Keeping New Mexico Great -- The Washington Times -- A Dickinson Firm Makes History -- May 28, 2019

First-ever private border wall built in New Mexico by Dickinson, ND, firm. Pretty cool. 

Link to The Washington Times story here.

Screenshot from a reader:

"The biggest jet there is the Fisher corporate jet." Correction: "The biggest private jet is ONE of the Fisher corporate jets"  

From the linked article:

The section was also built faster and, organizers say, likely more cheaply than the government has been able to manage in recent years.

Kris Kobach, a former secretary of state in Kansas and an informal immigration adviser to President Trump, says the New Mexico project has the president’s blessing and says local Border Patrol agents are eager to have the assistance.

Construction began Friday and will be completed Tuesday, Mr. Kobach said. Tommy Fisher’s Fisher Sand & Gravel did the construction.

Mr. Fisher has been in the news recently with Mr. Trump suggesting repeatedly and publicly that the government should consider his outfit for future border wall construction.

He was one of the contractors selected in 2017 to build wall prototypes in San Diego. None of those prototypes was deemed contract-worthy, and Congress has forbidden the Border Patrol from using any of those designs anyway.

More recently Mr. Fisher announced he could build 234 miles of fencing at $1.4 billion — or about $6 million per mile. That’s about a quarter of the cost of Mr. Trump’s current fencing, which goes off at about $25 million per mile.

The half-mile in New Mexico cost $8 million, but Mr. Kobach said because part of it involved building on Mount Cristo Rey and involved moving a lot of dirt, that’s more expensive than most mileage would be.

2019, Hall of Famer, Pit and Quarry: Gene Fisher.

Born and raised on a farm in North Dakota, Gene Fisher was a problem solver with a knack for entrepreneurship and ingenuity. In 1952, at the age of just 24 years old, Fisher established Fisher Sand & Gravel Co. and laid the foundation for what would become one of the largest sand and gravel producers in the United States.

“Dad finished up with his high school education and people said ‘you became very successful without a college education,’” says Tommy Fisher, Gene’s son and the current president of Fisher Industries.

“He missed his high school picnic to screen gravel. Dad was always an entrepreneur.”

Gene, who died in 2013, realized that maintaining and repairing equipment was costly. Faced with a business challenge, he did what he was best at: solving problems.

Solution?

In 1967, Gene launched General Steel & Supply Co., the equipment support arm to Fisher Sand & Gravel.

This allowed him to be innovative when building custom and top-quality aggregate processing equipment.

“That was always Dad’s greatest move,” Tommy says of General Steel & Supply. “Crushing is an abusive sort of business. When you break rock, it’s hard on equipment. So when you have your own equipment and can build it a little more heavy duty, it makes you that much more successful.”

General Steel & Supply made it possible for Gene to design, fabricate, field-test, demonstrate, assemble and deliver custom equipment not just for Fisher Sand & Gravel, but also for aggregate companies throughout the industry.

Dickinson Growth: Needs ~ $200 Million In Infrastructure To Continue Growing

The Dickinson Press is reporting:

“We are basically at capacity right now in terms of our infrastructure,” said City Attorney Matt Kolling. “The $192 million in projects — the 27 projects that Mr. Kessel talked about — that is required in order for the city basically to service our current city limits, in order to extend out into some of those areas that have been annexed recently.

“We don’t have $192 million right now. We’re working with our bond council and some of our other lending authorities to raise some of that capital in order to put these projects in the ground, but until they’re put in the ground, most of those areas — new areas within the city — are not buildable because we don’t have the capacity for it.”

Two subdivisions, Buffalo Bend in north Dickinson and Medora Meadows in northwest Dickinson, received a continuance of final platting, per city staff recommendation at Wednesday morning’s meeting.

Dickinson't Could Double in Population by 2012 -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here.

By the end of 2012 the city is expected to nearly double.

Megan Lowry talks with city officials as they start to plan for the city future.

Last month the city has approved 36 new building permits making the total for this year 188. Last year only 136 were approved. [Compare with 727 for Williston this calendar year so far through September, 2011.]

The the first thing we need to look at is where are we at and where are we going and where we want to be and if thats not what we want how do we change the direction.

Actually, the first thing they need to do is work with professional lodging folks.

According to city officials, the two biggest concerns ar housing and traffic.

Third will be dust.