business and marketing student at the University of Iowa, returns home in the summer to help run the office alongside her brothers. Their work at Quality Equipment is both a job and a family tradition.

“It’s fun to be in the office all together,” she said. “So, starting next week, we’ll have that again.”

Her brother Jack, about to graduate from Iowa State with a degree in agricultural business, plans to join the company full-time.

“I’m very excited,” Jack said. “He works hard. He wants to give back. He likes to help out, that’s for sure. He’s a good guy.”

The youngest, Lou, graduates from Mt. Pleasant Community High School this weekend. He says the award makes sense, because everyone already knows his dad.

“As I go around, everyone says how good he is, a good guy,” Lou said. “He has made a lot of friends over the years. All around town I hear people say, ‘Oh, I know your dad. He’s such a good guy.’”

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At the Chamber breakfast, the event’s mantra was clear: “Preparation creates separation.” The recognition wasn’t just for surviving in business — it was for doing it well, doing it long, and doing it with integrity.

For Schimmelpfennig, the award is meaningful not because it changes anything, but because it affirms everything he’s quietly built over the past three decades.

“It’s just a great honor that people appreciate my business,” he said. “It’s rewarding.”

Comments: AnnaMarie.Kruse@southeastiowaunion.com