Employees make all the difference
George Bathe joined Ready Mixed Concrete Company in 1948 as an assistant manager and was named general manager by January of the next year. He moved up in the small ready mix company to become the president of Lyman-Richey Sand & Gravel and Ready Mixed Concrete in 1964.
Bathe was the one who proposed using ready mixed concrete for highway paving projects. Testing his beliefs, the company placed a considerable amount of concrete for Interstate 80 between Omaha and North Platte and all of the concrete for interstate work in the Omaha-Council Bluffs area, including work on I-80, I-480, I-680, and I-29.
According to Lyman-Richey's "100th Anniversary" publication, the idea of using concrete in big interstate projects was met with a lot of skepticism. The industry nationwide had its eyes on Ready Mixed, and the success of Bathe's idea opened the way for the concrete industry to jump into the interstate building business.
In 1968 Bathe was elected president of the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association.