Decked out in a hard hat and protective headphones, Gov. Laura Kelly took an extensive tour of Humboldt’s Monarch Cement plant Thursday morning.
Walter Wulf, CEO and chairman of the 113-year-old industry, served as host.
Though he no longer runs day-to-day operations, Wulf still has his finger on the company’s pulse and is very much involved in the decision-making required to keep the industry competitive.
Which at age 76 is very cool.
What impressed me most — other than machinery as tall as skyscrapers — was the relative scarcity of manpower, thanks to computerization.
As with any industry, Monarch has proven that the saying — adapt or die — is true.
WULF’S LEGACY at Monarch helps make it special.
Wulf followed his father, Walter H., and grandfather, H.F.G. Wulf, in the family business, and has taken the company to heights his elders may never have dreamed of.
Today, Monarch has a “sister” plant in Iowa, Monarch Cement of Des Moines, and about 20 subsidiaries across Kansas and Missouri that include distribution terminals, and ready-mix concrete and concrete block operations.
Altogether, they have 492 employees, of which 174 are employed in Humboldt.
In brief remarks, Wulf gave a rundown of the local mining industry, and noted how Southeast Kansas was once known as the “Gas Belt Mills,” due to its proliferation of limestone and natural gas.
Monarch and Ash Grove in Chanute are the only remaining cement plants in Kansas, down from 18.
Monarch’s original name was Monarch Portland Cement Company.
“Portland” comes by way of an English stone mason who patented a product in 1824 that resembled the white-gray color of the cliffs on the Isle of Portland that juts into the English Channel.
“When we refer to Portland Cement today,” Wulf said, “we are talking about a process that will meet certain specifications of the American Society for Testing of Materials,” he said.
This also explains why Iola’s Lehigh Portland Cement was so named.
In 1913, Monarch economized its logo by dropping the descriptor.
