Republic launches Midwest expansion plan in Des Moines

The Republic Companies – a 107-year-old bedrock Quad Cities business – is poised to expand across the Midwest starting with a new state-of-the-art distribution and training center it’s preparing to open this summer in Des Moines. The third-generation, family-owned company has been riding a wave of momentum and growing its divisions in size, quality, talent […]

The Republic Companies – a 107-year-old bedrock Quad Cities business – is poised to expand across the Midwest starting with a new state-of-the-art distribution and training center it’s preparing to open this summer in Des Moines. The third-generation, family-owned company has been riding a wave of momentum and growing its divisions in size, quality, talent and impact, Republic President Mark Kilmer says. These days, the Davenport company employs 100 people after nearly doubling its staff in a little more than a decade. And that total is before Republic’s new 22,500-square-foot Des Moines branch is fully staffed.

That new facility, slated to open Aug. 17, also is helping lay the groundwork for the significant growth its leaders predict will spread Republic’s footprint and its signature red trucks far beyond central and eastern Iowa, western Illinois and southern Wisconsin.  The QCBJ spoke with Mr. Kilmer shortly after his family’s QC-based company got the keys to its newest operation. “The opportunity that is up in Des Moines is just really exciting,” he said. “Now we’re in Cedar Rapids and we’re in Dubuque and we’re in Peoria.” Those locations are all full distribution centers he said “but nothing like we’re building in Des Moines. We’re going all out up there because we just feel that the opportunity is enormous.” That high-tech, high-end warehouse location will be very different from Republic’s home at 737 Charlotte St. on the edge of downtown Davenport. That urban campus sprawls across five acres of property and contains what Mr. Kilmer called about “110,000 inefficient square feet” spread over multiple buildings. Importantly, too, the Des Moines expansion is part of a larger, more ambitious Midwest-wide strategy that will be powered in part by investments from Graycliff Partners, a specialty investment firm that Republic says “helps family businesses like ours continue to independently grow and maximize their full potential.”

Private investor signs on

In a Businesswire news release announcing the deal in late March, Brandon Martindale, a Graycliff partner, said this about Republic: “We’re excited to partner with the Republic team to support existing initiatives and capitalize on growth opportunities, while prioritizing the exceptional customer-oriented culture that has been the cornerstone of the company’s strong reputation in the region for over 100 years.”

Family has been at the core of Republic’s culture since it was founded and its leaders work to maintain that by hiring employees who have been carefully vetted via a long interview process, Mr. Kilmer said. For example, he said its leaders use “predictive index testing and screening because we really do like to try to find the cultural fit so it’s not just a job, it’s an opportunity to be an entrepreneur and to move forward with a company that you care about, which we think is one of our secrets to success.” Todd Wade, president of Republic’s mechanical division, is one of that system’s success stories. A decade ago, he was hired after interviewing nine times. Because of that process – and after initially applying for a less challenging information technology role – Mr. Wade was hired instead as Republic’s chief information officer. That initial role and his current one was expanded to include helping get the historic company ready to embrace a rapidly changing future. During that selection process, Mr. Wade added “It was really clear that it’s a special company.” And it made him eager to tackle Mr. Kilmer’s challenge to keep the tradition of a 107-year-old family business while creating one that looks and is modern.  The family at the core of Republic’s tradition dates back to the first owner Joseph S. Kimmel, Sr., and it includes more than its own employees, Mr. Kilmer told the QCBJ. “It’s also many times our dealers and their families,” he said. “We’ve very protective of that family,” he said of his customers and employees. That’s why the leadership team chose their investment partner so carefully, he added. Republic had a number of options, but opted for Graycliff, he said, because the partnership “specializes in helping high, value-added, long-term family businesses that have a long track record. So it’s right in our wheelhouse.”  Essentially, he added, “all they are is a private investor to help us grow.”  Details of the financial transaction were not disclosed. The deal also means that those currently driving the company and its expansion are members of the leadership team led by Mr. Kilmer. 

The president’s own roots in this legacy family business run deep. As a youth, the son of former Quad-City Times Editor (later Scott County Board Supervisor) Forrest Kilmer cut the grass at Republic and pulled weeds at the Kimmel family farm.  While attending Davenport Central High School, Mark Kilmer met and fell in love with his future wife Kathy Kimmel, the daughter of then Republic President Joseph S. Kimmel, Jr. They later attended Iowa State University where Mr. Kilmer was recruited to join the management training program at Chevron Corp. in California. The Kilmers remained in California until 1981 when Mr. Kilmer said “I was given a phenomenal opportunity to join Kathy’s father in the business.”  He eventually took over as president in 1998 succeeding his late father-in-law who died on July 26, 2002. Mr. Kilmer has held the job ever since and has no plans to leave the company any time soon. “I’ll be 65 soon so the day-to-day running of the company may change,” Mr. Kilmer told the QCBJ. “We have a management transition succession plan and we’re very blessed to have phenomenal staff and a good group in leadership that will take this place” to the next level, he said. “I can’t tell you how excited I am about where we’re headed, so I will clearly be involved in some capacity, but not in running the day-to-day operation,” he said.

Looking ahead, honoring past

These days, Mr. Kilmer’s focus remains on preparing for the future while continuing to honor Republic Companies’ rich past. It’s a history of technological innovation punctuated by ambition, inspiration, perseverance and community service that’s on display on its website and in three rooms of one of its warehouses on its Davenport campus. Items include an old Delco light plant and an ancient Frigidaire.  “Our industry has really, really changed. So if you look at a 107-year-old business you have to constantly reinvent yourself to figure out where you’re going and not just sit on your laurels,” Mr. Kilmer said. That’s what the senior Mr. Kimmel did. “One-hundred-seven years ago when Mr. Kimmel, Sr. started the business, rural Americans had no electricity,” Mr. Kilmer said. “All the electricity was in the cities.” At the time, Joseph Kimmel, Sr. was working for National Cash Register Co. When the opportunity arose to pick up a Delco franchise, he borrowed $5,000 from his two sisters and opened a Delco Light Plant Distributorship to sell power plants to farms. “He then built a sales organization and they literally then took electricity to rural America,” Mr. Kilmer said. “They sold thousands and thousands and thousands of generators and then from there, they sold the appliances.” They peddled their product everywhere including at county fairs. As a result, Mr. Kilmer said, “they really were the shining light so to speak of a lot of farmers in Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa.” When power lines – then known as highlines – came in 1936, Republic had to pivot. “You couldn’t sell Delco light plants anymore,” Mr. Kilmer said. “They weren’t needed.”  So the senior Mr. Kimmel created a new business working with electrical contractors to build houses and industries and he expanded into refrigeration. That  proved critical and profitable when steamboats ruled the rivers in the 1920s. “You can’t look backward and they didn’t look backward,” Mr. Kilmer said. “Hopefully, we’re not looking backward; we’re looking forward.” Republic is doing that at what might seem a rapid pace to the company’s conservative founder and his son, Mr. Kilmer’s father-in-law. “They loved their employees; they loved their customers; they just didn’t spend any money,” he said.

Change has been a constant

That’s not surprising given the challenging times that confronted both of these pioneering businessmen and community leaders. “Look at when Mr. Kimmel (Sr.) started the business. It was on the eve of WWI,” Mr. Kilmer said. That was followed soon by a Spanish Flu outbreak that killed millions. “Just move through history, go to the Great Depression and then World War II and all those things they had to deal with and the economy and the national wars and the Vietnam War and just to continue to run the family business through those unbelievable times,” he marveled. “What they did back then I think they were very visionary and looked to the future.” That’s also what Republic has been doing since it began its modern-day expansion with the addition of a location in Dubuque, Iowa, in 2003.  “We called it a twig because (his wife) Kathy’s grandfather said he didn’t want to expand until he fully understood how to get one of his facilities running perfectly,” Mr. Kilmer told the QCBJ. “So we didn’t call it a branch in the beginning out of respect to that heritage.” The company later added “a twig” when it bought a company in Peoria, Illinois, in 2014, and another in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 2019. Now it is launching the innovative Des Moines operation. “When we started to add twigs it was pretty pivotal,” Mr. Kilmer said. “We obviously needed to build more turf and continue to grow with a large market share and we’ve been able to do that conservatively but successfully in the last 15-20 years by adding new product lines, and new technology,” he added. “Now we have our sights set on the entire Midwest. We have some pretty ambitious plans,” he said along with a young and aggressive management team to lead the Republic family into the future. As technology continues to change in refrigeration, heating and cooling and lighting technology and energy production such as wind power, opportunities for expansion will continue to increase for Republic and other businesses that don’t just sell products, but offer service and training to their dealers, contractors and industrial customers, Mr. Kilmer said. “Republic has always been known for their very extensive training of the customer base,” he said. “That’s continuing and now that things have gotten so technical that it’s even more important; there’s not a lot of do-it-yourselves putting in their own furnaces.” “It just goes to show you that there are plenty of opportunities,” he said. “You just can’t rest on your laurels.”