GAS — All the prep work behind opening Hammerson Ready Mix is done.
A newly rebuilt concrete batch plant has been in place at the old 54 Drive-In complex for more than a month.
Now, partners Jared Hammond and Corey Emerson — the “Hamm” and “erson” — are ready for customers.
“It’s a matter of trying to get our names out there,” Emerson said. “A lot of people don’t know we’re open yet.”
Hammerson Ready Mix came about following a brief conversation with a concrete provider in Chelsea, Okla.
“He had a lot of other things going on, so he shut down his plant a few years ago,” Emerson said. “We’ve known him for years, and we asked if he’d be willing to sell it. He was.”
So in the dead of winter, Emerson, Hammond and crew spent about three weeks disassembling the plant in Chelsea, and reassembling it on the old drive-in lot.
“It was a little more work than I thought it was going to be,” Emerson said. “It was harder to take it down than it was to put it back up.”
Hammerson transports within a 40-mile radius — as far as Fort Scott, Chanute, Yates Center and Garnett — with orders large and small.
While passersby formerly noticed the iconic drive-in screen — taken down after the old drive-in closed for good in 2009 — now, they notice the towering, 100-foot batch plant, where cement, water and other aggregate are mixed in any of nine different types.
“We have nine different mixes,” Emerson explained.
A state-of-the-art control system creates the different mixes with a single computer command.
Hammerson offers up deliveries seven days a week, with a fleet of five trucks.
Assisting Emerson and Hammond are drivers John Nelson, Darren Sellman and Jason Newman.
Both Hammond and Emerson have other full-time jobs, Hammond in the oil fields and Emerson with Double E Trucking.
