Loading...
Forbes Article @ Dubuque Bankston °G TRUE,~GR IN THE HEA DUBUQUE, IA: IN LOCATION Dubuque is located on the border of the states of Iowa, Illinois and Wis- consin. The city is 183 miles west of Chicago and 310 miles north of St. Louis, and 25% of the nation's popu- lation is within 500 miles. Dubuque is a picturesque city, sitting on the bluffs of the Mississippi River, with wooded hillsides, scenic valleys, lime- stone outcroppings and historic architecture. POPULATION (1980 Census) City of Dubuque - 62,321 County of Dubuque - 93,745 CLIMATE Average winter temp. 20.3 degrees/ Average annual snowfall 35 inches Average summer temp. 70.2 degrees/ Average annual rainfall 33 inches EDUCATION Iowa is known for its excellent edu- cation system. According to the Col- lege Entrance Examination Board, Iowa students rank number one on performance on college entrance exams. Dubuque is no exception to the rule when it comes to excellence in education. The City of Dubuque has 13 public elementary schools, two public junior high schools and two public high schools. The average teacher/student ratio for the public system is one teacher for every 16.1 students. There are also ten paro- chial elementary schools and one parochial high school. Every building in the public system has a special education program and nine special education classes are offered. The system also offers special classes for the talented and gifted as well as support services for speech impair- ments. Infants age two and under are also provided in-home therapy in dealing with specific handicaps. CLARKE COLLEGE - Founded in 1843, Clarke is a Catholic, liberal arts college with an enrollment of 896 students. The undergraduate division awards the Bachelor of Science degree and the Bachelor of Arts degree. Business and Computer Sci- ence are offered along with 25 other departmental majors and individual contracts majors. The college's grad- uate division grants a Master of Arts degree in Education with speciliza- tion. Clarke also has a continuing education division which sponsors programs designed to meet the edu- cational needs of the community through a wide variety of workshops, short courses and evening classes. LORAS COLLEGE - Founded in 1839, Loras is a Catholic, liberal arts college with an enrolhnent of 1,784 students. The undergraduate division offers majors in 32 areas as well as coursework in pre-professional areas including a major in Business Administration. Degrees granted are the Associate of Arts, Associate of Science, Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Music, and the Bachelor of Sci- ence. The graduate programs offered are the Master of Arts degree in Education/ Administration, Educa- tion/Guidance and Counseling, English, History and Psychology. UNIVERSITY OF DUBUQUE - Founded in 1852, the university is composed of an undergraduate Col- lege of Liberal Arts, and a graduate Theological Seminary. The College of Liberal Arts enrolls approximately 1,117 students and grants the follow- ing degrees: Associate of Arts, Bach- elor of Science, and the Bachelor of Science in Nursing. The college also grants special Associate and Bache- lors Tri-College degrees, as part of a program for adult learners. Major study is offered in more than 30 fields and pre-professional areas. NORTHEAST IOWA TECHNICAL INSTITUTE - Established in 1966 by the state to provide new voca- ----' THE HEARTLAND tional-technical education opportuni- ties. Thirty career programs are offered with full and part-time enrolhnent possible. Continuing and Adult Education courses are avail- able through NITI with more than 400 courses offered each year. The institute works closely with business and industry by conducting pre- employment and employee skill improvements training. TRANSPORTATION RAIL - The City of Dubuque is served by three Class I railroads; the Burlington Northern, the Illinois Central Gulf and Milwaukee Road. HIGHWAYS - The city is accessible by U.S. Highways 20, 52, 61 151 and State Highway 3. Motor freight ser- vice is provided by sixteen carriers. Bus service is provided daily by two lines offering passenger and package express service as well as charter ser- vice. AIR - The airport is municipally owned and is served by two com- muter carriers. Charter services are also available. The airport runways are 150' wide and one is 6500' long and is ILS equipped, and the other is 4900' in length. Three overnight air courier services provide package deli- very service. UTILITIES TELECOMMUNICATIONS Northwestern Bell is installing the newest, most technologically advanced equipment available. The new system will offer custom calling services such as call forwarding, three-way calling and call waiting, etc. It will also provide faster service and the use of Centrex and Centron systems for business customers. The system will be fully duplicated pro- viding more reliability. WATER - By virtue of Dubuque's location on the Mississippi River, barge traffic is an intregal part of a transportation network for commo- dities being shipped to and from the area. There are several barge dock facilities available to serve the river traffic needs. NATURAL GAS - Peoples Natural Gas Company provides a distribution system in Dubuque supplied by a pipeline that completely circumvents the city and carries an operating pressure of 78 pounds. The natural gas has a calorific value of 1,000 BTU and a specific gravity of .61. Supply is currently available to both large and small industrial users. WATER AND SEWER - Services are provided by the municipally owned system. Presently there are five shallow wells and four deep wells used as a standby supply. Water is supplied to the city by gravity pressure from storage reservoirs at the average pressure of 88 pounds. Total capacity for the system is 20 million gallons a day. Total hardness is 90 mg/l at 9.2 P.H. and the water is both flouridated and chlorinated. The secondary water treatment plant has a capacity of 15 mm GPD and serves 99% of the community. Additional capacity exists in the sys- tem to meet the needs of major industrial users. ELECTRICITY - Interstate Power Company furnishes Dubuque with electrical power at a gross capacity of 954,900 Kilowatts. Ninety-two percent (92%) of the electricity pro- duced comes from coal. Interstate Power Company with its general offices in Dubuque, serves a 10,000 square mile area and 252 communi- ties in sections of Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois. HEALTH CARE Dubuque has two hospitals, Finley and Mercy Health Center, with a total capacity of 567 beds. Both faci- lities are helicopter-oriented trauma centers and both facilities provide 24-hour physician staffed emergency facilities. Because of the excellent medical facilities, Dubuque has become a regional medical center. There are several specialty clinics and the city is now being served by a Health Maintenance Organization. CULTURAL AND LEISURE TIME ACTIVITIES By virtue of the city's location on the Mississippi River, Dubuque offers many and varied recreational activi- ties: boating, fishing, canoeing, water skiing and swimming. Five marinas are located in the immediate vicinity of the city and have a capacity for 730 boats. The terrain allows for excellent downhill and cross-country skiing. Sundown Ski Resort has 17 runs, three chairlifts and three rope- tows. There are five separate loca- tions with cross country ski trails. For golf enthusiasts, the city offers three public 18-hole courses, two pri- vate 18-hole courses, and one public 9-hole course. Dubuque is also located 20 miles from Eagle Ridge Golf Club, which was recently rated as one of the 20 best new courses in the country. Tennis, racquetball, ice skating, as well as a full complement of activities for all ages are offered by the city's recreation department. Dubuque has six art galleries, five theatre. companies, a professional symphony, and a youth symphony. For further information on Dubuque development opportunities, please call or write: Dubuque Area Chamber of Commerce 880 Locust Street Dubuque, IA 52001 (319) 557-9200 Cover reprinted with pennission of Rand McNally. "True Grit in the Heartland" reprinted with pennission of Forbes. Is Middle America sunk in economic de- spondency, decay and defeat? If you think that, come visit Dubuque, Iowa with us. It's no boomtown, but life is still pretty good in this old industrial city on the Mississippi. "I've learned how to save my money" singles crowd, she says; more impor- tant, there is the money. She made $22,300 last year as a secretary at the big lohn Deere division outside town, and she and her daughter live well on that. "In Cincinnati they're offering $12,000 to $14,000 for administrative assistants," she says. Of course, this divorced secretary's high pay is part of the curse and the blessing of Dubuque. The auto work- ers union ran wages up so high at the Deere plant that it's hard to attract new business to town. By contrast, lim Brady, Dubuque's mayor, makes only $16,000 as a teacher across the riv- er at Galena, Ill., but also clerks at Radio Shack. His wife makes salads at Ring's Restau- rant and does checkout at the Target discount store. Put it all togeth- er and there is a re- spectable $30,OO\~, but it takes five jobs to earn it. If the tattooed lady and the Bradys earn good money, they spend it, Out at the Kennedy Mall, I.B. White, who runs Rosheks department store ($10 million in sales I, is booking a 20% sales increase for this year. Big wages mean good houses, campers, new cars (jim Walsh, who runs Bird Chevrolet, says he's mcreasmg his factory orders 20% I. But what about the people who aren't still working and spending? Pat Dillon, president of the UAW local at Deere, tells a story. Only 2,100 from the local are still working; 4,000 are laid off. "With all that un- employment we thought we'd get By Jerry Flint DUBUQUE, low A is the sort 01 place editors and TV producers thmk about when they want to do stories purporting to describe how hard the recession is hitting Middle America. Which is one major reason the media do such a poor job of covering the economy. In general they see what they want to see: defeat, decay, de- spair. But to write about Dubuque and places like it only in . terms of stereotypes is Dub..."", Town Clock to overlook the funda- Tral'ls Brownell mental economic vital- Jrd Grade ity that still pervades Middle America. According to the last census, Dubuque had a population of 62,321, and it is probably somewhat less now: people are leaving to seek better opportuni- ty elsewhere. But up here in this northeast comer of Iowa, with the Mississippi River in their backyard, a good many more peo- ple are staying, work- ing and getting on with their lives. Recession there is. Despair and decay there is not. This attractive divorcée with a three-year-old daughter is as good a way as any to start understanding Du- buque. The lady wears a charming mushroom-and-turtle tattoo on her thigh, and a bit lower, toward the knee, there's a flower and a butterfly. She is quite proud of them and doesn't seem depressed. "I'm going to stay here," she says across her drink at Brothers' Lounge at the Midway Mo- tor Lodge. But isn't Dubuque too dull for such a lively lady? There is a small 130 lJfeoa the llississippi: The people. . . For historical reasons, practical- ly everybody is white and two- thirds of the population Is Ro- man Catholic. There is a lower divorce rate and a higher birth rate than for the country as a whole, but plenty of old people, which pushes up the death rate. This type of homogeneity prob- ably helps to account for the impressively low crime rate, which Dubuquers always list as a principal advantage of living in this Iowa town. J I . 1ha1nu¡.e Du,s. PopnlaUon Birth rate I.., i.ooo 01 pop.,.d.nl Death rate 1..,1,000.1 po,w..innl .ediul age Dlyoree rate I.., i,ooonfpop.,.'inni ï 10 10 ¡Õ ÏlÖ Racial JDiz IdneaUon .eligfon _to ...... IUCJt ........ c.thoU. 98.9% 11.7% 10 65% I 83.1% D lö D 0.3% """" - ""."""'- .,"puI.' Gila.. Coli.,.' I.wlah : rrot..toat lad oth... 6.4% 5.2% 32% 2% 70% D D ïD An..dm",d D .D 0.5% 0,0008% ].¡,wi.b - lomili.. Crime I", iOO,OOOinbobh'.",S".d..d M,n.,.ll".""¡..¡,,i ""1 row..... ronlld. rQO ...... aoh"" C..tIaolt ÎÔ ~O 11.0 D 0 .0 31.1 - 'AJ.o ind.d,d m wbh, md b¡"kli""". '18 ,u" ,nd old.. <Ii" bm Ii.,.b,d li¡gIi "liool. '18 ,ro" o.d oid.. ,b" bm ."npl",d on", "om yro" 01 roll". So.""' D'ponm,nt of H,oith o! H.mon ',m...; Doboq" Cliomb" 01 Comm..", Goiiop PoiL FBI, u.s. B.",. oi th, C,m.. 132 FORBES, MARCH 28,1983 ~ . J II some turkeys for the holidays for them. We took a plant gate collection and raised $5,000, then chipped in $7,000 from union funds. We had a thousand 18- to 20-pound turkeys. We sent out letters to the 4,000 saying that those with $600 or les\ a month to live on could pick up a free turkey from the union at the Salvation Army head- quarters. Well, we had 2S0 people there, so we got 750 turkeys left. We sent out another letter, and the postage for each mailing was $800. This time we said $900 a month and gave them out at the union hall just in case people didn't want to go to the Salvation Army. We were open all day and gave out another SOD. We still had 2S0 tur- keys left and they were starting to thaw. I wasn't going to send out any more letters. 1 went over to the radio station and announced that any UAW member laid off could get one. That got rid of the last 250. 1 couldn't be- lieve it. The only conclusion is that we're too proud to ask for anything free." Proud. And adaptable. Every hour maybe 800 pigs get their throats slashed at the FDL plant on 16th Street. It used to be Dubuque Packing and was failing. "Frankly, the plant costs, the lack of productivity, poor attitudes and lousy management were dragging the corporation down. I was the chairman Turke!J Darcy Elgin 4th grade of the board," says Robert Wahlert. "We tried. The union made conces- sions. It got worse. It's not that the plant was outdated. We spent $27 mil- lion in the late Seventies. This is vir- tually state of the art." What was wrong? Well, the story of Iowa Beef's low wages and boxed- beefed technology is part of it. But Wahlert doesn't pass the buck that way. "There was bad management from me all the way back to my great uncle," says the company founder. He gives examples. "In the Forties and Fifties we had slow time. We opened a cafeteria and let the girls from the plant run it. So decades later we ended up with $18-an-hour dishwashers, $18-an-hour janitors. It was a hard work situation, so they gave time off. We ended up with four on the line and two in the rest room." Why not close it down? Wahlert's father is R.c. Wahlert, prob- ably the richest man m town. Close it down' "Yeah, but we had to live here, too," says son Robert. "] was frus- trated to see the plant closed up and liquidat- ed. What was going to happen' There's the Wahlert library in this town, the Wahlert high school, and the park. There were 1,100 workers and not much alternative." The family split. Robert Wahlert and his side walked out. "We put $70 million together for a leveraged buyout," he said, although actually there was just a few million dollars in cash. He got some federal money, took the old plant and formed FDL Foods-FDL for fleur-de-Ivs, an old brand name of Dubuque Packing. The union didn't like it, but it signed on to save the jobs. It's tough. Workers that were making $10 to $11 an hour (in- centives and fringes pushed labor costs to $181 started back at $6. "We used to have five, six weeks vacation. We got no vacation, no medical, no pension. Sure, we know we'll have to have these things, but not cradle to the grave like before," says Robert Wahlert. "We opened last Oct. 16, and sales School Bus 2S8 Am]' Conlan 2nd grade . . . and the money . Dnbnqne Du.s. Average earnings are high for a small city because of the union .edian family Unemployment Ineome rate' wage scale at the Deere construction machinery plant and the $22,484 packinghouse. Deere blue-collar workers average $27,000 a year, $22,388 20.5% and even a secretary earns $22,000. But today unemployment runs I D I above the national average: more than half the Deere workers are 11.4% laid off: and the packinghouse workers have taken large pay cuts D to save their jobs. The high wage levels led to prosperity: Dubu- quers lived well, but that is part of the problem, too. worldng In Worldng In .ediu nIne of Loeal to: ratea' Zdneatlon mannfaetnriDg' nolUllunfaetnrlng' oWDer-occnpled bo1l.le (""adh." p" ,hUd) 26.3% 28.3% 73.7% 71.7% I $51,300 $330.92 $2,527 $2,510 I D I 0 D $126.31 D I 0 . 'Im...,.,""';a.." 1o.""auIIK'an. Th,D"aq~""w" =0..11, high '".."a'.h, a~ ...a.h da,", of. 'aha 0"" ""a'Y. 'Nanqri"""'" w."..d """ w,,',n {""p' d"""'"I. 'p" "pi.. p""o, ..,. SOU"" U.S "w<ou of <I" c","" "",ouof Lob.,S""";,,,¡ob Sm'"o¡ low", a'pourn,,< of Publ" lnwuo<wn.lowo FORBES, MARCH 28, 1983 13.3 in the first quarter were $135 million, and we're in the black. We're looking for $1 billion a year. Three months doesn't make a company, but it's a start. Anyway, we're all Dubuquers. We're all in this together, labor and management, together." The real Dubuque, hke the real America, just won't fit the stereo- types. People in Dubuque don't but- tonhole you on the street to talk about the crises that fill the metro- politan press, like what the EP A did or did not do with paper shredders. The richer folk still like Ronald Reagan. "It took 50 years to get in this mess. It will take us a while to get out," says Paul From- melt, executive vice president of Frommelt Industries. "I know it's easy to sit here in a warm office and say, 'stay the course,' but we've got to do it." The union people don't hke the Presi- dent. "On a scale of one to ten, if ten is high, I give him a one," says Pat Dillon of the UAW. The students in the high school seem to think that all the pohticians-in Wash- ington and at City Hall-aren't very good. If you ask, people are for a strong defense-but maybe some cuts in de- fense spending. The old folks are wor- ried about Social Security, and they flood their congressmen with mail against the withholding tax on inter- est and dividends. There's worry about trade. "Why don't people in Washington understand that we need reciprocity in trade," says lim Houtz, who runs a growing computer service company called CyCare Systems. He has a subsidiary in Canada, but says, "If we try to go to Japan, we cannot get in." All these things count in Dubuque, but what really counts is not Wash- ington or the world but Route 61 and a downtown mall. They have just opened a new bridge across the Mis- sissippi between Wisconsin and Du- buque, but there's not much of a con- necting road through the town. If they can squeeze money from the state and feds for Route 61 through town, more people may come to shop. Then may- be the bigger dream, a downtown mall connected to the civic center and the restored theater, will be built. But just the other day I.c. Penney said it will close its downtown store and move to the mall at the western end of town. That hurt, because it cripples the dream of a downtown mall's bringing in more business. And it is business- the economy-that people worry and talk about today. It's bad in Dubuque. There are 689 houses for sale countywide, the real estate association says, but some folks figure the number in the city may be closer to 1,000. Everybody knows someone who has left, gone to Texas, to Florida, to Moline, to find work. People hurt. fohn Rapp, for example, was laid off Mar. 6, 1981. (Ask a Dubuquer when he was laid off and you will get a specific date.1 He is married and has four children. The first year he got by well enough with unem- ployment compensa- tion and layoff pay from Deere. His wife was selling Avon, too. "But the way the mon- ey is, there aren't many buyers for a bottle of perfume," he says. Now, with special ADC grants, $464 a month, plus food stamps, he just gets by. His mobile home pay- ments are only $195 a month and he is only paying the interest anyway. "I've been to about every place around, and some places twice. After two years it's getting harder and harder every day to get up. But you have to get up and say to yourself, 'Today's the day I find something.' " A high school senior says, "There's lots of pressure. When dad was laid off, he'd even sit there and yell at the dog. The poor dog didn't know what was happening and he'd hide." The biggest problem, of course, is the Deere plant that makes con- struction-type ma- chines with 3,600 blue- and white-collar work- ers now, against 8,200 three years ago. Other plants have lost work, too, and the slump in agriculture hurts Du- buque, although per- haps not as badly as other areas, because Dubuque is hog coun- try and today hogs are better than grain. oI'ulfenDub...,ue'. Graue Cheryl Blaser 4rh grade 134 Pen '" Ink Chalk De8ign Jodl' Vanderah 6th grade For the past two years Dubuque's Deere plant has closed almost com- pletely for January. This pushes the jobless rate into the 20% area for the month, which brings in reporters from around the country. "We get the slash-and-burn stories, the out-of- work suffering stories, the let-'em- eat-cake story," says Steve Kent, ex- ecutive editor of Dubuque's Telegraph Herald. It's not that they aren't factu- ally correct, adds Kent. It's that they don't have what he calls "the sense of the place." Part of that "sense" is a kind of faith in the future. "There's nothing in the immediate future that looks bright. But the local Deere division is well managed, sound financially, with high ideals. We'll be around and as big as Caterpillar [in construction machineryJ someday." Who said that? The plant manager? No. Pat Dillon of the UAW. He also says that the aver- age worker made $13.20 an hour in real wages-or $27,000 a year full time. "In the old days those costs all got passed on. We billed the farmer. I know we have to give up something." True, he doesn't want to give up all the benefits it took years to win, but that isn't the type of talk you used to hear in Detroit. Howard WickIer, 38, The Shot Tower Dorene Fish Jrd grade FORBES, MARCH 2S, 19S3 Fenelon Plaee Eleuator Brent Kraske 4th grade Log Cabin at Eagle Point Park Jamie Benson 6th grade married, two children, laid off Feb. 14, 1982, has that faith. "At Deere I ran a drill and earned $30,000 a year. But lohn Deere treated me A-lOO%. They hung on to guys as long as they could. The only bad feeling was I was there ten years and finally got a job 1 liked and then lost it." Howard had enough money at first, but he got fat, 190 pounds. "I joined the health club. In three months I was 158." He was so happy that he went to work for the club, trying to sell memberships in a new workout center in a downtown office. "I never worked directly with people in my life. I like it. This will give me a chance to talk to businessmen about selling jobs, maybe in the health field. It's growing." When he is called back to Deere, and he's cer- tain that will come, "I'll work part time in the day at the club." In fact, he says, ''If I could get back to work in three months I'd be in better shape than when I was laid off. I've learned how to save my money." Dubuque has a repu- tation for being around ten years be- hind the times. Practically no one will argue with that. The houses are part of another age. There aren't many TV antennas (the city was wired long agol. White-collar workers who came in boom days say it was hard to make friends. "If you don't have eight or ten brothers and sisters and brothers-in- law and cousins and uncles, it's hard." Dubuque is a heavily Catholic city. "The good-looking girls are 17 and under or 17 and married," jokes a lo- cal. Becky Sisco, who used to head the local League of Women Voters, says it's just too quiet for some: her five best friends left town in five consecu- tive years. "It's true, some of the women won't dance with a man un- FORBES, MARCH 28, 19S3 less they think he is someone they can live with forever," says Elizabeth Lovette, a secretary. The men are the same, she says: Invite one home for dinner and he won't come unless he can bring a friend for protection. "This place is too old-fashioned. lust look at the buildings," says Paul Lattner, a 17-year-old senior at Du- buque Senior High School. He is right; Dubuque does show its past, but that's not all bad. It's said that Iowa is flat, Republi- can and Protestant, but Dubuque is hilly, Democratic and Catholic. The Catholics came because Bishop Ma- thias Loras, who arrived in 1839, wrote back to Europe telling potential Catholic immigrants that Dubuque was safe for Catholics-they had been frightened of the U.S. because of re- ports of the bigots called Know Noth- ings. "The Sisters of Charity for the Blessed Virgin Maty came here after being burned out in Philadelphia," says Reverend Edward Petty, who di- rects Catholic charities. Around the turn of the century Du- buque was the major wagon-building center in the nation. There's a story that Henry Ford came to Augustin Augustine Cooper, the biggest wa- gonmaker, and sug- gested that he build horseless carriages. Cooper, a true Dubu- quer, did not see any future in it. The Catholics and the non-Catholics did not always get along, I either. In the Twenties, football between the Presbyterian Universi- ty of Dubuque and Loras (one of the two Catholic colleges I was ended because the games turned into riots. They re- sumed a halt-century later. "The sto- ry of the first mixed marriage in town was when an Irish Catholic married a German Catholic and that turned into a riot," says Walter Peterson, presi. dent of the University of Dubuque. There is still some dispute about anti- black or anti-Iewish feeling in Du- buque-there are about 30 Jewish families. Some say yes; some saý no. But there are only 219 blacks in Du- buque [1980 census I. Why so few? Some say Dubuque was like one of those "don't-let-the-sun-set-on-you- here" towns a halt-century ago-but you can't prove it. "Dubuque always seems to be on the trailing edge of trends," says edi- Langworth" Octagon Bouse Dawn Dzaboff 6th grade tor Kent. In the city's early days, lead mining was the big industry. When that died, there was lumber, wagon- making-which the automobile killed-door and window sashes alu- minum, and then meat packing and construction equipment. Says Uni- versity President Peterson, "We thought it was the end of the town when the [window] sash plant closed. We thought the end was at hand when it looked like the pack [the packing plantJ might close. We recover." What comes through the history is that Du- buque has depended on the bright- ness, the innovativeness, of its ordi- nary people-people with ideas. Paul Frommelt tells the story of his firm. "Grandfather Ludwig worked for Cooper, the wagonmaker. One dollar a day. Back in 1909 Ludwig bought Cooper's small awning com- pany for $100. We ran it that way until 1950," Paul says, "a couple of guys and a truck. I drove that truck on dates. I didn't even have a car. Then in 19S0 my father watched a man weld- ing. He invented a canvas welding shield." That opened up a business of factory safety equipment. "Then in 19S1 Dubuque Packing came to us. The meat inspector wouldn't let them load their meat in the railroad cars; it was getting dirty. We built a canopy." Now Frommelt builds specialized canopies to cover the loading dock between the truck and plant to keep the weather out, and does $25 million a year, with 200 employees. "We're 135 [Inion leader Pat Dillon (I'ift) and wellhom Bob Wahlert Poles apart po/itica/(l'. but each will tel/xou wben the other's name comes up, "We were 11/ higb school together " building a new $5 million plant, 150,000 square feet," he says proudly. R.c. Wahlert (father of Robert Wah, lert, who runs the new FDLI tells the story of Dubuque Packing. "The first time I came here was 1931. I was 17. My uncle bought this place and want- ed me to go with him. Every river town had a packing plant; you get rid of that blood in the river. But I was not going to live in a jerk town like Dubuque. lt was like Paducah. Vaudeville comics made jokes about it." The phone rings and R.c. breaks off his sto' ry to shout into it. After a few minutes of noisy bargaining he smiles. "I just sold 450 pounds of pituitary glands (each about half the size of a peal at $110 a pound." He's happy. But he did come. "I was the 34th employ- "Now look. There's no Swift, there's no Wilson, no Cudahy, no Os- car Mayer. They're conglomerates." Eating habits changed, too. "Those doctors. They say don't eat meat. What the hell can you eat? Chicken?" he says with disgust. "You go to the store. Our hot dogs are $1.S9. Oscar Mayer is $1.89, and they got 99-cent chicken wieners. What goes on them' Catsup, mustard, pickles. What do you taste' Catsup, mustard and pickles. What do they buy' Those 99-cent things?" But his son saved the packing house for Du- buque, and there are grandchildren coming up--and in the plant- and old R.c. still makes deals. Over at Flexsteelln- dustries, Frank Bertsch tells his story. Dad had a furniture company in Minnesota, but in the Thirties he was part of ee. I worked six days a week, 12 hours a day, every job from killing hogs to sweeping. For the first 25 years I never missed a Sunday. Sure, 1 always worked Saturday, but I never missed a Sunday, either. The last 20 years I skipped Sunday." It comes as no surprise that the elder Wahlert despises unions. "The UAW is the curse of Iowa," he says. At Dubuque Packing, before the cri- sis, labor costs for the members of the food workers union were close to $18 an hour. "We all followed like a bunch of sheep, yes, me too. We never had a strike. We gave them everything they wanted. 136 the establishment fighting the unions. "There were overturned cars and dad carried a billy club. When it was over he came here, and ever since we haven't been interested in fighting unions." Bertsch isn't too happy. Flexsteel has 600 employees in Dubuque, seven plants around the country and nearly $100 million in sales. Part of the busi' ness, furniture for recreational vehi- cles, is running strong now. "We're as productive here as any- place in the country, but the last three contracts killed us," says Bertsch. Last year he took a nine-week strike in Dubuque and didn't appreciate it. "We worked all through the year to make understood the need to be com- patible. We thought they understood, but they wouldn't back down. Most of the furniture plants are in the South. We did get some partial gains on COLA and lower hiring rates and a one-year pay freeze." That sounds good, but Bertsch says he pays $6.50 an hour with incentives and fringes, pushing labor cost to $12, which he figures is $3 above other furniture plants. For the nation as a whole, new white-collar, high-technology jobs may take the place of many of those lost in the older blue-collar occupa- tions. As a result, the recession has cut overall employment only very slightly, from a peak of 101 million in mid-1981 to 99 million in January. But Dubuque isn't the nation; it is a corner where job losses have so far easily exceeded job gains. Dubuque is an unlikely spot for a high-technology boom. "The salt on the streets around here will sure wreck your Porsche," says Dan Dittemore, professional planner with the Chamber of Com- merce, joking about the California high-tech lifestyle. But is there a fu- ture for smokestack Dubuque in the computer-chip America that's being born? "We're asking the same ques- tion," Dittemore says. "We just don't know what place Dubuque will have in the restructuring of America." lim Houtz, though, has a pretty good idea about that future. He is president of CyCare. lt's the sunrise industry around Dubuque, a comput- er operation that sets up accounting systems for doctors and sends out their bills. It is a national operation, the largest of its type, with $24 mil- lion in revenues last year. Houtz talks about $100 million by 1986. "The doers of the 1990s are going to be companies like ourselves," he says. Houtz' story is not unlike those of older entrepreneurs hereabouts. He worked for Burroughs, then IBM, be- fore starting his company in 1967. Why stay? "There are lots of high- tech firms from White Plains to Phoe- nix," Houtz says, and follows with the litany of advantages that Du- buquers know by heart: "You can walk down any street and not worry about getting to the end of the block. The school system is better than in most metropolitan areas. I've never spent more than five minutes walk- ing to the office. And we've never had any smog." CyCare has 160 employees in Du- buque and 285 more around the coun- try. Houtz owns 45% of the stock and says there's no intention of selling I FORBES, MARCH 2S, 19S3 Dub...,ue City Hall Ginger Grote 5th grade out. "We are going to be doing the acquiring," he says. "Who knows, CyCare might bring in the software people. There could be splitoffs from it, but there's no assur- ance," says Bertsch of Flexsteel. There's a publishing firm, too, Wil- liam C. Brown, with 350 employees, producing college and religious text- books, but that's communicatio/lS, and that is another magic word supposed to mean jobs in the future. But high tech and communications arenotlor everybody. "I've got a friend who fixes computers. He does well. But that's one guy," says Dillon of the UAW. He doesn't think much of the talk of retraining. "How are we going to make accountants out of assemblers when we've got accountants laid off? Yes, a computer course is great, but it won't put 4,000 people to work." Tom Tauke, the Republican Con- gressman from Dubuque, recognizes the dramatic industrial change com- ing. "But that doesn't mean the whole country will be high tech. Ten years from now Dubuque won't be high tech. lohn Deere will be here, the packing house will be here. A.Y. Mc- Donald-water pumps and valves- will be here. Somebody's always go- ing to process the food. This is the largest hog-producing district in the country, and that is where we ought to be going-processing food." Wayne Norman, development offi- cer of the University of Dubuque and a doer in the community, sees other movements. The colleges will be a job-producing education center, the hospitals will produce jobs as a medi- cal center, a downtown mall will help the area grow as a regional retailing center. Then there is the tourist busi- ness-the architecture [those old houses I, the Mines of Spain National Park [which doesn't exist yeti, a "lit- tle Tivoli" park on City Island [that park doesn't exist yet, either I. But, in fact, there is a growing tourist trade, the waterfront museum and the side- paddler docked there and river dining in summer, the skiing outside of town in winter. Norman figures there will FORBES, MARCH 28, 1983 be 3,000 jobs in tourism someday. Peterson of the university talks about his new programs, in computer science and aviation administration. "We want to establish an M.B.A. pro- gram to help keep the local people" Meanwhile Dubuque is losing too many children. At Dubuque Senior HIgh enrollment is down to 1,800 from 2,400 four years ago. Families are smaller, and everybody knows someone who has gone. "Both children went to Texas to find work. One's a chemical engi- neer. He graduated in May and got a job in Dallas. He would have stayed if he could find work," says lay Kolker, who sells Harvester trucks. His daughter followed a job-hunting boyfriend and is an as- Sistant manager in a clothmg store. Mel Maas, the union president at FDL, has a son who was a star halfback at the univer- sity. "There's no job for him in the field here [safety engineeringl. He'll probably look around Chicago and Milwaukee." Tina Kamm, a hIgh school senior, will be a nurse, but says: "I'll probably move to Florida. I've got an uncle there. You can't stay in a town if there are no jobs." Pat Dillon talks about one of his brothers: "Jerry worked at Dubuque Packing. They said they would cut his pay from $12 to $6 an hour. He said that for $6 he'd go to Florida-and he did. He works nights for $6 at a 7- Eleven and lies in the sun all day. Well, he's single and 32 and can do that." RIght behind lerry, though, is a gen- eration of youngsters that seems less pampered, tougher than the genera- tion that preceded it. Senior High Principal Donald Kolsrud, notes: "Our kids are more somber and seri- ous than they've ever been. Atten- dance is running 96% to 94%. I feel the change. It's not just me, me, me. It's our family, us, we." Something else im- possible to measure is community closeness. When you mention Bob Wahlert of the packing house to Pat Dillon of the UAW, Dillon says, "Bob and 1 were high school class- mates." When you mention Dillon to Wahlert, Wahlert says, "Pat and I went to high school together." Over at the Deere plant, John Lawson, the manager, figures he will recall 600 to 800 workers by fall. "We've absolutely reached the bot- tom of the barrel in employment," he says. That's the good news. The bad: Even after recalls, the job level would be half that of three years ago. In Dubuque, they scramble to get more factories, they cut pay and work harder, they study computers, they hustle for a shopping center and a new road, they build a museum for tour- ists. Decay? Despair? That's maybe 10% of the story. . Ameriean TnLst Building jil7Kim 4th grade Spirit of Dub..."", Brian Wrigbt Jrd grade 137 woodward Communications, Inc. PO 80x688 Dubuque. Jowa52001 (319) 58S-5687 Woodward Communications is intensely aware that its future is inexorably entwined with the future of the Dubuque area. In addition to the recognition that the Dubuque area repre- sents the financial underpinning for the company, the s tock- holders also have a long history of being an integral part of this community...of wanting to live, work and play here, raise families here. It is to us a uniquely fine community in which to reside. Those factors key a committment by WCI to undertake all reasonable efforts to improve the economic climate of the Dubuque area while enhancing the community's livability. To that end, we have adopted as one of our objectives: to commit our human and financial resources to work with others in both the public and private sectors to further economic development. It is in our best interest, the community's best interest, and it is the single most important contribution that can be made for the people we call friends, neighbors and fellow residents. And our committment to the community goes beyond the economic concerns. We want to playa role in preserving our heritage, our culture, the things that have given Dubuque the spirit captured by Jerry Flint in the Forbes article. So we sought the opportunity to participate in restoring the Five Flags Theater, creating a riverboat museum and other elements that make Dubuque more than the economic center of our existence. We think the Forbes article captures well the flavor and spirit of this community. Times are tough right now. But we can make them better. We will make them better. And those who follow us in Dubuque will thus be able to enjoy a quality of life, a mix of work and play, that is all too rare to find elsewhere. ' /~.~- :L;~~.~' William Woodward ~'M\(~~ Norman McMullin Publisher, Telegraph Herald