Madison Concrete Pipe owes its longevity to family members who answered 'the call'
By Pamela Cotant
Madison Concrete Pipe owes its status as a fourth-generation business twice to the way family members responded when they got “the call” to join the company.
Greg Glynn was living in Michigan and working for a tuxedo rental company when his father-in-law, Dick Henshaw, the second generation at the company, called to see if he was interested in working at Madison Concrete Pipe.
“I was having fun over there in Michigan. It was a good job,” said Glynn, who had married the former Peggy Henshaw about four years earlier.
But Glynn saw it as a chance to move back to Madison where he and his wife grew up.
Glynn, who graduated from Edgewood High School and attended Western Michigan University where he studied marketing, was 29 when he started on-the-job-training in 1976, learning everything about the business from the ground up.
The business was founded in 1954 by Dick Henshaw and his father-in-law, Harry Steiro. It was originally called Steiro Engineering and made pipe machines. The company started to get into the manufacturing of pipes and the name was changed to Madison Concrete Pipe. Today it is a growing manufacturer and supplier of storm water drainage products and sanitary sewer man-holes. A new plant was built on its site about two years ago.
The company is a founding member of the UW Madison Family Business Center.
When Steiro died, Henshaw took over, and when he retired around 2003, Glynn became president of the company, located on the East Side at 3725 Lexington Ave.
Work at Madison Concrete Pipe is too dangerous to have someone start there young. But Glynn’s oldest child, Ryan, would often hang around on Saturdays, eating doughnuts purchased for those who came in and buzzing around the company’s 13 acres on a golf cart.
Ryan Glynn, who graduated from Edgewood High School and then from UW-Eau Claire with a degree in marketing, had in the back of his mind that he might work for the family business one day. But it wasn’t discussed much.
“I didn’t want them to think this is where they had to end up,” Greg Glynn said of his four children.
Ryan Glynn got “the call” while working in St. Paul as a manager for Enterprise Rent-A-Car. He came to work for the business in 2000 at age 26.
“Greg simply called and said, ‘If you have some interest in working here, it would be a good time to come back,’” Ryan Glynn recalled.
Greg Glynn, now 61, thought it would make sense for his son to get on board to learn the business because it can take seven to eight years to learn every aspect of it.
“I liked the idea of working at the family business and I liked the idea of getting back to Madison,” said Ryan Glynn, now 34.
Greg and Peggy Glynn have three other children: a daughter, McKenzie, 32, and twins, Patrick and Katy, who are 28.
Ryan Glynn started at Madison Concrete Pipe in the plant, then went on to dispatch, before doing sales and some design work. Now he works on the production side of things where his responsibilities include overseeing operations to maintain efficiency and purchasing.
Greg Glynn said he enjoyed working for Henshaw.
“You couldn’t meet a nicer person,” he said. “It wasn’t like working with your father-in-law at all.”
Ryan Glynn, who shares similar personality traits with his father, said the two have always had a good relationship and working together has not changed that.
“If anything, we’re closer,” said the younger Glynn, who became an owner in 2004.
Ryan Glynn and his wife, Jane, have a daughter, Clara, who recently turned 1.
He said one advantage of working for his father is “you’ve got the ear of the president whenever you want it.”
The two will resolve issues by talking them out as part of a management team that includes two other owners: Bill Gardner and John Weinberger.
“If we don’t agree, we will try his way and if it doesn’t work, we will try my way,” Greg Glynn said.
Other times, someone else’s idea will get a shot.
“If you get all facts and lay them out, the decision should make itself,” Ryan Glynn said.n
