Cleveland-Cliffs, North America’s biggest flat-rolled steel company, is a leading supplier of automotive-grade steel. When the company broke ground for its Direct Reduction facility in Toledo a few years back, the expansive construction project involved some significant concrete pours. One continuous pour required more than 4,900 cubic yards of ready mix in a single day.

Meeting such an aggressive timeframe would require deploying every mixer truck in the company’s extensive fleet—along with some third-party vehicles—and ensuring just-in-time delivery of every load to the job site.

“It was a huge logistical challenge, and the pour took over twelve hours to complete,” recalls Kuhlman Corporation’s Kevin Tresso, a concrete dispatcher on the Cleveland-Cliffs project. “But we got it done successfully.”

Kevin began working at Gerken as a mixer driver for Williams Concrete in 2014. He planned to leave following his first season to search for year-round employment. But he readily accepted an offer to join the ready-mix dispatch team full-time.

As a dispatcher, Kevin arranges transportation for ready-mix products from Kuhlman, M&R Ready Mix, Inc., and Williams Concrete, Inc. From his desk in the Maumee office, he takes customer orders over the phone, schedules shipments for delivery, and dispatches loaded mixer trucks.

What Kevin appreciates most about being a dispatcher is interacting with people. Whether getting to know repeat customers through phone conversations or communicating with drivers via radio, he has established several enduring friendships over the years.

Family Values

Kevin grew up in Toledo, Ohio. He attended Bowsher High School and studied Marketing at the University of Toledo. His early jobs included internet sales for a local powersports dealership and a brief truck-driving stint transporting new cars from factories to showrooms.

Kevin enjoys spending time with his ten-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter. They like going out to dinner, swimming, watching movies, playing video and board games, and spending the day at Cedar Point.

It might surprise Kevin’s coworkers that he speaks Japanese, having taken four years of Japanese in high school. While at Bowsher, he had the opportunity to spend two weeks in Japan, where he lived with a host family and attended school. The experience formed his love for traveling.

Kevin says his maternal grandparents were the most significant influences in his life. “They showed me everything I needed to know,” he says. “They were always there for me.”

One of the countless things his grandfather taught Kevin was a strong work ethic. In addition to being a foreperson for the Ottawa Hills street department, he played Santa Claus at Woodville Mall for twenty-five Christmas seasons.

“He was great with kids,” declares Kevin. “To this day, I’ll visit a friend’s home and see photos of them as children with Santa. More often than not, they are sitting on my grandfather’s lap in the photo.”

A Bigger Family

Kevin recalls being apprehensive when learning that Kuhlman was joining the Gerken family of companies. He knew of mergers at other businesses where cultures clashed, resulting in us-versus-them conflicts. However, he describes the transition as seamless.

“We heard promises that nothing would change for the worse, and those promises proved authentic,” says Kevin. “What changes there were have all been positive.”

Looking back, Kevin reflects on how new team members immediately began learning from each other. “We’re one big family now. Rather than feeling as if we were acquired, I feel as if I acquired siblings.”

Every day as a dispatcher offers Kevin unique challenges and constant variety. And each moment with his children presents an opportunity to share an invaluable lesson his grandparents taught him. For someone whose job is helping others get where they need to be, he finds himself in an ideal place.