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Marcus Construction

Marcus Construction • 800-367-3424http://www.MarcusConstruction.com

60 YEARS OF QUALITY CONTRACTING, CONSTRUCTION, AND COMMITMENT

Reprinted from Grain Journal March/April 2016 Issue

Carl Marcus, founder of the design-build, general contracting, and construction company of his namesake, summarizes one of the secrets to success in business with a pretty simple statement: “You’ve got to give the customer what he bought, and just a little bit more, if you can.”

Going the extra mile is what has helped the Willmar, MN-based company stay in business for 60 years. That’s only possible with a team of dedicated employees with experience to help guide the company to build projects with quality construction and to build relationships with proven integrity.

“The process that we have at Marcus has everything to do with people, and at the end of the day, our people are our best asset,” explains Business Development Manager Randy Wright.

The company’s CEO (and the founder’s son), Ross Marcus, agrees and says that the company’s more than 50 employees are really what sets Marcus Construction apart from the competition.

“In today’s age, we’re a well-rounded full-service general contractor that provides all of those services like a lot of other contractors do, but the big differentiating factor that we have going for us is the people that we have working for us,” Marcus notes. “We’ve got a very good core of really dedicated men and women here.”

While the majority of the company’s employees are located in Willmar, the company’s projects, however, take them across the continental United States and Canada.

History and Growth in Ag

The company was founded in 1956 and uses design-build, general contracting, and construction management delivery methods. It specializes in a number of project types in the ag and commercial industries, including dry and liquid fertilizer storage, liquid chemical storage, flat grain storage, educational, commercial, health care, financial, and industrial facilities.

“We do have a commercial division and an ag division,” Wright explains. “The ag side of our business probably represents about 70% to 80% of our revenue. It’s a large, large part of our company. Within that ag sector, broken down into a few different kinds of buildings that we like to build, dry fertilizer storage is probably the biggest one. We also do a lot of liquid fertilizer and liquid chemical buildings. Then, flat grain storage. When I say flat grain storage, it’s predominantly corn or soybean storage buildings,” he adds.

Well before the company grew to become so diversified, Carl Marcus started out building wood frame agricultural buildings. As can be expected when you do something right, people take notice, and by 1959, he was constructing 180 buildings in one year. As the company continued to expand, Marcus built an office in Prinsburg, MN in 1972 and also established two strategic, long-standing partnerships that same year – one with Varco Pruden Buildings, Memphis, TN, to supply pre-engineered metal buildings to the construction industry, as well as with West Central Steel in Willmar.

The company officially incorporated in 1973, and by 1978, Marcus entered the ag market and began constructing grain bin storage facilities. The 1980s marked the company’s entry into its first flat grain storage buildings, and by the mid-1990s the company built its first dry fertilizer facilities – one for Farmers Coop Oil in Clara City, MN, and one for Cenex Land O’Lakes in Elrosa, MN. At the turn of the 21st century, the company continued to build on Carl’s legacy and built some significant milestone projects, including designing and building the nation’s first dry fertilizer mega-plant in 2001 for Western Consolidated Cooperative (West-Con) in Holloway, MN.

Since 2001, Marcus has built West-Con’s corporate office, additional dry and liquid fertilizer storage, a 4-million-bushel flat grain storage facility, also at Holloway and also constructed West-Con’s 40,000 ton dry fertilizer plant in Twin Brooks, SD.

By 2007, Marcus had constructed the largest inland urea storage facility in the country, and four years later, it moved its corporate office from Prinsburg to Willmar. Today, Marcus is considered to be an industry leader in the design and construction of dry and liquid fertilizer storage facilities and continues to look for areas of growth.

“I think in the ag sector, we’re seeing some things change a little,” says Wright. “The precision agriculture and the big farms that we’re seeing have really driven the growth for these big dry storage fertilizer buildings.”

In spite of steady development in the ag market over the past 10 years, Marcus says the company is somewhat cautious in terms of projections for the years ahead. But it is optimistic in continuing to be the best at what it does and earn its business by reputation.

“The indications moving into 2016 are, there’s a lot of stuff going on yet, and we’d like to get it all, but we’re guarded from that perspective,” Marcus observes. “As far as new businesses within the ag sector, I think our radar is on making sure we’re aligning ourselves in the right markets with the right people to continue to be the contractor of choice within the ag markets that we serve,” he added.

The People Side of the Business

Becoming the “contractor of choice,” as Marcus puts it, comes from the loyal team he and Wright spoke of earlier. It’s also a matter of empowering team members to do their jobs and ensure that customers are satisfied with the work they do.

Marcus says employees have a certain sense of ownership in what they do. “They have a lot of freedom of expression,” he says. That freedom shows in the longevity that many employees of the company experience with Marcus Construction.

“We’ve got a controller that’s been here 40-plus years,” Wright notes. “Many of our superintendents have 30-some years here at Marcus. I’ve been in this position for 11 years, and that speaks highly of how Ross and management are handling their employees,” he adds.

Of course, customers are also a huge part of the people equation, too. When it comes to customer service, Marcus is known for its transparency and accessibility. Customers can call and get the answers they need, because someone is always available to help them.

“Our customer service approach is that when a customer calls us, everyone in our office bends over backwards to take care of their needs and try to put together a package that suits their needs, as quickly as we can,” Wright says.

That kind of responsiveness is perhaps best explained by the company’s official values, and neatly encapsulates why Marcus Construction is still going strong and celebrating 60 years in business:

1. Be ethically uncompromising.

2. Respect those we work with and value their safety.

3. Deliver on our commitment to service.

4. Embrace long-term relationships with business partners and employees.

5. Be faithful stewards of what we’ve been given.

6. Celebrate life and success.

It doesn’t get much simpler than that.


About Marcus Construction

Willmar, MN
800-367-3424
320-222-6616
http://www.MarcusConstruction.com

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