116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Modern puts its stamp on major industrial, commercial projects
Cedar Rapids mechanical contractor, founded in 1939, employs 500
CEDAR RAPIDS — Bob Brown, age 32, is the CEO of Modern, a growing Cedar Rapids company employing 500 and putting its stamp on major industrial and commercial developments in Iowa and beyond.
Brown, of Solon, took over the 85-year-old, family-owned company about 18 months ago, when his father, David Brown Jr., the company’s president, and his uncle, Ken Brown, the company’s CEO, decided he was ready to lead the company and they were ready to retire.
"We are a big company, but we work really hard at maintaining it as a family company while going through all the changes,“ Brown said. ”I think we are on the right track. A lot of generations of a lot of families worked a lot of years at Modern. That's really special to me.“
Jason Miller is president of Modern.
The company was founded in 1939 by Leon Leoni. Brown’s grandfather, David Brown Sr., bought the company, then known as Modern Piping, from Wayne Kinney in 1985. The name has been shortened to Modern, reflecting its growing diversification.
Bob Brown, an engineering science graduate of Wartburg College in Waverly, joined Modern in March 2014, took a break in Colorado while his wife went to graduate school, and returned in 2020 as president of ithe company’s sheet metal division.
What Modern does
The Cedar Rapids-based company, at 500 Walford Rd. SW, has three other offices in Iowa — in Des Moines, Dubuque and the Quad Cities — and one in Minnesota.
It specializes in commercial, industrial and institutional plumbing, piping, sheet metal/HVAC, refrigeration, compressed air and service needs. It covers all the bases — from design and fabrication of large systems to their installation and maintenance and repair.
Modern’s strategic goals for the future, Brown said, call for “investing more in marketing development (elsewhere) than in the past.“
The company, Brown said, is “on the cutting edge. We are the third largest in Iowa. There are two in Des Moines that are bigger. We are active nationwide. We are innovative. One of our core values is being the leading mechanical contractor in the Midwest.”
The company’s values, he said, include “integrity, doing the right thing. We're not perfect, but we try to make things right" if there is a problem. That approach, he added, is a key factor in Modern's success.
And successful, it is. Modern’s total revenue in 2023 was about $130 million, and Brown thinks the company will top that this year.
Sub-Zero, UI
Right now, the company has two huge jobs underway — the new Sub-Zero plant in Cedar Rapids and the University of Iowa's new Health Sciences building in Iowa City. Each is about a $30 million job for Modern.
Sub-Zero, a Wisconsin-based appliance manufacturer, is building a $141 million, 614,000-square-foot plant at 10015 Sixth St. SW, just northwest of Modern's 10-year old facility near The Eastern Iowa Airport.
It’s Sub-Zero's first plant in Iowa. It anticipates hiring 200 people when the plant opens in 2025.
“Spring of '25 is when it should be done,“ Brown said. ”That building is a quarter-mile long.“
Modern's building is 100,000 square feet with frontage overlooking Interstate 380. A county road abuts the property to the south, and Sixth Street SW is to the rear.
Brown would like to add 20,000 square feet to Modern's building for more fabrication and production space, but not enough land is available. He said he asked Sub-Zero officials about buying some land from its site, but that company declined.
Modern and the University of Iowa have been in court for the past seven years over work Modern did on the Stead Family Children’s Hospital. It won $16 million from the university but in April lost another $12.8 million it had sought in a dispute over construction delays at the hospital.
Brown said the company's relations with the university have improved, as evidenced by the company's $30 million contract for the new $249 million Health Sciences Academic Building now under construction.
Welding robot
Brown said Modern now does much more in-house fabrication of piping and sheet metal for better quality control. The finished product is shipped for installation by the customer or Modern employees can do it. The company has installation crews across the country.
The work involves a lot of welding.
To aid employees and increase production, Modern bought and installed a very large spot welding robot to work on piping. The half-million-dollar robot doesn't do all the welding, but it comes in handy.
Brown said Modern’s human welders tell him their backs “feel a lot better” since the robot was added.
Not all the work shows a profit, Brown said.
“There are times when we pay to build projects — where we lose money,” he said. The reasons vary, he said, but one big one was COVID-19, which sent material prices skyrocketing.
AC tube cleaning
Modern also has a contract to assemble an innovative air conditioning tube cleaning system invented and marketed by Innovas Technologies of Coralville. The company’s Helios Tube Cleaning System is being installed in the Middle East and is already in place at U.S. businesses and universities.
The Helios system eliminates the “fouling” of air-conditioning tubes, optimizing the operation of chilled water plants. The system works by injecting cleaning balls — small sponges — in the entry point of heat exchanger tubes.
The sponges, pushed through the tubes at programmed intervals, continuously clean the insides of the tubes, eliminating bio scale and preventing deposits from accumulating. The process lowers maintenance costs, improves efficiency and significantly reduces carbon footprints.
Innovas President Chuck Dirks told The Gazette in February that Modern has become “integral to our success.”
National TV
Brown and others from Modern were recently featured on “Viewpoint with Dennis Quaid,” a TV program on the Fox Business news network.
The show features groundbreaking companies, innovations and influential people. Modern representatives discussed the company's history, its products and its industry impact.
“They reached out to us,“ Brown said. ”Not sure how they knew of us. Perhaps our new marketing efforts.“
The program sent a crew to Modern to do the interviews, Brown said, but Quaid wasn’t there.
Brown thinks the television segment, which can be viewed on Modern’s website, “will be good marketing material that we can use to educate young people about the trade.”
Young workers needed
Modern's CEO does not foresee business slowing down in his industry, but he does have a concern.
“Our workforce is aging,” Brown said. ”The big challenge is to get more younger people into apprenticeships, but that is starting to turn around.“
Modern give tours to middle and high school students aimed at interesting them in the field after they finish school.
“Building for the next generation is our vision,” Brown said.
History
Leo Leoni founded Modern Refrigeration in Cedar Rapids in 1939. In 1957, Wayne Kinney started the company’s plumbing and heating division. He became a shareholder in 1959, and the company’s name was changed to Modern Plumbing Heating Refrigeration & A/C.
In 1963, Modern merged with Puth Plumbing to become Modern & Puth. In 1971, Kinney became the owner of Modern Piping Inc. Kinney retired in 1985 and sold the company to Dave Brown Sr.
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