MWP dinner hones in on sharing the vision

A longtime Greenfield business and a business new to Stuart were each highlighted in detail during presentations at the 2025 Midwest Partnership Economic Development Annual Dinner held Thursday, Jan. 30 in Casey.

In 2024, Cardinal IG’s Greenfield plant celebrated its 50th anniversary. At the same time, Kwik Star was built and opened on the southeast side of the Interstate 80 interchange at Stuart.

Cardinal IG

Steve Bricker, Cardinal IG Greenfield Plant Manager, shared the vision of Roger O’Shaughnessy, CEO of Cardinal Glass Industries, and Company officials to locate a Cardinal insulating glass plant in the Midwest region of the United States. In May 1973, officials toured five communities, then returned to Des Moines for dinner. Each official wrote their community of choice on a napkin. Greenfield was the unanimous vote.

John Schildberg sold 50 acres of land for an industrial site location. Cardinal Glass moved quickly with many local financial supporters and the community. O’Shaughnessy was impressed by the warmth of the Greenfield community and the amenities it provided. Cardinal broke ground for a new facility in June 1973 and started in production by January 1974.

Today, 50 years later, Cardinal IG’s Greenfield plant is 650,000 square feet in size, under one roof, employing 500 people, operating seven automated production lines, two tempering furnaces and glass cutting operation. Cardinal Glass Industries’ own Automation Group (Cardinal AG) has patented robotic and automated equipment and technology utilized for the manufacturing of insulating glass units.

In the past year, Cardinal Greenfield produced 27,328,325 sq. ft. of insulating glass units, equal to covering 627 acres of land. In 2025, there are only a handful of companies who produce insulating glass. Cardinal is the only national manufacturer of insulating glass. There is some form of Cardinal glass in 70% of residential homes in the United States.

“Since the start of Cardinal, our mantra hasn’t changed: take care of our people, safety is number one, and we want our business spinning like a Merry-Go-Round, so fast that our competition can’t jump on,” Bricker said. “Roger O’Shaughnessy is a big fan of 60 Minutes, but we don’t want to be on 60 Minutes.”

Cardinal Greenfield shares O’Shaughnessy’s vision building the best insulating glass units in the world.

Kwik Star

Opening in Stuart in October, Kwik Star has been pleased to be in Adair County.

Peter Nolte, a Certified Training Store Leader in the La Crosse, Wisconsin-based company’s Clive location, has been working with Kwik Star for nine years. He has worked in a dozen stores with six of those spots being as Store Leader. Kwik Star goes by Kwik Trip in states other than Iowa.

Kwik Trip employs over 39,000 co-workers with 880 stores. Stuart is what the company refers to as a Generation 3 store that has over 9,200 square feet with 40-60 co-workers per store.

The company prides itself on its people, its product and being vertically-integrated, meaning it produces many of the tools and products needed for the company to be successful.

The company’s mission statement focuses on people and being better than any other company at treating customers, co-workers and suppliers how they would like to be treated.

“I will start out by saying that many companies will have a mission statement, but I will say that I am thankful, from the bottom of my heart, to work for a company that doesn’t just have a mission statement on a wall somewhere, they and we live it,” Nolte said. “Our co-workers know it, our leaders know it and we live by it.”

Nolte said two important pieces of the company’s mission statement are to be servant-minded and to make a difference in someone’s life.

One story Nolte shared to illustrate that told of a man who came back to the store to complain about a gallon of milk he thought he had bought at the store that was rotten. The employee could see that the milk had been bought elsewhere but she gave him two free gallons of milk to replace the rotten milk anyway, even taking his lecturing. In the end, the wife found out what her husband had done and made him go back and apologize. The employee said she saw it more important for her to win the guest in the store than the argument.

The other story was about a young boy who came in with his mother daily for chocolate milk and a donut. One day, the boy came home from school but his mother wasn’t home yet, and there was severe weather in the area. The boy saw the Kwik Trip as a safe place and ran to it just in time to take cover with the workers, who kept him safe in shelter in the store’s bathroom until the storm passed and his mother could pick him up.

“Day in and day out, as our guests are coming into us, it isn’t just for the smokes, Cokes, for a sandwich or chicken,” Nolte said. “They want to come to a place where they’re welcome that they can enjoy.”