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Mathiowetz Construction Company, founded in 1924, navigated challenges and growth to reach its 100-year milestone. Run by fourth-generation family members, the company continues to prioritize employees and community, aiming for success in its second century.
Wed January 15, 2025 - Midwest Edition #2
After 100 years of road and excavation projects, hiring and mentoring hundreds of loyal employees and building and managing multi-million dollar construction contracts, the owners of Mathiowetz Construction Company are rounding the corner into a second century of construction services and fourth generation of family ownership.
Martin Mathiowetz, a descendant of Bohemian immigrants, founded the company in 1924.
Leading the company today is Brian Mathiowetz, chief executive officer (CEO) and grandson of Martin. Brian's son, Chad, is the president of the company and his daughter, Julie Anderson, is the executive vice president of the company.
Holding the special title of company matriarch is Mary Lou Mathiowetz, the wife of Martin's son Richard, and Brian's mother. Richard, along with his brother Rudy, helped their father in the daily operations of the growing company.
Located in Leavenworth, Minn., approximately 110 mi. southwest of the St. Paul/Minneapolis metro area, the company's major clients include state and federal agencies; county highway departments; agricultural grain facilities; large commercial expansions; farmers; and township governments.
The list also includes next door neighbors because, "No job is too small for the Mathiowetz Construction Company," according to Brian Mathiowetz.
To celebrate the past and look to the future, the Mathiowetz family hosted a party at company headquarters on Nov. 29 to celebrate its first 100 years and give a heartfelt thanks to past and present employees who helped the company grow, the community that supported them and the clients that contracted with them.
The celebration, held in the 25,000-sq.-ft. maintenance building, featured food and music topped off with brilliant fireworks that lit up the dark, prairie sky with a temperature hovering around the 10-degree mark.
The sprawling, 20-acre company headquarters in Leavenworth straddles both sides of the quiet county road that runs through it and occupies most of the commercial space in town.
In addition to the office and maintenance building, there is space to store the company's 350 units of heavy equipment alongside space set aside to store 40 units of the original antique equipment Martin Mathiowetz and his employees operated.
"You know, we're different. Here we are in our fourth generation and we're celebrating the century mark for a company that sits out in the prairie in the middle of nowhere," Brian said. "We probably should have been located closer to Mankato or up toward the Metro area. But here we are and we're making a go of it. They always say location, location, location but we had to take that out of the equation."
It wasn't a smooth path that brought the company to this milestone. Raised on a small farm just a few miles south of the company's headquarters, Martin, was just 17 years old in 1914 when he was suddenly thrust into becoming the main bread winner for the family when his father suddenly died at the age of 39.
With just a sixth-grade education, Martin began plowing snow and clearing land for local farmers. From these basic tasks, Mathiowetz Construction Company was born.
"Martin was a tinkerer whose natural curiosity led him to invent his own solutions to problems," according to a book on the company's history.
Martin designed and built much of the equipment he needed from scrap parts to build up a client base and move the company forward into heavy construction.
From there the company has grown to 150 employees, and the company now builds and manages multi-million dollar infrastructure improvements throughout the southern third of Minnesota.
All the hard work and long hours paid off in other ways. In 2014, the company earned The Family Business Award and in 2024, the Association of General Contractors (AGC), Minnesota branch, recognized the company with an award for "Celebrating 100 Years of Industry Excellence."
What a difference 100 years can make.
Continuing from the written family history, more family tragedy and business challenges loomed as Martin continued to take on additional work.
After two years of marriage, Martin's first wife Ida died of an infection a month after giving birth to their son, Rudolph. Shortly after that, he married Louisa, Ida's younger sister, who had been caring for Rudolph. Eventually, Martin and Louisa had five children: Richard, Roman, Rosemary, Rita and Reinhold.
Hard times hit again when Martin and Louisa navigated their way out of bankruptcy during the Depression. By this time, the company had already grown to 10 employees.
Over the next 20 years, Martin found some respite from family challenges. Despite his company's increasing workload, Martin made time to build a new Quonset home from self-cut lumber for his growing family.
Always a creative thinker, Martin turned the first floor into a bar to earn extra income to be invested into the company to help finance equipment and supply purchases. The second floor became the living quarters for the family, which eventually grew to six children.
It was completed in 1937 and with Louisa tending bar, it became a center for the small community and a part of the local history. It still stands today and serves as a storage facility for job supplies.
As the company continued to gain a foothold in the construction business, the company hit another setback when Martin suffered a debilitating neck injury in 1952 that restricted much of his neck movements. Though he still helped guide the company, he was forced to leave much of the daily business and construction operations to his sons, Rudy and Richard.
Just three years later, tragedy would strike again when Rudy perished in a construction equipment rollover. Like his father, Richard, at age 20, suddenly found himself leading the company alone.
And the decade was not yet over. In 1958, the only shop the company owned burned to the ground. The current block wall welding shop was constructed to replace it, according to the written family history.
Of those days, Mary Lou Mathiowetz recalls from a taped interview on the company's web site, "We struggled those years. And in the meantime, we were raising six kids. There were many times during those years that Richard would say ‘maybe I should just quit, but what would all these guys do for a job. I can't quit.' We're a small town. Half the town worked here at that time. So, we just kept going."
According to the family history, "Richard was passionate and driven to succeed even after all the challenging times he had experienced. As a bit of a perfectionist, he demanded it be done right the first time. While most of us fell short of that goal, it was common to do something over again even if it seemed ‘good enough' to someone, but Richard would ensure we ‘do it right'."
"Do It Right" became the company's legacy and goal alongside the company's mission statement that states to "continually improve family and community."
Under Richard's leadership, the company began bidding on and catching contracts on local county and state highway projects.
Going into the 1970s, the biggest challenge was performing work for the surety companies on the construction of I-90 in Minnesota after numerous contractors walked away from their contracts or had gone out of business. The successful completion of these projects boosted Richard's confidence in the strength of the company and led him to begin successfully bidding on and winning multi-million dollar contracts. Richard, along with his brother, Reinhold, who joined him in leading the company, did not back away from any challenge.
Four out of six of Martin's children would eventually work for the company in some capacity. Reinhold eventually left the company to launch his own construction company in Marshall, Minn., nearly 70 mi. west of Leavenworth.
Continuing with the family history, Mary Lou said, "I don't know if he [Richard] knew there was something wrong but the last five years before he passed, he really took Brian under his wing. Who would have ever dreamt that the company would grow to what it is today. It just kept on getting bigger and bigger and better."
When Richard died in 1999, Brian and Julie took over leadership roles. This is a family that has construction pumping through their veins and an unyielding commitment to its employees and community based on their deeply rooted Christian values.
"We found that we had a lot of the right people in place. You know, God works in funny ways. He doesn't give us an absolute, clear path but if you pay attention, he will put some things in place that will work, and I have a team of people that helped us envision where we had to go. We knew we had a vision," Brian said.
Regarding his employees, Brian added, "they are a family. They start hanging out together. It's a community they love being part of. I can't tell you how many employees at the party told me that they had other jobs before coming here and nothing compares to this company. They sought me out of the crowd to tell me this. We try to take that to heart and not take advantage of it. That's part of my God given mission from my Creator to make sure we treat them right. If they don't win, then our company isn't going to win."
Company statistics back up this philosophy or business model. To date, there are 20 employees with 40 or more years with the company; 30 employees with 30 or more years; and 55 employees with 20 or more years with the company.
All the children of Brian and his wife, Ronda, had roles in the company over time, but some left to pursue other careers. Brian has high hopes and confidence that at least one of Chad's four children will eventually join the company and learn its operations from the bottom up to be part of the team to move the company forward into its second century and fifth generation of family ownership.
"You can't get Chad's six-year-old out of the equipment," he said. "He can run a backhoe and a skid loader sitting on a seat alone. We don't want to count our chickens before they hatch but the kid has it in his blood. This is the most amazing thing and he's not going anywhere." CEG