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MATT BINSFELD, CEO, BRENNAN “We've been an acquirer of underwater service type companies. What we see is a lot of the Baby Boom generation are getting to the end of their working careers … and their next generation may not be fully formed or even interested in getting into the business. My brothers and I are all in our 40s, and we've been a strategic buyer of underwater service businesses that we can plug in and leverage across to grow our own business.” – Matt Binsfeld, President & CEO, J.F. Brennan Company riously dif? cult process in family ? rms — became a foundation-

A Century on the Water

The story began in 1919, when two brothers, Jim and Gene al part of the company’s culture. “That ? rst generational handoff set expectations around how transition would work,” Binsfeld

Brennan, found themselves as the fourth and ? fth sons on a fam- notes, “and those expectations still carry through today.” ily farm near Lansing, Iowa — with no spot for them in the fam-

In the 1980s, under Matt’s father’s leadership, the compa- ily business. “There was no spot for them on the family farm,” ny diversi? ed again — this time into hydraulic dredging and

Binsfeld explains. “So they started a small contracting business.”

Their earliest jobs were humble: pouring concrete barn harbor services, establishing business lines that continue to ? oors for local farmers. But that work taught them the basics anchor the company. “Those were key moves,” he says. “Hy- of construction, and soon they were building homes, working draulic dredging led directly to what is now our environmen- on railroads, and taking on small commercial projects. As the tal division, and the harbor services side became a permanent nation’s infrastructure expanded and the U.S. Army Corps of part of our identity on the Mississippi.”

Engineers began constructing locks and dams on the Upper

Mississippi River to the Nation

Mississippi, the Brennans saw an opportunity.

By the early 2000s, the Binsfeld brothers had each followed “In the 1950s,” says Binsfeld, “Jim and Gene made the de- cision to focus on waterborne construction — and that was a the same playbook their father demanded: start as a yard hand, work for someone else, then come home. “We call it being a ‘yard seminal turning point in the direction of the business.” dog’ — cleaning engines, doing the dirty work, understanding

The company’s second generation carried that momentum for- ward, expanding into steel fabrication and other complementary the business from the base up,” Matt explains. “You go to school, trades, but always keeping one foot in the water. The successful get an engineering degree, go work for the competition, earn an

MBA, and if your résumé is attractive enough, you get rehired.” transfer of ownership from one generation to the next — a noto- 1893 to 1918 1919 1930s 1937

Two grandsons of an Irish

Jim and Gene decide to formalize During the Great Depression, Jim Jim Brennan’s wife, Kathryn, immigrant grow up on a family their working relationship and and Gene continue to grow their passes away. The company takes homestead outside Lansing, IA. begin a contracting company business by traveling further from on a particularly challenging

With entrepreneurship in their called Brennan Brothers home. They pursue work outside project in Argyle, WI, building blood from birth, they complete

Construction. For their ? rst of Allamakee County; it takes them a bridge across the Pecatonica 8th grade and begin an informal project, they build a small county several hours to travel to job sites River. Dif? culty dewatering the partnership pouring concrete bridge near Wexford, IA; they by car. Crews camp in canvas tents cofferdam for the pier nearly puts ? oors in milk barns, threshing charge $97 for the job. Their initial during the week, returning home on the company under.

oats, and operating a sawmill. work equipment consisted of an weekends to manage their farms.

Locally, they become known as old Ford Model T pickup truck The brothers hire a full-time cook the Brennan Brothers.

and a couple of shovels. who makes all their meals and guards the food supply against the many migrant workers traveling the country by train, looking for work.

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