CEO reflects on Knife River’s culminating moment
Gray
Knife River Corp. completed its spinoff from MDU Resources Group midway through this year, making the organization an independent public company that trades on the New York Stock Exchange. In the weeks following the spinoff, P&Q caught up with Knife River president and CEO Brian Gray to learn how the company arrived at this moment, as well as capture perspective from him on the state of the aggregate industry.
P&Q: Brian, you’ve been with Knife River for 30 years now. The spinoff must be one of the more exciting developments you’ve been a part of in your tenure. Where does it rank, and how rewarding is it to see the company reach a point where it stands on its own?
Gray: Getting to ring the bell on the New York Stock Exchange was a great experience. It was super rewarding to represent the 6,000 men and women who work at Knife River, who were back home crushing rock and delivering concrete and asphalt.
We have a sense of pride in what we do at the company. It was a big day for us. We painted the town (New York) orange, with a huge banner in front of the New York Stock Exchange. It was a true privilege representing our team.
P&Q: How did you get your start in the industry? 
Gray: I started in the QC lab 30 years ago after graduating from Oregon State, testing aggregates to see if they were angular enough to make asphalt out of them. My parents thought I was crazy. But I loved the construction industry and that the work I was doing was part of a solution, part of a highway or a bridge that made a lasting impact.
P&Q: How did you ultimately find your way to Knife River? What was the company like when you started there, and how did it grow over the years?
Gray: I went to work for Morse Bros. in 1993 in Corvallis, Oregon, working for the family-owned company. Knife River acquired Morse Bros. in 1998. In the mid-90s, none of us had heard of Knife River. They were in the process of acquiring a whole bunch of vertically integrated, family-owned companies in midsize, high-growth markets. Morse Bros. had a great position in Oregon.
At that time, we had not branded ourselves as Knife River. We operated kind of independent of one another. But in 2007, we came together under the single brand. Sixteen years later, we’re all one company, and the branding is an important part of our identity.
We’ve made over 80 acquisitions over the years, and the culture that we have at Knife River is special. It’s different than anything I know of. It is a people-first culture where it’s OK to love what you do and where you work. It’s why I’m still here 30 years later. It’s a great industry, but it’s really about the people you get to work with.
Knife River has locations in 14 states, stretching as far west as Hawaii and as far east as Minnesota. Photo: P&Q Staff
P&Q: You’ve experienced the consolidation of the aggregate industry over the last 30 years. There are more publicly traded industry companies today than there were 30 years ago. That said, how would you say aggregate-producing companies have changed in the last 30 years?
Gray: I think you could look at our four core values and how they’ve changed in my career. Those are people, safety, quality and environment.
As far as people go, we pay great wages and provide a good living for our team members. We operate in a very competitive environment. During the Great Recession, we lost a lot of talent in this industry. And now with the infrastructure dollars coming in, the industry has a labor shortage.
When it comes to training and educating our team members, we absolutely put our money where our mouth is. We built a world-class training center designed to help people advance in their careers and also to help introduce people to the construction industry. As an example, we put eight to 10 students through a CDL class every four weeks – people who’ve never driven a truck, and by the end of their class they are in a position to get their CDL and go out to deliver products. We’ll then take a week off and put another class of eight to 10 people through.
Knife River has always been a pioneer in training. If you look at the quality of training and the center we’ve built, it’s become so much more sophisticated, and we’re competitive in attracting high schoolers and other professionals to want to come into our industry.
Knife River provides construction materials and contracting services, with a focus on aggregates, asphalt, ready-mixed concrete and construction while providing specialized products and services such as precast/prestressed concrete, liquid asphalt and cement. Photo: Knife River
P&Q: How about with safety, quality and the environment? How have you seen these areas of the industry evolve?
Gray: With safety, our industry has made leaps and bounds from 30 years ago. The national companies are all leaders in safety. The technology on the equipment and the safety features available have made huge advancements in my career. Safety has definitely changed.
Regarding quality: I started my career in the lab doing mixes. We weren’t calculating the global warming impact on our mixes; just quality and the specifications that our customers demanded. Rock is rock, and that hasn’t changed a whole lot. But the technology that goes into making the best rock you can to make the best asphalt or concrete has changed.
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