They're all business: A year after closing firm, Swanson does industry consulting

0 Comments | La Crosse Tribune, Mar 29, 2005 | by Cahalan, Steve

Harold "Deak" Swanson and his company, Swanson's Heavy Moving Co. Inc., have had a hand in the construction of many La Crosse buildings.

But Swanson closed the LaCrosse construction and trucking company Feb. 7, 2004, and the business filed March 15, 2004, for Chapter 7 liquidation under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. It was time to close the business, and the bankruptcy filing was the best way to make sure that anyone owed money was paid, Swanson said.

Today, as he runs for the post, Swanson said his decades of experience as a businessman would help make him a good mayor.

"I've worked in the manholes in the city of La Crosse," he said. "I've crawled in the storm sewers. I've put water main in."

He was vice chairman of the La Crosse Common Council's Finance Committee for four years, dealing with industrial revenue bond issues, he said.

Swanson, 63, works part time as an industrial consultant and still is a member of real estate partnerships that own residential and commercial property in the La Crosse area. If elected mayor, he said, he will quit working as an industrial consultant.

In that job, he works mostly for manufacturers that he worked for in the past. He provides planning services for developing, expanding and maintaining plants.

Business began in 1912

Swanson's grandfather, Elmer A. Swanson, started Swanson's Heavy Moving in 1912. Deak's father, Harold Swansori Sr., later headed that company. Deak's mother, Ione, was a homemaker and a bookkeeper for the family business.

Swanson, who graduated from Logan High School in 1959, began working part time at the business when he was 12 or 13.

He and his construction and trucking company were involved in putting up many La Crosse-area buildings. For example, Deak Swanson was project coordinator, representing the owners, during construction of the Radisson Hotel, which opened in 1980. His company erected the structural steel for Valley View Mall.

Swanson's Heavy Moving was "tremendously successful," although rising fuel prices and increasingly tough tactics by some businesses had a negative effect in its last two years, Swanson said. "You'd bid a project and you're low bidder, and the next you're not low bidder" because the company taking the bids negotiated prices down, he explained.

He estimated Swanson's Heavy Moving had 35 to 40 employees when it closed.

Deciding firm's future

"I brought a company in in 2003 to look at the business and make some determinations, based on my age and whether my children were interested in continuing the business," Swanson said.

"And after having a management company look it over and meeting with my children (Derek, who worked part-time for him and operates another business of his own, and Josh, who worked full-time for his father), the decision was made that they weren't interested in committing the time that it took to take care of Swanson (the company) because of the kinds of services we offered."

For example, Swanson said, the company did a lot of factory maintenance work during plant shutdowns, which often were during holidays, Swanson said he sometimes would work a 14hour shift on a holiday.

"I was looking at lessening my hours," Swanson said. "Neither (son) wanted to commit 80 or 90 hours a week to operating the business," he said.

When he and his sons were discussing the future of the business, Swanson said, they told him "they remembered their mother bringing them up because I was always gone. And I didn't want that to happen with my grandchildren."

Owed half-million dollars

Swanson said his business was owed at least a half-million dollars when it closed. A bankruptcy filing was the best way to make sure it could collect the money it was owed, so its creditors in turn would be paid, he said.

When Swanson's Heavy Moving filed its Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition, it listed $2.01 million in assets and $1.15 million in liabilities - which included $821,100 owed to creditors holding secured claims, and $329,273 owed to creditors holding unsecured claims.

The largest claim, for $705,238, was filed in March 2004 by Coulee Bank, and was secured by the Swanson company's land and building at 2400 Hauser St.

With the approval of a bankruptcy judge, bankruptcy trustee Mel Hoffman sold the Hauser Street land and building to Richard Walz, owner of nearby WalzCraft Industries Inc., for $1.05 million on Feb. 28.

Whether all unsecured creditors receive the entire amount owed "is going to depend on some additional work I need to do on collecting" money owed to Swanson's Heavy Moving, Hoffman said. He added it is "certainly possible" everyone will receive the entire amount owed.

Money owed to Swanson's Heavy Moving can be collected much faster in bankruptcy court than if the company filed lawsuits in state court, Hoffman said.

The bankruptcy filing shouldn't affect voters' decisions on how to vote for mayor, said Dave Pretasky, who has known Swanson for years. Pretasky owns Dura-Tech Inc., a La Crosse screen-printing company, and is part owner of American Marine on French Island.