For Tom Kelley, the chance to meet colleagues and peers in Europe, Asia and the Middle East during his overseas visits as chairman of the PCI, was an opportunity to open his eyes on new technologies worldwide and evaluate the state of the precast industry in North America, where he has worked for over 30 years. The rebounding of the market after the harsh economic recession, gave the whole Gage Brothers team the opportunity to seriously consider the option of a new plant, paving the way for an important technological innovation focusing on a fundamental growing concept in the precast industry: the automation of the production process.
Gage Brothers, established in 1915 by William Gage Sr. and Harold Gabel, started his operations pouring sidewalks and small concrete elements in Sioux Falls (SD) and expanded its activity with the sequence of the following generations of Gage family. Throughout the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, the company expanded the business in the pre-stressed concrete industry, focusing on concrete beams or girders and into the bridge girder business: the growth of the company business proceeded simultaneously with the evolution of construction systems in the USA in those years, showing in a clear way the connection between the company expansion and the historical period.