Menu
Chamber honors Buzzi, Jack’s, Phil the Need
A longtime local business and a pair of relative upstarts were honored Saturday night by the Putnam County Chamber of Commerce Saturday evening.
Buzzi Unicem was named Large Business of the Year 2019, while Jack’s Trash Service was named Small Business of the Year and Phil the Need took home Non-Profit of the Year honors.
Buzzi Unicem USA, or Lone Star Industries as it was known to generations of local residents, will celebrate 100 years in operation later in 2020.
The quarry and cement plant has employed thousands of local workers over that time.
However, in announcing Buzzi as the 2020 Large Business of the Year, Chamber Director Kathy Morgan of Endeavor Communications focused on recent efforts and community involvement by the local plant of the international company.
“They helped with the Clean City Day that was brought back this year and they helped with the Mural Project celebration,” Morgan said. “They are supporting the Next Level Trails grant for the city of Greencastle. They give out free trees for Earth Day and at the Farmers Market.”
Morgan went on to point out Buzzi’s sponsorship of the Earth Day 5K and its physical and financial support of People Pathways.
From a sustainability perspective, in 2019 Buzzi Unicem was both a Wildlife Habitat Council Gold Award winner and a PCA Energy and Environmental Land Stewardship Award winner.
Of course, Morgan also pointed out what many people around the city know Buzzi for -- those blasts that occasionally rattle windows around the city.
Buzzi Unicem representatives Tim Menke and Bob West accepted the award.
Menke explained how Buzzi’s work in Greencastle supports the cement markets in Indiana, Illinois and much of Michigan.
He thanked the community for its support and announced the plant will host an open house in June as part of the 100th anniversary celebration.
The other finalists for Large Business of the Year included Walmart Distribution and Crown Equipment.
A new business by comparison, Jack’s Trash was founded just over 10 years ago in 2009.
Since then, Jack Scanland has seen his business grow by leaps and bounds, having expanded into two more counties in 2019 as well as starting Jack’s Trucking Co.
Chamber President Beau Battin shared some of Jack’s other recent accomplishments, noting that the company helped bring back the Greencastle City Cleanup Project, bringing out “dumpster after dumpster so people could clean up their homes and the city for free.”
Jack’s also helped sponsor the Mural Project party, brought Santa to the Putnam County Courthouse, helped with Greencastle Music Fest and Taste of Putnam County and sponsored a number of youth sports teams.
“When asked, what do you want people to know about your company, they said, ‘We are a family-owned and run business that considers their employees and their customers to be part of their family,’” Battin said.
Scanland then proved it by bringing five others onstage with him in when he accepted the award.
He said he had two goals in life, besides raising the family that surrounded him, to be his own boss and an small-town business man.
“It all started right here,” Scanland said of Greencastle and the several-hundred community members in attendance. “The best advertising we can get is word of mouth and it’s because of the people in this room we have gotten where we are today.”
The other finalists for Small Business of the Year were Wasser Brewing Co. and Kirsch Family Dentistry.
Chamber Executive Director Brian Cox had the honor of announcing the three finalists for Non-Profit of the Year, announcing that of more than 300 in the county, the top non-profit of 2019 would be chosen from among Phil the Need, CastleMakers and the Putnam County Mural Project Committee.
Based on its basic goal of helping those in need, Cox announced that Phil the Need was the winner.
“Phil the Need was developed purely out of need for the basics,” Cox said. “When some families are working hard to get back up on their feet after dealing with maybe a fire, death in the family, loss of job or just life events that didn’t work out in a positive way, Phil the Need is there to make sure they have a bed and mattress to sleep on.”
Cox added that the basic needs may also include pots and pans or plates and glasses.
Phil the Need founder Ruth Myers also started the Tools for School program that distributes tennis shoes and backpacks filled with school supplies to more than 500 students at the start of the school year.
Phil the Need also served more than 184 families including 475 kids through the Giving Tree program.
“This is all done by volunteers with big hearts,” Myers said.
In accepting the award, Myers didn’t take all the credit for herself, calling her fellow big-hearted volunteer Susan Gick onstage during her speech.
She also credited the community that has supported the effort from the beginning.
“It’s like a god-given thing,” Myers said. “Sometimes I get a call saying, ‘I’d like to give a couch.’ And then five minutes later, I get a call saying, ‘I don’t have anything. I need a couch.’
“Without this community helping my dreams of helping people, we couldn’t do what we do.”