When it comes to removing a 50-year-old vault from the second floor of a bank, you need the right equipment.
And the right partners.
As we were undergoing an extensive interior and exterior remodel of our downtown Sioux Falls building, which lasted from 2019 through 2023, we turned to the team at Northwest Corp. for the massive but delicate vault removal project.
“The Bank is probably the coolest job I’ve ever done,” said Don Lueders, co-owner of the crane services, rigging, and concrete cutting business located in northeast Sioux Falls.
“We took out a million and a half pounds of concrete,” said Landon Lueders, co-owner and president of Northwest Corp. and Don’s youngest son. “And we did it without any disruptions, like noise or vibrations, to the people working inside the building.”
Northwest Corp. removing a 16,500-pound slab of concrete from the second floor of the Bank.
But if you were to chat with the Lueders about their family-owned business, it would quickly become clear that they don’t define its legacy by the career-highlight jobs like the First National Bank vault, or the DakotaDome renovation project, or the Tyson Events Center in Sioux City, Iowa.
“Our mission statement is, ‘The biggest thing we build is people,’” said Landon. “That’s what I would rather focus on, is the people.”
The Lueders family: Don and Laurie with sons Landon (center) and Logan (left).
So then, in order to properly tell the story of Northwest Corp., its 25 years under Don’s leadership, and its future at the hands of brothers Landon and Logan Lueders, we must first introduce you to Mike Purdy.
Finding the right leader
“Prior to Don, no one at Northwest thought about culture,” said Purdy, the business’s divisional manager. “I think that’s the single biggest reason we’ve experienced the growth that we have, is our culture became the most important thing that existed.”
Purdy has worked at Northwest Corp. since before Don bought into the business in 1999. He was one of Northwest’s first few employees and even trained Don all those years ago.
“Now, under Landon, it’s like a whole different vision of growth and risk-taking,” Purdy said.
A native of northern Minnesota, he had moved to Sioux Falls out of college and held a couple different jobs before joining Northwest.
“I still remember the sign outside the city limits of Sioux Falls when I moved here said (population of) 92,000,” Purdy said.
He served in an operations manager role during those early years at Northwest, which had just a handful of employees at the time.
“We were a small company doing small jobs,” Purdy said. “And then, starting with Don, he was willing to jump into the arena of larger projects.”
Now as for Don, his penchant for large projects is a common theme running through his business history.
His first job after high school was working on a ranch in Minnesota.
“I learned how to work, and I learned how to get things done,” Don said of the experience.
Next came a stint in trucking, and then a stint working for Campbell Supply in Sioux Falls.
“When I quit Campbell Supply, I bought my first truck and owner-operated it,” Don said. “I told the people at Campbell Supply that I was going to have five trucks in five years, and they laughed at me. But I did.”
From there, he moved to Kansas City and started pursuing multiple business ventures, including a trucking operation, a scale, and a truck stop.
Don described himself, however, as getting burned out on trucking, and by 1997 he had sold all of his assets and moved from Kansas City to Texas.
While working for Houston Freightliner there, he had the opportunity to relocate to Sioux Falls, “and that’s when we found this place,” Don said.
“Our accountant at the time said, ‘I think this is a niche business that your management style would work with,’” Don said. “That was in June of ’99, I bought Northwest.”
He had five partners who bought into the business with him, and within four years he had bought out full ownership of Northwest.
The evolution of Northwest Corp.
The day Don took over at Northwest Corp. marked a shift in both the business’s culture and trajectory, as noted by Purdy.
He brought to the business a strong work ethic, hands-on leadership style, commitment to Northwest’s people and culture, and — perhaps most importantly — two sons who would one day write the next chapter in Don’s legacy.
With an age gap of exactly two years and four days, Landon and Logan both grew up around their dad’s business, including working around the shop sometimes.
“We mowed grass for $6 an hour and got yelled at every time we missed a row of grass,” Logan said.
In 2009, Logan moved away to Northwest Iowa Community College for heavy equipment operation and maintenance.
He rejoined the business in 2012, bringing with him a passion for cranes from a job he had held at a construction company.
“We talked and talked about cranes,” said Logan, who is vice president and production manager for the business, “and then finally — I don’t know if I had begged my way into it — we got our first crane in 2013.”
It wasn’t until February 2018 that Landon rejoined the business for good, but in that year they raised sales by 30%.
“Then in 2020, we all sat down,” Landon said. “I was like, ‘What do you guys want to do? Do you want to keep doing what we’re doing, or do you want to grow?’ They both said, ‘We want to grow.’”
That conversation launched a phase full of goal-setting, strategic planning, and forecasting, all of which included Purdy and Anthony Wynja, Northwest’s crane divisional manager.
They also began succession planning with the intention of bringing Landon and Logan in as owners.
“Logan and I became 5% owners in 2022,” Landon said. “We quickly realized that’s a big tax burden to put on one guy, so from a strategic standpoint, we then became 33% owners in 2023.”
Also that year, they broke ground on a new building in northeast Sioux Falls. By the fall of 2024, they were fully operating out of it.
And while the new building was coming together, the Lueders made another critical move of expanding their business to Rapid City.
“We started looking at some of the building permit numbers out in Rapid City,” Landon said, “and we identified it as a prime target for another location.”
With a clear picture of the business’s future, Don retired in December 2024 — maintaining 33% ownership but entrusting his legacy to Landon and Logan.
‘The biggest thing we build is people’
“I’ve always been here for the people,” Purdy said. “Not just for Don or Landon or Logan, but for my team and for our clients. Knowing that if they were well taken care of, the Lueders would also be well taken care of.”
And that’s what’s at the heart of Northwest Corp.’s culture, is a commitment to taking care of each other.
It was a mentality established by Don back in 1999 and is still present amongst the approximately 50 team members who make up Northwest Corp.
“I think that is probably the single biggest reason we’ve experienced the growth that we have, is that our culture became the most important thing that existed,” Purdy said.
Kyle Van Zee, the fleet manager and mechanic, says working at Northwest can be likened to cracking open a shelled peanut.
“Landon has taught me to be better with talking with individuals and being more open with people,” Van Zee said. “In the last year and a half, I’ve just felt myself growing in the company, being more responsible, and knowing how to communicate with people.”
Van Zee had been working construction for about eight years when he first started getting calls from Don and Logan.
The timing wasn’t right since he was on the road driving truck at the time, but according to Van Zee, the Lueders were persistent.
“About every week it would be one or both of them saying, ‘Hey, have you thought about it? When do you want to come join our crew? We’d really like you to come work for us,’” Van Zee said.
But he also had a wife and two sons at home, and his employer increased his workload from four days a week to six.
Looking for more stability, he joined Northwest Corp. in the spring of 2022.
“And I’ve loved it ever since,” Van Zee said.
Anthony Wynja, the crane divisional manager, also came to Northwest Corp. because he was tired of being on the road for his job.
For both Van Zee and Wynja, one of the best aspects of working with Northwest Corp. has been the value the Lueders place on family.
“With being on the road, I made really good money,” Van Zee said. “But I had to sacrifice. So, sacrificing money to being home with kids is invaluable. Getting to see my boys grow up helped me realize that.”
“Don was willing to help me with family time if I had to leave during certain times,” Wynja said. “It’s not just a professional thing here; they’re family-oriented.”
Wynja, who has been with the business for 14 years, also appreciates the way Northwest Corp. develops its talent from within.
“I started off here as a concrete cutter, and within the first few months they gave me a lead role of being a top concrete cutter,” Wynja said. “From there, they saw the initiative that I took and kept opening doors to make room for someone like me to grow.”
Jeremy Nelson had a similar experience.
Nelson joined the business a few months after Van Zee, originally working as a rigger in the crane division.
“Coming here, I didn’t have any experience in the crane field,” Nelson said.
Northwest paid for him to take a rigging course, to earn his crane operator’s license, to later earn his commercial driver’s license (CDL), and even for a personal development training.
Today, Nelson has worked his way up to trucking logistics coordinator.
“I guess we kind of like people being green,” Nelson said. “We’re able to develop them.”
And when it comes to the Lueders, that development goes beyond the building or the job site.
“Basically, it started off as a family business,” Wynja said, “and as they grow and take off, they’re still trying to keep that family feel. They want to know everybody and know their home life as well as their work life.”
“They kind of push — but not really push, it’s more of a nudge — me in the direction of being a better father, also,” Van Zee said. “Be around. Be patient. Be knowledgeable about what’s going on in life.”
Not surprisingly, then, Purdy names relationships as the biggest driver of growth and success for Northwest Corp.
“Throughout the course of any given day, you’ve got three things you’re trying to make balance in harmony,” Purdy said. “The Lueders’ goals, which I respect and work for. My team’s goals to survive and thrive in their personal lives. Our clients’ goals to get their projects done in a timely fashion.”
“My singular hope,” he added, “is to take my 30 years of knowledge in the industry and to be effective in helping Landon and Logan achieve their vision, because I know they will take care of me along the way.”
Meanwhile, Van Zee recalls a moment when Landon asked him if he likes working at Northwest.
“I said, ‘Absolutely, because this is the first business I’ve ever been with that I got to be part of watching something grow and become better and bigger.’”
So if this story started with Purdy, then that’s where it should end.
He has a mantra that he likes to share with his team members:
“Especially with guys who have been here a few years, I will tell them, ‘When you’re driving around on Saturday or Sunday, see how far you can go before you reach a point at which you’ve worked and had an impact on this city.’ I can’t drive more than a block — any place, any direction — without seeing a building that we’ve worked in, street that we’ve worked on, or facility that we’ve been a part of changing.
“That’s impactful, when you can actually drive through the city and see places that you have helped be a part of change for the future. We are in every corner of this city.”
He added, “I don’t know that there’s many companies that can say that kind of thing.”
First National Bank is here to support businesses through every stage of growth — whether it’s investing in your infrastructure, people, or new ideas. Let’s start a conversation.
