tj lambrecht from earth to empire

4

As I reflect on our history–and how

we came to be one of the nation’s most

respected earthmoving companies–I realized

I needed to share the honors with those

who have helped us achieve greatness in

becoming an earthmoving empire:

Our employees–the men and women

who do the heavy lifting, along with those

who keep the computers humming–are

exceptional folks. They work hard. They are

loyal, and have the integrity which makes

a company great. We appreciate them.

Our partners–those firms who have

joined TJL for special projects, adding their

strengths to ours–to get the job done.

These folks are in the trenches with us and

have shared our turmoil and our success.

Our suppliers–manufacturers, raw material

vendors, and service providers–who deliver

their products and services on time and within

budget to assure that we can do the same.

That level of success does not happen

overnight or without the commitment of

many people. I want to personally thank

all of our employees and sub-contractors

whom I have had the privilege to work with

over the past 60 years.

My special thanks to my partner for

40 years, La Verne "Bitz" Brown, and my

son Thomas J. Lambrecht (who had the

vision to take this company to greater

heights than I could imagine) and LAST

but not LEAST our wives for their support

and understanding over all these years.

I also offer a special thank you to Lisa

Hundley for her diligence and leadership

in making this historical overview project a

reality and to David Ludgin for his persever-

ance and enthusiasm to tell the story.

I wish everyone in the T.J. Lambrecht

Construction Co. family continued prosperity

and good health in the years to come.

G o d B l e s s A m e r i c a

P a u l A . L a m b r e c h t

From Earth To EmpireThrough the Years with T.J. Lambrecht Construction, Inc.

By David A. Ludgin

Designed by Gammon Group, Inc.

Published byT.J. Lambrecht Construction, Inc.10 Gougar RoadJoliet, Illinois 60432

Phone: 815-726-7722Fax: 815-727-6421www.tjlambrecht.com

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2008by T.J. Lambrecht Construction, Inc. and David A. LudginNo copyright claimed with respect to reprinted material.

Printed and bound in the United States of America

Table of ContentsIn the Beginning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

Day by Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

Location, Location, Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

Moving Earth Beyond Illinois . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26

A Scenic Detour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

How to Rebuild an Expressway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

The Natural . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44

Earthmoving in the Lone Star State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50

The Most Awful Thing Has Happened . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54

Lone Star Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58

The People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64

The Living Legacy of Tom Lambrecht . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72

T . J . L A M B R E C H T C O N S T R U C T I O N

9

T h i s B o o k H o n o r s t h e M e m o r y o f

T H O M A S J . L A M B R E C H T

1 9 4 9 - 2 0 0 3

Paul Lambrecht and LaVerne “Bitz” Brown.

In the Beginning

In early 1946, Paul Lambrecht was

mustered out of the Army Air Force. To

ease the transition into civilian life, the

govern ment offered returning soldiers a

benefit that came to be known as “52/20.”

The plan paid returning soldiers $20 per

week for up to 52 weeks. At that time, $20 a

week was real money. Paul was content to

participate in the 52/20 plan and, by his

own admission, was “pretty much doing

nothing.” This did not sit too well with

Paul’s folks. Paul’s dad was an insurance

broker. He represented the Great American

Insurance Company of Chicago. Before

long, Paul reported there for work, where

he was assigned to the farm department.

It takes a small army to run an insurance

company. Paul found himself in a large

group of similarly situated young people.

In the course of his work at Great Ameri-

can, he made a favorable impression upon

Vicki Gerodimos, who was also employed


T.J. Lambrecht Construction, Inc. celebrated its 60th year in business in April 2007.

April 2008 made 61. This is a significant milestone for any company, especially for a heavy

construction contractor. Construction is a very risky business. Many heavy and highway

contractors never make it to their 20-year anniversary, much less to the 60-year mark.

This success story is one that should be recorded, told and re-told. It can serve as an

inspiration for those who will carry the company’s mission forward. To understand how

it all happened, one must go back to the beginning. Back to when the company was born

through the efforts of Paul Lambrecht and LaVerne “Bitz” Brown.

Bitz and Paul take delivery of three DW-21 scrapers while Swede Carlson

sits in the front unit and Bill Brown mans the unit on the far left.


there. Vicki originally was from the

Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago’s

South Side, but by this time she and her

family had moved to the south suburb

of Flossmoor.

By coincidence, or perhaps by fate,

Paul’s good friend Wes Thurlow was dating

Vicki’s college roommate, Mary Lou Gray

from Joliet, with whom she was taking a

trip to Boston. They met at the train station

in Chicago. All summer long Wes kept

telling Paul, “let me get you a date with

Mary Lou’s roommate, I know you would

like her.” Paul did not pick up on this.

But fate intervened one more time and

they met at the Great American Insurance

Company in Chicago where Vicki worked

during the summer. They even worked in

the same department.

Paul offered to take Vicki to a wedding

of a co-worker in Chicago. They spent the

whole day together, morning through the

wedding reception and into the night

where, unknown to Vicki, they met Wes

and Mary Lou at the Blackhawk for an

evening of entertainment.


13

“

”

When I

returned to

civilian life in

1946, $20

a week was

good money.

- Paul Lambrecht

Paul was smitten. He told his mother the

next morning, “yesterday I was with the girl I

am going to marry.” They were soon engaged

and were married on March 2, 1947.

One way or another they were supposed to

meet. There are no accidents in life.

Paul’s stay at Great American Insurance was

brief. His next stop was the credit

reporting firm of Dun & Bradstreet.

This job took Paul out of the office and

on the road to call on customers in the south-

eastern portion of the Chicago

metro area. Newly married, Paul realized

pretty quickly that he was ready to try some-

thing else.

LaVerne Brown, known to the world by the

name his infant cousin called him,

“Bitz,” was the son of a machinist who worked

at the Joliet Arsenal. Bitz graduated from

Joliet Township High School in the spring of

1942, and headed into the armed services.

Learning that the Navy had an ROTC pro-

gram at Northwestern, he

enrolled there. Bitz earned a degree in

Mechanical Engineering, graduating in early

1945. He and his classmates were taken to the

Great Lakes Naval Station

near Waukegan, Illinois and commissioned as

officers.

They were immediately assigned to

active duty. Bitz was sent to the Pacific.

Coincidentally, both Bitz and Paul were in the

Leyte Gulf at the same time, although Bitz was

on a ship and Paul was on land.

One of the ships in Bitz’s group was with-

out a chief engineer. An acquaintance from

Joliet mentioned to his commanding officer

that he knew a fellow who was a


Bitz (third from left)

and Swede (fifth from

left) at the 1948 Road

Show (forerunner to

CONEXPO).

Swede Carlson (center) and two

colleagues overhaul a D8.

16

mechanical engineer. As one might guess, be-

fore long LaVerne S. “Bitz” Brown was the chief

engineer.

The war ended in August 1945, but Bitz and

thousands of his fellow servicemen were not

discharged immediately. Bitz

and the crew brought their ship back across the

Pacific, through the Panama Canal

and eventually into port. Bitz was finally

discharged in February 1946.

During the war, Bitz met a gentleman,

named Bill Cobb, from Memphis, Tennessee

who ran a small construction outfit, using

mostly D6 dozers. Bitz went to work for him in

Memphis, but his heart was still in Illinois.

Every chance he had, he would point his car

straight north to visit his

fiancée, Dottie Maxwell.

Dorothy Maxwell, called Dottie by

her friends, had been a classmate of Paul Lam-

brecht at Joliet Township. Paul, Dottie and Bitz

knew each other well. During the war, Dottie

worked at the Joliet Arsenal.

At some point in late 1946 or early 1947, Bitz

came back to the Chicago area and took an en-

gineering job at International Harvester. I-H

had a tractor works in Hodgkins, Illinois. Bitz

recalls putting

tractors on a dynamometer, a scientific

instrument that predicted how the

machines would hold up under actual working

conditions. Eventually, it dawned on Bitz that

16


In mud like this, only a track machine will do.


18

his boss, who had been

working there for years, was not making

too much more than he was. Bitz could

imagine the probable contours of a career

at I-H, and did not much like what he saw.

He also wanted to marry Dottie, which he

did in August 1946.

There was much discussion among the

young couples as Paul, Vicki, Bitz and

Dottie contemplated their futures. Finally,

Bitz and Paul decided they would form a

construction company. They borrowed

$3,500 each. With the money they bought

a new 1947 Dodge dump truck and an

International TD9 dozer, with a Bucyrus-

Erie hydraulic blade. They also cobbled

together a four-wheel trailer (one wheel

at each corner), which they towed behind

the dump truck, to haul the dozer. Several

months later, they purchased an Insley

cable backhoe. With this modest equip-

ment spread, they set down to work. For

a brief time, the new partners considered

calling the company “B&L Excavators,”

but someone told them they should use

their full names if they wanted to attract

business. So they did, and Brown and

Lambrecht Earthmovers, Inc. was born.

18


B&L began as a partnership.

A decade later, Bitz and Paul

incorporated the business.

The superintendents’ fleet circa 1962.

18

Bill Block operates an early track loader.

No one said this would be easy.

In the early years Bitz and Paul did a little bit of everything and got

their hands plenty dirty. Here, Bitz pilots the rescue dozer as he

prepares to pull a D8 from a spoil pond near Braidwood, Illinois.

Paul and Bitz check cost and repair data.

Day by DayStarting out, Bitz and Paul laid it all on the

line. Not just the money they used to form the

company, but their livelihoods, their families’

well-being and a reasonable dose of pride. They

were light on capital, but long on stamina and

drive. Bluntly put, they worked like the devil.

Early on they landed a trucking job, hauling

backfill material to a pipeline contractor.

Pipeliners literally work while the sun shines

and sometimes all night, too. Paul recalls that

they hauled material for 42 days straight. No

one was happier than they were when a rainy

day came to give them a break.

Dottie herself worked as the company’s

bookkeeper in the early years. Just as a small

grading job was finishing, she would drive out

and present the owner with the bill, in hopes

that the company could be paid right away.

Bitz, Dottie, Paul and Vicki had lived through

the Depression. Indeed, there was considerable

concern in the first years after the war that the

Depression might come back. One consequence

of this mind set was that Dottie and Vicki knew

how to save money. Dottie’s goal was to buy a

home for herself and Bitz. She put off that goal

again and again. As she recalls, “Each time the

equipment salesman came by I knew Bitz and

Paul would buy some machine, and there

would go my nest egg.” Bitz would remind her

that while you couldn’t depreciate a house you


23

A good business

partnership has

much in common

with a good

marriage.

Fortunately they

got along well, for

Bitz and Paul

spent most of

their waking

hours together.

24

could sure depreciate a machine, but that

wasn’t much comfort. Dottie remembers

quite clearly that one Easter she and Vicki got

an especially thoughtful present--a new dump

body for a truck.

A good business partnership has much in

common with a good marriage. Fortunately

they got along, for Bitz and Paul spent most

of their waking hours together. When they

began to bid road work for the State of Illi-

nois, most lettings took place in Springfield.

They traveled there frequently to gain every

moment of time before the bid deadline. On a

job where B&L was the grading subcontrac-

tor, they did not want to deliver their bid to

the general contractor one minute sooner

than was absolutely necessary, because he

might “shop” it among their competitors in

an attempt to drive the price down. When

B&L was the general contractor, its subcon-

tractors in turn would not submit their bids

until the eleventh hour.

One time, as Bitz was leaving for

Springfield, an acquaintance from another

firm lamented that he had been unable to

book a hotel room. “Well,” offered Bitz, ever

the gentleman, “you can stay with me.” Thus

began the longest night of that man’s life. At

about 1 a.m. the phone rang in Bitz’s room,

with some subcontractor calling in his final

price. An hour or so later, the phone rang

again. By this time Bitz’s roommate really was

tossing and turning. Bitz got up for good at 5

a.m., cheerful as spring in Georgia, ready to

24

T . J . L A M B R E C H T C O N S T R U C T I O NAll the Tulips in South Holland

There came a time whenBitz was negotiating to buy a tract of land in the south suburbs of Chicago. Thewould-be seller was theproverbial stubborn Dutch-man. The final negotiationsdragged on through most of one very long evening.Worse still, the Dutchmanliked to drink, and Bitz had no choice but to pretend atleast to keep up with him.

Finally the parties struck a deal. The Dutchman’s primary business was sellingflowers. In a post-handshakemoment of euphoria, theDutchman shouted “Here,take some flowers home toyour wife!” He proceeded to give Bitz bushel uponbushel of cut flowers. Bitz and Paul had been on a belt-tightening campaign, and neither of them haddrawn a paycheck for sometime. When Bitz finally gothome that night he sailedthrough the front door andgreeted Dottie with two armfuls of flowers and a B&Lpaycheck clenched in his teeth.For just that moment, Bitz was the happiest man alive.

Ten years after the company’s found-

ing, everyone had a reason to smile.

Back row, left to right: Paul, B.C. Patten

(the Northern Illinois Caterpillar

dealer), Bitz and Gene Harris (Patten’s

salesman who handled the B&L ac-

count). Front row, left to right: Mrs.

Patten, Vicki Lambrecht, Dottie Brown

and Mrs. Harris. Taken at the 1957

Road Show in Chicago.

A D9 climbs onto a Talbert lowboy,

ready for the next job.

From tiny acorns. . . the company’s New

Lenox office, shop and yard, circa 1958.


Location, Location, Location!

B&L set up shop near Joliet, Illinois. For a

road builder, this was the perfect place to be.

Joliet sits at the crossroads of two coast-to-coast

highways. It is also the southwest gateway to

one of the world’s great railroad hubs.

U.S. Route 6 intersects U.S. Route 30

(Lincoln Highway) in Joliet. More important

still, Route 66 (the “Mother Road”) runs

through Joliet’s downtown. This fabled road

connected Chicago to Los Angeles.

When Congress enacted the Interstate

Highway Act in 1956, the planners decided

that one of the main transcontinental routes

should essentially shadow Route 30 for much

of its length. In Illinois, Interstate 80 runs from

the Indiana Line in the east to the Quad Cities

along the Mississippi River. For Brown and

Lambrecht, much of this work was quite

literally in its front yard. It comes as no sur-

prise, then, that B&L won numerous contracts

to build I-80 in Illinois. The same can be said

of Interstate 55, which succeeded Route 66.

Joliet sits roughly at the center of a huge

industrial region running nearly uninterrupted


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tj lambrecht from earth to empire

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