The Cowden Concrete & Ready-Mix family team (from left): Owner/President Steve Cowden, sons Deryk (pits/quarries/facilities), Ryan (ready-mix production and IT), Brent (GM), and Steve’s son-in-law and accounting manager Darrell Visser. (Staff photo)
It all started in a river bed for the Cowdens By Kimberly Harris
Leonard Cowden, back in the mid-1940s, restarted the family business his father had begun but had ceased with his father’s passing. From the humble beginnings of shoveling gravel by hand from the nearby Nooksack River bed, Cowden Gravel & Ready Mix has grown into today’s 400 or so acres of numerous rock quarries, gravel pits, and concrete batch plants. Leonard Cowden’s son, Steve, leads the company with three sons – Brent as general manager, Deryk as manager of pits, quarries and facilities, and Ryan as manager of readymix production and technology. Also, Steve’s son-in-law, Darrell Visser, works in the accounting department. Having roughly doubled its sales during 2013 (and moving up in the Whatcom Top 100 Private Companies listing), Cowden Gravel & Ready Mix has responded to the economic downturn by diversifying in the marketplace. The business’s gross sales have increased steadily through acquisitions and a broader scope of work – freight hauling, concrete pumping, and quarry rock supply, which supplement their baseline products of concrete, sand, and gravel. The gravel carried much of the load last year, mainly due
to extensive demands of the railroad installation projects by the industries at Cherry Point. “That will level back out this year,” Brent Cowden said. He added that the company does between 15-25 percent of its work on government-related contracts in any given year. The multiple acquisitions during the last five years enabled Cowden Gravel & Ready Mix to increase gross sales by more than 50 percent between 2008 and 2013. The Cowdens operate the fourth-generation business as one of just two fully-dedicated concrete and gravel suppliers in the county, and the only one that is 100 percent locally owned. The other full-supplier company is Ferndale Ready Mix & Gravel, and it is owned by Lehigh Hanson of the Heidelberg Cement Group out of Germany. Len Honcoop Gravel Inc. and Stremler Gravel Inc. operate under local ownership, but their core business covers broader contracting services than just gravel supply. Concrete Nor’West, owned by the Miles family of Puyallup, and the Canadian company Aggregates West deal only in gravel sales in Whatcom County.
BUSINESS BOX SCORE Cowden Gravel & Ready Mix Top Executive: Steve Cowden, president Location: Everson (four County locations) Year Started: 1945 Aggregated 2008 and 2013 sales figures or percent of year to year growth: $43 million Number of Whatcom County employees in 2008: 50 Number of Whatcom County employees now: 90 WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 45