Janesville manufacturer thriving despite decline in housing market
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JANESVILLE — Rob Ausen and the two other generations of his family that run Dalmaray Precast Concrete Products are sincere in their subscription to the business theory that great products and great service sell themselves.
But only if the company has the flexibility to diversify and adapt to changing markets.
That’s exactly what’s happened at Dalmaray, which opened in Janesville in 1957 as a producer of precast concrete steps. Today, it’s one of the largest precast producers in Wisconsin.
Dalmaray still makes steps, but it’s branched out to produce utility pads and vaults, window wells, manholes and other custom structures.
Most of Dalmaray’s business involves making septic tanks that range from 600 gallons to 10,000 gallons. The company also makes panel walls for bunker and commodity storage, as well as retaining walls for the commercial, industrial and residential markets.
“We’ve picked up customers we didn’t have five years ago, and we don’t have a sales team,” Ausen said. “They came to us looking for a breath of fresh air.”
He started working at Dalmaray when he was 13 and eventually graduated from UW-Madison in 1983 with an industrial engineering degree.
These days, the company serves southern Wisconsin from the Mississippi River to Lake Michigan from its facility on South Arch Street. Diversification became the mantra as residential building nosedived.
“Too many companies just did two or three things and didn’t want to spend money to diversify. Then the recession hit,” Ausen said.
Precast concrete is poured into a reusable form, cured in a controlled environment, transported to a construction site and put into place. In contrast, standard concrete is poured into site-specific forms and cured on site.
“We really pride ourselves on being able to pour things that most people shy away from,” said Aaron Ausen, one of Rob’s three sons involved in the business that his grandfather, Robert “Bob” Ausen, took over in 1971 and operated out of his Court Street home.
The Court Street location became too small, so Rob and Bob in 1994 moved the operation to Arch Street.
Growing production and sales forced an expansion and a change in strategy. The company was too reliant on ready-mix providers, so in 2003 it added a batch plant to produce its own concrete to its own specifications and on its own schedule.
“With the batch plant, we can control everything—our mix, our reinforcing, our pouring and curing—and we know where our aggregate comes from,” Aaron said.
Aaron—like his brother Craig—graduated from UW-Madison with a degree in civil engineering. The other brother, Kyle, is a high school senior who likely will pursue a business management degree.
“We’ve got enough engineers here,” Aaron quipped.
The family works well together, he said.
“We have our days, but it’s pretty neat to be able to go to work with your father, grandfather and brothers and enjoy it.”
Education and hard work are important in the family business. There are no free rides.
“Family business or not, the bottom line is still to make a profit,” Rob said. “These guys have produced for us and as civil engineers brought business to us.”
Dalmaray, which employs 10 to 15 people, recently landed its largest agriculture contract, an order from a farm near Browntown.
“People want to spend money right now, and we have to be able to react,” Rob said. “And we may need to expand at the drop of a hat when the economy comes back.”
Rocked by the closing of the General Motors plant in their backyard and a tanking housing market, the Ausens kept an open mind.
“We learned how to use our products in different ways to create more jobs,” Aaron said. “This is where the custom work really came into play.
“We really did an excellent job in precasting products that weren’t necessarily supposed to be precast.”
The family knows a full recovery is years away, but it predicts another profitable year, thanks in large part to how it positioned itself during the recession.
“We took a good look at what we needed to do better, and we improved,” Aaron said. “We also took a good look at what we do well, and we perfected it …
“I think, for the most part, the recession has taught us a lot about ourselves. We learned how much work we can physically do, and we learned how do it at the best of our ability.”
May 20, 2011 at 3:38 p.m.
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adam615 says we don't need automatic weapons.
Maybe not, and we certainly don't need vehicles licensed for public roads capable of going over 90mph either.
Equal opportunity killers.
Ban both and I may agree, but not until.
May 20, 2011 at 1:11 p.m.
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Great comments adam615.
May 20, 2011 at 12:22 p.m.
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I love to see family businesses sending their youngins to school, and UW-Madison engineering degrees to boot. These kids are no slouches.
May 20, 2011 at 10:56 a.m.
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Great Job Dalmaray!
May 19, 2011 at 10:13 p.m.
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Although I read many comments on this blog and have been so tempted to comment (positively or negatively) on them, adam615 - your comment finally inspired me to join and comment. We need more people like you. Once in awhile, as adults, can't we all sit down and talk about things logically and come up with solutions? Enough of party politics. Where has that gotten us so far? I appreciate your comment more than I can explain. As someone who soon will be leaving this community (partly by career shift, partly by choice), I can only hope that you are staying a part of it. I have hope for Janesville. Let's all find some middle ground.
May 19, 2011 at 10:11 p.m.
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Dalmaray, which employs 10 to 15 people, they are not sure how many people work for them? maybe this information is contingent on imagration.
May 19, 2011 at 9:18 p.m.
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we need more people like adam615. I think we had enough of the self serving conservative right wing nuts like the koch_bros, who are still think reagens trickle down economics really works. seems to me that the gap between working class and the wealthy keeps growing. the only place their money trickles to is there own pockets. and for the record, dalmaray's success started long before "scotty" was elected. he does not, or should not get any credit for their success!
May 19, 2011 at 7:33 p.m.
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Wow Adam 615 well said,and Im not being sarcastic.
May 19, 2011 at 6:46 p.m.
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Bebe53: I am a registered democrat only because I agree with them more than the GOP, but I'm frustrated with both political parties. I am, however, a liberal, and let me clarify a few things as a liberal:
1) I don't believe in change for change sakes. If something isn't broken, don't fix it!
2) I am not anti-guns or anti-hunting. We got rid of a lot of natural predators, so hunting actually is good to keep deer populations in check. Just eat what you kill. Also, guns in southwest, for example, are good for protection from poisonous snakes. What we don't need for hunting or protection are automatic weapons. A revolver works just fine. As an adult, if you want to keep a gun under your pillow, that's your choice. Where control needs to come in is if there are children in the house then they should be locked.
3) Welfare, medicare, social security etc ARE IMPORTANT. But they need reformation. A person who "can't afford" a $4 Walmart Rx but smokes a pack of cigs a day doesn't deserve our help as they aren't helping themselves and they are contributing to medical use and expenses. People shouldn't play the system, a a kid to just get more money and be able to collect food stamps. However, people really hurt by this current recession need more assistance than the government is giving.
4) As an educator, teachers really do get a bad rap. A lot needs to start in the home. Teachers do work more than 185 days, and i can tell you, when I worked private sector, I worked less man hours full time year round than I did teaching in public schools. Hr for hr, pay sucks as an educator, really. And GOOD teachers who don't work for tenure, also spend a lot out of pocket because districts can't afford supplies.
5)Illegal immigration IS ILLEGAL. But children shouldn't be punished for that.
6)If you don't want gay MARRIAGE i'm ok with that (marriage connoting religion). But gays need to be afforded the same rights and privileges as married straight people. There is separation of church and state after all. Perhaps only religions provide marriage. Justice of peace only grants civil unions-- gay or straight and it is the civil union, not marriage that gives couples rights in the eyes of government (tax breaks, property claims, right to life decisions, succession of assts after death, etc)
7) DEFENSE is important. Morally, maybe we should "police the world" but it needs to be done fairly. So its time for us to become more isolationist because we CANNOT be everywhere. We need to take care of our problems at home first. And what we do with one country we need to do with another.
8) Oil. We use it, we are stuck with it. We can't change over night. Many jobs depend on it. But we can slowly take steps to become more "green" and slowly move jobs into these new areas. This goes with logging, etc. There's lots more but I've gone on long enough
May 19, 2011 at 5:38 p.m.
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Koch_Bros-keep on fightin' for me bro! I like all those benefits I get especially when I don't have to pay for them. Who the hell do they think they are expecting me to work and at least contribute partially to my benefits!! What gall!!. I deserve to collect at everybody's expense but mine-that's my liberal mantra and I'm sticking to it by golly!!
May 19, 2011 at 4:44 p.m.
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Crunch_Munch -righto Patriot. Educated kids tend to become liberals, and godawful low-wage workers. And ruining that system and bringin on vouchers will help with that problem. And yes Patriot - all Good Things come from us wealthy people. So give us more kick backs and prosperity will rain down upon me, and trickle down.
May 19, 2011 at 4:06 p.m.
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All right. Well this all happened since Scotty took office, right Patriots. That is how we'll play it....so lets cut taxes for the wealthy, destroy public education and we'll have ourselves a utoptian society.
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