Strong relationships help Ideker Incorporated pave the road to success.
March 1 is the unofficial beginning of the paving season for Ideker, which performs asphalt and concrete construction throughout the Kansas City area. Year after year, growth has been strong. Between 2013 and 2023, Ideker’s annual revenue doubled from $68 million to $142 million, according to Adam Miljavac, the company’s controller.
The secret to Ideker’s success?
Since Welton Ideker first entered the construction business in 1947, the company’s leaders have had a knack for recognizing smart business opportunities and seizing upon them. When the Missouri River flooded in 1952, the St. Joseph, Missouri-based company shifted gears to build and repair levees along the Missouri and Kansas Rivers. With the birth of the interstate highway system a few years later, Ideker pivoted to road construction.
Today, under the third generation of family leadership, Ideker completes about 25 major highway construction and paving projects per year. A multi-year $80 million concrete paving project — the largest in the company’s history — was recently completed at the new Kansas City International Airport Terminal. The company also operates a rock quarry and four asphalt plants.
“The kind of growth Ideker is experiencing does not occur in a vacuum,” says Miljavac. “When you look at what our company has accomplished and the path we’re now on, you realize we couldn’t have achieved our success without the help of our valued financial partners,” he says. “Commerce Bank is one of them.”
Commerce has served as Ideker’s bank since 1978. For most of that time, the bank provided day-to-day treasury services and a line of credit that the company could lean on during the early days of each construction season when cash flow is tight. Commerce Trust Company, meanwhile, supported Ideker’s investment needs.
In more recent years, the bank’s role has expanded to address the company’s evolving needs. For example, when company leaders decided to sell materials from its rock and asphalt operations to commercial contractors, Commerce arranged for the company to accept credit card payments. Card acceptance not only helped simplify payments processing, it also put an immediate stop to bad checks.
The addition of a Commerce-managed lockbox provided Ideker with a faster, more efficient way to receive payments from its traditional construction clients.
“The lockbox enabled us to cut a step out of the process by having checks go straight to the bank, rather than our office,” says Miljavac. “Payments hit our account a day or two sooner than they used to, which benefits our cash flow.”
The company is also issuing far fewer paper checks than it once did, thanks to the automation of its accounts payable system. Since 2016, Ideker has paid some vendors electronically using a virtual credit card from Commerce, earning a revenue share in the process.
“Commerce has done a good job of helping to increase vendor participation, maximizing the value of this program to us. We have a strong foundation with Commerce.”
Adam Miljavac | Ideker Incorporated Controller
“We meet and discuss our business’ pain points and challenges, and they offer solutions like these that address our problems. They give us the attention we need.”
“We have recently witnessed what can happen when banks don’t make good decisions. If we were unable to access our funds, we could not operate our business,” says Miljavac. “That’s another reason we like the relationship we’ve built with Commerce. More than ever, it’s good to work with a bank that is trustworthy and dependable.”
