TIMELINE 1870s – Joseph Borgert arrives in Browerville and begins manufacturing concrete materials to support his construction business. 1923 – Lawrence Borgert,
Joseph’s son, moves to St. Cloud and builds a concrete block manufacturing plant, establishing Borgert’s Concrete.
1934 – The company employs
five people; the business grows and at one point employs 22 people and makes 4,000 concrete blocks per day.
1952 – Lawrence is elected mayor of St. Cloud and passes operation of the family business to his four sons. Company president, Kenneth Borgert, buys out his brothers. 1969 – Kenneth relocates
Borgert Concrete from Northway Drive in St. Cloud to its current 65-acre site near St. Joseph.
1979 – Kenneth purchases the company’s first paving block machine. 1982 – Susan Borgert joins the company to sell paving stones. 1989 – Kenneth Borgert retires, turning over ownership of the company to three of his children, Kevin, Nadine and Susan. The new owners divest themselves of the concrete block business in order to focus on paving stones. 2003 – Borgert Products hires mechanical engineer George Strzala to help them grow the company. 2006 – Susan Borgert buys out her siblings and becomes the sole owner of Borgert Products. Strzala is named company president. 2009 – Strzala becomes a shareholder in the company. 2016 – Borgert Products
opens a second manufacturing plant, this one located in Denver, CO. Susan Borgert is selected as the 2016 St. Cloud Area Small Business Owner of the Year.
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capitalize on their leadership position. By 1989, when owner Kenneth Borgert was ready to retire and pass the business to his children, paving was a big part of what they did. The new generation, siblings Kevin, Nadine and Susan Borgert, decided to divest themselves of the cement block and products side, and go all in -- building a stateof-the-art paving stone plant. By 2003 they were ready to hire somebody who could help them take the business to another level. Through a paving equipment manufacturer, they found Strzala, who would later become company president. Strzala has a mechanical engineering degree and originally is from Poland, where he designed machinery for that country’s large coal mining industry. He turned down
“Interlocking concrete paving stones is still considered a new product in the U.S. market. Definitely going to grow like crazy,” Strzala said. “It’s beautiful. A wonderful system. It’s flexible. We say in my country, ‘We are just licking the surface.’” “Scratching,” Susan said. “We’re scratching the surface.”
The Colorado Connection
In any case, they agree that theirs is a strong, healthy company in an industry with plenty of room for growth. Commercial sales, handled through the St. Joseph office, are a small part of their business. They sell about 90 percent of their product through a large network of residential “hardscape” dealers. They choose to work with familyowned companies and not through the big box The diverse selection of earth-tone stores. The dealer network colors has names like Mesa, extends across 14 states and into Canada. There’s a Iron Range, North Shore, and particularly dense dealership Minnesota River. network in Colorado, which traces back to Susan’s early days in sales. “My dad would take us out to Colorado a better offer from a national retailer to on ski trips and I began making sales take the job at Borgert because he saw an calls. I must have impressed somebody opportunity to help grow the business. back then,” she said, “because a couple It was a key hire, Susan said, coming at of the architects kept calling us and kept a time when her siblings were getting ready specifying our product. Some of the to retire. Strzala’s first focus was health and contractors wouldn’t use anybody else, and safety. He instituted drug and alcohol testing they still don’t.” and insisted on implementing strict safety In fact, Colorado is the next step for regulations. Borgert Products. They are expanding the “My brother Kevin always liked things company to Denver. “We already have the clean,” Susan said, “but George kicked it up machinery on the ground from Germany. a notch. Kevin worked with him for a little We’re waiting for the city to give us their while, then felt he was comfortable enough blessing,” Strzala said. Their original with George to retire. George had the same banker, John Herges, now president and ethics, treated people with respect, worked CEO of Falcon National Bank, is again hard, and wanted to make a quality product. financing the project. He was a good fit for us.” The suggestion to actually manufacture Susan bought out her siblings in 2006. in Colorado came from contractors who Shortly after, she asked George to be the were in St. Cloud for product training, first non-family president of the company. Strzala explained. “A contractor said, ‘Why He became a shareholder in 2009. Since don’t you come to Denver, because so many then, the business has more than doubled. people love your product.’ So, we decided to It did about $12 million in sales in 2015, and look at it.” continues on an upward trajectory.