The Iowa Association of Business and Industry (ABI) and Elevate Iowa Manufacturing will recognize leaders in the field during the annual Legends in Manufacturing program on Oct. 14 in Des Moines, and this year, Marshalltown’s own Joe Carter, the president/CEO of MARSHALLTOWN Company, has been selected as the honoree among businesses with 100 to 300 employees.

Carter, who originally hails from northeast Iowa, started his professional career with General Motors, Rockwell International and MARSHALLTOWN’s Fayetteville, Ark. location after studying industrial engineering as an undergraduate before starting law school in 1990, graduating in 1993, spending a few years as a lawyer and then returning to MARSHALLTOWN — this time, at its namesake facility in Iowa — in 1995.

His wife Janelle, also an industrial engineer by trade, worked for MARSHALLTOWN for six years while Joe was going through law school.

“We just knew that MARSHALLTOWN had such a great brand name, great quality reputation, and it was such a good manufacturer already that there was a great foundation,” Joe said. “The Williams brothers, Jesse and Lester, then to Ralph, then, really Larry McComber, they were so into manufacturing. And all those guys were so incredibly detailed in what they did. It set up such a nice foundation, and it was easy, I’ll say, for me because we were able to hire all these great people and set up such great things that I really hoped we could do.”

Carter assumed the role of president/CEO in 1998, and with 27 years now under his belt, he’s closing in on the longevity of his predecessor McComber, who held his title from 1967 to 1998 and passed away in 2021. Growth has been a constant throughout the company’s history since its early days as Marshalltown Trowel, and Carter has accelerated that pace with a series of acquisitions of other tool companies, the construction of a new MARSHALLTOWN facility in Kansas City, Kan. and major expansions both here in Marshalltown and in Fayetteville.

“I firmly believe that what Larry had started, that we could continue to grow on and make bigger. He didn’t like acquisitions, and we try to do a lot of things organically and really have. But I felt like acquisition was a good part of what we wanted to do. We wanted to get a bigger breadth of different types of tools that really made us more relevant to those retailers that we’re doing business with,” Carter said.

Beyond his success with the company, Carter and his wife have been active members of the Marshalltown community through investments in the Willard/Hopkins buildings downtown, the development of rental housing and a wide range of charitable contributions to initiatives like the downtown ice rink and the renovation of the little league fields, to name a few.

“I think it’s important for our people and trying to have not only me being engaged, but as we become a lot bigger, having a lot more of our other teammates who are involved in the community doing things. It’s what makes a community great. It’s also what makes it inviting for other employees that we might want to hire,” he said.

As he reflected on his career, legacy and the award he is set to receive, Carter joked that the downside of being called a legend is that it means he’s getting old, but at 63, he doesn’t have any plans to slow down or walk off into the sunset soon.

“It’s such a great honor for the company because being around for 135 years and really pushing manufacturing and saving a lot of American jobs like we did at WAL-BOARD or BARWALT or VAUGHAN and DASCO PRO, I think those are incredibly important, not only to our community and our business but also to the country and trying to save manufacturing here in the U.S.,” he said. “I think it’s part of what our executive team’s been working on is trying to continue to lay a great foundation for the rest of the team to build on. I won’t be here forever, there’s no question there, but I’ve got some great young people that will continue to drive this thing forward. They’re helping to do that today and will continue to do that long after I’m gone.”

A few of those team members he mentioned shared their thoughts on the recognition in a press release issued by the company last month.

“Manufacturing unique products requires solving a series of impossible problems and sweating the tiniest details that make very complicated processes look basic,” said Jack Murders, MARSHALLTOWN COO. “It’s not easy work and requires endless persistence. We do that incredibly well, and that’s fun.”

MARSHALLTOWN VP of Iowa and Illinois Operations and Engineering, John Christen, echoed Murders’ remarks.

“The uncommon thing about MARSHALLTOWN Company, is how dedicated we are, as a company, to developing innovation in our manufacturing processes in addition to our great products for our customers,” said Christen. “We love being manufacturers and take great pride in refining how we produce each product.”

Marshalltown Area Chamber of Commerce President/CEO John Hall spoke specifically about Carter and his impact on not only the local business community but the community at large.

“You would be hard pressed to find a leader in the manufacturing space who better exemplifies the critical connection between business success and community success. Joe consistently invests in and takes charge of crucial quality of life initiatives to support Marshalltown, while also growing and expanding MARSHALLTOWN, and we are so fortunate to have a leader like that here in our community. A heartfelt congratulations goes out to Joe and the entire team at MARSHALLTOWN for this incredibly well deserved recognition,” he said.

The Manufacturing Legends Awards began in 2015, and three other Marshalltown-area honorees have been recognized in the past: Paul Gregoire of Emerson Process Management in the 300+ employees category in 2016, John Norris of Lennox Industries (posthumously), also in 2016, and Larry Raymon of Raymon Enterprises in the 100 employees and under category in 2021. Raymon passed away at the age of 80 in 2024.

Fellow 2025 honorees are Bill Bywater of Economy Advertising Company in Iowa City in the under 100 employees category, R.W. and Mary Nelson of Kemin Industries in Des Moines in the 300+ employees category and the Manufacturing Champion Award for David Ottavianelli of John Deere in the Quad Cities.