L&M Contractors Bridges 36 Years as Viable Construction Business

Motoring along the highway, we cruise over bridges, never thinking about the safety of such ventures. It's because of companies like L&M Contractors Inc., Great Bend, that 65 miles per hour on stretches of concrete suspended in air feels so trusting and carefree.

L&M may be the community's best kept secret. It travels mostly around the western two-thirds of the state constructing about 20 new bridges a year and employs approximately 50 people from the area. Some of those bridges are on highways, but often times, they are scattered among the vast prairie, separated by rivers, streams and ravines.

A-Team - The administrative function of L&M Contractors Inc. is left to right, Shelby Zimmerman, office manager; Ed Mauler, president; Curt Mauler, vice president; and Dianne Schmidt, bookkeeper. Curt, son of Ed, has been with L&M fulltime for a decade and handles most of the administrative decisions now. He grew up with the company, working there during summers while he attended school.    The A-frame building, 1405 K-96 Highway, in the background provides a Great Bend presence to L&M Contractors Inc. The company also maintains a shop at the Industrial Park near the Great Bend Airport.    Also in the backdrop is a scale model of a three-span bridge, the smallest bridge L&M ever built. It was built four years ago, at the same time and the same location as the largest bridge the company built near Elkhart. Both bridges were constructed by superintendent Don Dreese, who has been employed with L&M for 34 years.

"A lot of people don't know about us because we are rarely working in Great Bend," said L&M Contractors vice president Curt Mauler. "All of our equipment is out and most of the time, it's not even on highways, but miles away in a field somewhere next to a bridge being constructed."

Building bridges is capital intensive and heavily regulated by the state. It's a process that mixes science, art and engineering with the heaviest machinery and equipment, along with the sweat, grit and grime of manual labor. Sometimes work is done in extreme heat or bone-chilling weather.

Because of the complexities of the business, only about a dozen companies contract bridge work in Kansas and just a handful of those operate in western Kansas. L&M is home based farther west than any other bridge company in the state and does most of its business in the western two-thirds of Kansas. But the company will build bridges statewide, and has even constructed bridges in Oklahoma.

No. 1 Bridge - Shown is a painting of the first bridge L&M Contractors Inc. built in 1971. The bridge was constructed near Oakley 36 years ago. L&M Contractors is working on Bridge No. 528 now. The painting hangs on Ed's office wall as a reminder of the business venture that formed between him and former partner, Kenneth Langley.

Western Kansas is where current president Ed Mauler and former partner, Kenneth Langley, conducted their first bridge project near Oakley 36 years ago. The partners worked for A.L. Beller Company building bridges together for a number of years before they ventured into business after purchasing Beller's assets.

Langley retired a decade ago, at which time Ed purchased his stock and L&M is continuing strong. It is now working on bridge No. 528. The business operates with nine cranes, four excavators, 10 loaders, loader backhoes, finish machines, pile drivers, trucks, pick-ups and a variety of other equipment. With so many jobs in progress, L&M's equipment usually moves from one job to the next, only returning to L&M's shop at the Industrial Park near the Great Bend Airport for service. The company has a mechanic who repairs and services all of its equipment to ensure efficiency for each job.

Sky Crane - A 45-ton Linkbelt Crane, owned by L&M Contractors, stretches skyward in the background of a completed bridge pier at Cheyenne Creek northeast of Ellinwood. The box bridge is located near NE 40 Rd. and NE 90 Ave. L&M has another bridge project near Cheyenne Bottoms that was put on hold in May because of flooding.

"You can't short your help with equipment or it doesn't do you any good to have employees in the field," said Ed. "It's important to keep all of the jobs moving along on schedule."

At any given time, L&M has four to seven bridge projects operating simultaneously and four or five other jobs are in various phases with sub-contractors preparing bridges for future bridge projects. Each bridge project has six or seven employees working on-site. Size of jobs ranges from small bridges, usually completed in about three months, to construction of long-span bridges that easily double completion time. Crews work year-round, if possible. During inclement weather they work in the company shop, and in that way L&M is able to maintain its responsive workforce.

Four years ago, L&M constructed its largest bridge ever, a 12-span bridge near Elkhart that stretched about a quarter of a mile. The project took nearly a year to complete.

Hands On - Two L&M Contractors employees help install sheet piling, which is used to hold back water and mud in order to construct the bridge piers. The excavator bucket is used to pound the sheet pile into place.

The bulk of L&M's jobs are replacement of city, county, and state bridges. The company also constructs new bridges, like the overpass constructed east of Garden City six years ago. Because of the company's stellar reputation for bridge building, consulting engineers regularly contact L&M to bid on jobs throughout the state. L&M also receives copies of advertisements from the state and it pulls plans and proposals for the work it chooses to bid.

A small portion of the company's business also comes from private business, like doing sheet piling work for industrial applications and other contractors.

Whatever the job, L&M has proven itself as a mainstay in the business. It's also proven itself a viable asset to the area for more than three decades, albeit as a best-kept-secret within the community.

"We started out with one crew and went to two pretty quick," said Ed. "At that time, we had 15 employees when we first started. We got up to about 50 employees approximately 15 years later. We just kept growing initially and then we've managed to maintain consistency for the next 20 years. We've got as much work as we can handle now."