Headquarters: Schofield, Wisconsin
Founded: 1962
Revenues: Undisclosed
Employees: 400
Ticker: Private
Web Site: merrilliron.com
What It Does: Large-scale steel fabrications, primarily for the construction industry
When it was founded in 1962, the motto of Merrill Iron & Steel was, “If it’s steel, we can make it.” Through the strength of family leadership, the company has demonstrated that it can indeed make it, both in the sense of manufacturing and surviving.
Brothers Roger and Rick Hinner—sons of founder Roger Hinner, Sr.— rescued the company from the brink of bankruptcy, rebuilding it into one of the country’s leading fabricators of steel for the construction industry.
For Roger, there was never any doubt that the family business was his destiny. He joined Merrill as soon as he graduated from high school in 1972, and jumped in with an ingrained knowledge of how steel was shaped, formed, welded, primed, and painted. “I wanted to get into that industry all along,” he says. “The metal shop was like a playground to us.” Brother Rick joined at the same time.
As the Hinners grew up, they understood that the steel business was subject to slumps. “My father started the company and primarily manufactured grain handling equipment for the commercial agricultural industry,” Roger says. But the early ’80s saw a significant drop in demand for fabricated agricultural products. This downturn prompted the younger Hinners to expand the family business to include the fabrication of structural steel and heavy plate for large-scale construction projects.
In 1995, after several expansions, the company moved its operations from Merrill, a town about 10 miles north of Wausau in central Wisconsin, to a 365,000-square-foot facility in nearby Schofield. In 1998, it made an unusual move to accommodate the increasingly demanding separate markets it was serving: It split the company in half. Roger and Rick Hinner kept the structural division of Merrill and retained the name; their brothers Pat and Robert bought out the agricultural division and renamed it Agra Construction. (Now called Agra Industries, its steel agricultural products include tanks and feed storage units.)
“That’s turned out to be a very positive development for both us and our brothers,” Roger says. “It’s forced us to maybe go out and stand more on our own and work independently and be more accountable for the things we do best.”
Having the freedom of their own company has allowed Roger and Rick to thrive. To weather the post-9/11 slide in the economy, Roger developed ways to stay on the market, sometimes taking on jobs at or below cost to keep Merrill on the radar of its clients. Meanwhile, Rick worked to streamline manufacturing processes, sometimes devising his own equipment add-ons to provide cost savings in the fabrication process.
Their creativity has led to an impressive portfolio for Merrill. The company has done steel fabrication work in commercial construction, power plants, and stadiums and arenas—that’s 11,000 tons of Merrill steel that you’ll find in the recently renovated Lambeau Field, Green Bay’s famed football stadium.
As for the future, Roger Hinner foresees growth in the power sector, where Merrill already has a strong foothold. “Coal-fired power plants and up-and-coming nuclear plants are going to require a higher level of quality control in their steel fabrication,” he says. “That’s our next focus. We have reason to believe that this country will be building new nuclear power plants within the next five years. And we’ll be ready.”
