A Publication for MFC Dealers

Sept.2010

VOL. 7 ISSUE.3PRESORTED

FIRST CLASS MAILU.S. POSTAGE

PAIDMilwaukee, WI

PERMIT NO. 1

Form to Finish™

Metal Forms Corporation3334 North Booth StreetMilwaukee, WI 53212

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METAL FORMS CORPORATION1909 2009

Dealer Spotlight

O’Leary’s was started in 1949 by John J. O’Leary Sr. and his wife Ruth in a one-room office lo-cated on Lake Street in Chicago. Since the 1960’s the company has flourished at their location on North Ave. Prior to opening O’Leary’s, John Sr. worked as a 150 Operating Engineer and as a salesman for the Thor Construction Tool Company. His sales territory was the Chicagoland area where he was laying the ground work for his future company. He passed away in 1978 and Ruth ran the business until John Jr. took over in 1991. “We are always keeping with the times by updating and modernizing our equipment and proce-dures,” said John J. O’Leary, Jr. “Our customers are loyal because of the excellent care and service that we provide.” The company was created with a simple phi-losophy: “Service the customer and everything else will take care of itself.” With this in mind we are excited about the future of the construction industry, and our role in it. This Spring, O’Leary’s moved just down the road to their new location at Cicero Ave. This new location consists of over six acres of warehouse, park-ing and office space. O’Leary’s has sold Sterling MFC

products for over 25 years. We wish them continued suc-cess at their new location

Mike Hamilton, general manager, stands next to a display stand of Sterling wheelbarrows in the new O’Leary’s store.

From the MFC Archives In the early 1900’s, the Koehring Machine Company revolutionized road building with the creation of the “boom and bucket” method of mixing and distributing concrete for highway pavements. The invention by Philip

A. Koehring transformed concrete paving from myth to reality. The unique design of the Koehring Paver streamlined the flow of materials so, as the ma-chine moved forward, the final mix was distributed behind the machine. This 1920 photo shows contractor, G. P. Scharl using a Koehring Paver and MFC forms to establish a world concrete paving record. The one day paving mark was set in Muskegon, MI pouring 2,046 yards of concrete to pave 1,023 feet of 18’ wide pavement.

Mel’s Mettle

While traveling to my Northern Wisconsin retreat for the Labor Day weekend, I de-cided to take my time and explore some old

back roads. I was yearning for the days when I was a back seat passenger in my parents ‘48 Chrysler New Yorker. Travel time passed quickly while reading Burma-Shave signs (As you drive/Play the game/Construct/A jingle/With the name/Burma-Shave) and gazing at the colorful farm silo ads (Schlitz beer and Camel smokes come to mind). Surely it would prove to be a pleasant trip down memory lane.. What a mistake! There were no Burma-Shave signage to be found and the silos were missing or dilapidated. Worst of all, many of the roads were im-passable with detours everywhere and bridges either out or blocked. The nice road trip gone bad once again reminded me of an ugly, but true fact: the U.S. surface trans-portation system has gone from being the envy of the world to a sorry state. Our “system” now can “boast” of 150,000 bridges that are either functionally or structurally deficient and 61,000 highway lane miles in poor or fair condition. If you don’t want to take my word for it, listen to what ARTBA Chairman Larry Tate said about trans-portation’s role in U.S. economic competitiveness: “As I travel the world in my role as a Product Man-ager for Caterpillar, I can tell you it is not about being behind. We are already behind. It’s whether or not we stay behind.” So, as transportation stakeholders, we all need to support a robust new highway bill which will deliver 3 outstanding economic benefits. It is good for jobs in an industry which is struggling (20% unemployment in construction vs. 10% overall). It is good for our competitive position in the global marketplace. It is good for our environment...........traffic congestion, for example, contributes almost 30% to our greenhouse emissions. By the way, on my travels back to work at Met-al Forms, I took Interstate 43 and noticed no clever advertising signs or silos. The ride, however, did give me time to create a new Burma-Shave type jingle:When building/ highways for cars/ or sidewalks for feet/trust the forms/ that can’t be beat/ METAFORMS

® S eelS akes®

STAKE DIVISION

P L A S T I C D I V I S I O N

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MFC consists of five distinct divisions providing a wide variety of products for the concrete construction industry.

Dealers are encouraged to contact us about our products or MFC Standard and Master Dealer

Programs.

SALES & MARKETING TEAM

Tom Miller President temiller@metalforms.com

Dan Block Sales & Paving Products Mgr dblock@metalforms.com

Kathy Karth Sales & Application Specialist kkarth@metalforms.com

Vince Muehlbauer Marketing Coordinator and Sales vmuehlbauer@metalforms.com

Matt Michel Sales & Service Representative mlmichel@metalforms.com

Drew Wallace Sales & Service Representative dwallace@metalforms.com

3334 NORTH BOOTH STREETMILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN 53212 U.S.A.

Phone: 414-964-4550 Fax: 414-964-4503

Email: info@metalforms.com

FORM TO FINISH™

WWW.METALFORMS.COM

sPEEDCREED

EQUIPMENT DIVISION

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METAL FORMS CORPORATION1909 2009

FORM DIVISION STAKE DIVISION PLASTIC DIVISION

HANDLING DIVISION EQUIPMENT DIVISION

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Field Reports: New Face at MFC

Dan Block (right), Sales & Paving Products Manager, announces that Drew Wallace (left) has been appointed Sales & Service Representative for Oklahoma, Texas and the North Eastern United States. Drew has previous experience in manufacturing sales and has already started travels in his territory. If you have construction operations in these areas , be sure to contact Drew or Dan to schedule a meeting and/or product demonstration.

See Us At The 2010 Stafda STAFDA’s 34th Annual Convention & Trade Show will be held in beautiful downtown Phoenix! With more than 700 booths expected this year, the STAFDA Trade Show has become the place to find intriguing new products and outstanding deals. We will be exhibiting some of our products in booth #1408. If you or any of your co-workers are attend-ing please make arrangements to visit with us. Look for our postcard in your mailbox before the show begins.

Booth #1408Phoenix, AZ - November 8-9, 2010

Mel’s Musings

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

Fixing a Disfunctional Zoo With bridges crumbling and semi trucks ignoring weight limit restrictions, the Wisconsin DOT decided that it was going to replace the bridges in Zoo Interchange in Milwaukee in a matter of months with temporary bridges. The Zoo Interchange handles 250,000 vehicles a day on average. Traffic needed to be detoured around the interchange in order for workers to be able to reconstruct the main bridges. The contractors called on Metal Forms to make sets of concrete bridge parapet forms to speed up concrete placement on the bridges. The sets of parapet forms had a contoured radius on the traffic side and a straight offset for the side facing out. The 10’ long sections had two rigging hooks installed for easy setting with a crane. The replacement bridges were suc-cessfully finished on time with the help of Metal Forms.

Canadian WindsMFC engineered a footing form system to efficiently construct the concrete bases for 52 Canadian wind mills. The forms for the 15” thick octagonal-shaped wind mill bases utilized a unique end connection to ensure exact and secure alignment. The special forms were manu-factured for Nebraska based, Nelson engineering for the XYZ wind farm project near Toronto, Canada. The opportunity to supply the forms was created by the sales efforts of Stan Houston Equipment, from Sioux City, IA.