John Voorhies, under the name Universal Hoist Company, and was in the business of making rope and cable for bags of flour, sugar and coffee. In the 1920's and 30's, the company started manufacturing hand-crank seed corn graders to grade and size corn kernels. In 1961, after terminating the making of seed graders and starting the design and manufacturing of the first bucket elevators, Mr. Gail Bonn
eson bought the company and renamed it Universal Industries, Inc. Throughout the next few decades, Universal became widely known and successful in the bulk material handling industry as a leader in gentle handling due mainly to its engineering expertise. The list of products Universal's elevators and conveyors handle is extensively long and quite often surprising. In 1991, Dean Bierschenk was hired as the General Manager of Universal. In 1992, upon the death of Gail Bonneson, Mr. Bierschenk purchased Universal from the estate. With 100% ownership of the company he continues to operate its successful day to day operations growing the company bigger and taking it further than before. Starting in 2003, Universal began to focus on developing new product lines such as the Dakosa and the new, highly acclaimed UniTube Tube Conveyors. Spearheaded by an intelligent business man, with engineering and production at its finest, Universal has risen to higher successes during the first decade of the 21st century. Continuing to produce high-quality products and standing firmly behind them is what sets Universal apart from any of its competitors. Along with success inevitably comes growth. In order to accommodate such growth, due to the success of the new product line of tube conveyors, Universal just completed a building expansion of 30,000 square feet of production in the early part of 2011. Now nearing 100,000 square feet in the Cedar Falls Industrial Park, Universal’s large production floor is operating smoothly and discussion for even further expansion could be on the horizon.
