Jefferson, Iowa, is the home of Shriver Construction Company.  It's a family owned business which is an outgrowth of Greene County farmer, Meredith Shriver's partnership with high school buddy, Del Van Horn, also a Greene County farmer.  Having served in the military during World War II, Shriver and Van Horn returned to their respective family farms.  Being good friends, they decided to become partners in some agricultural business as well as continuing to farm.

In 1948, the two started Shriver Van Horn Company, operating from Van Horn's father's store in Jefferson.  Fertilizer was hard to come by, much of it available only on the "black market".  But Shriver Van Horn Company got into the fertilizer business and had some of the first dry fertilizer spreader trucks in the area.

"If my memory serves me right, I think we hired a manager for the business when we hit $100,000 in gross sales," said Shriver.  "With both of us farming, as well as working in the business, we decided at that level of volume we needed someone to look after the business for us.  Since we were both farming with our fathers, they might have had something to say about it also."

In the early 50's, the company was moved to its present location on McKinley Street, just off north Highway 4 in Jefferson.  At that time, in addition to the dry fertilizer, feed and chemical business, Shriver Van Horn Company took on Behlen Building distributorship for the state and they also pioneered the use of portable grain dryers in the area, a product also manufactured by Behlen.

"Grain storage was the name of the game in the early 50's", Shriver explained.  "The government farm programs encouraging storage became very important, and building grain storage with the Behlen distributorship is what launched our construction business.  We built the huge flat storage in 1959 that still is used at the West Central Jefferson site.  That was at the time, one of, if not the largest building of it's kind in the state."

With the passing of the grain storage building boom, Shriver and Van Horn dissolved their partnership and it is now operating as Shriver Construction Company in general construction work.  At its peak times, Shriver Construction Company will employ up to 150 people, similar to the number employed during the days of building Behlen bins.  But today, Shriver builds churches, schools, factories, apartment buildings, offices and almost any type of structure built.  Shriver has office buildings and apartment complexes across the central part of the state which he manages, in addition to his farming and construction work.

"Mrs. Shriver, Kathryn, handles the management of the apartment complexes," said Shriver, referring to his wife, "and she takes care of all the book work for the farm operation.  She also handles the daily operations at the Escadrille Motor Inn.  That is a restaurant, lounge and motel we have which is located in Perry."

The Shrivers are the parents of four children, all of whom are grown and out on their own.  The oldest daughter is Dian, a registered landscape architect who lives with her husband Gary in Farmington, Connecticut.  Next comes daughter Rhonda, a certified athletic and medical trainer.  She and husband Sam have recently moved to Lafayette, Indiana, where she is with the Sports-Medical Clinic.  Son Scott, a construction engineer, lives in Austin, Texas.  Daughter Dana, also a construction engineer, lives in Sioux City.

Shriver operates a 900 acre farming operation in Greene County in addition to all his other interests with the help of farm manager, Pat Zmolek, a graduate of Kirkwood College and his associate, Rich Pearson.  Shriver raises corn and soybeans and is quite active in the actual operation doing all the planting and some other field work.   He does admit, however, to looking more to Pat and Rich in the future, especially after examining a new combine.

"I buy all the supplies I can from West Central and West Central gets all our grain," Shriver said.  "I'm on the crop consulting program and its been good for the farm and me.  I get excellent service, quality products and sound advice at West Central.  There's no need to go elsewhere!"

Shriver is a unique individual.  His good nature and outgoing personality strike a feeling of comfort with this man of many direction.  You can tell by his way that the tough times in agriculture and business won't get to him.  West Central is pleased to have him as a loyal and supportive member, customer, and friend.