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April 14, 2025
WAUSAU – For the past seven and a half decades, RiverView Construction Inc. has serviced the landfill construction and maintenance needs of the North Central and Northeast regions of Wisconsin.
Randy Weinkauf – president and owner of the family owned environmental construction company – said his father, Ewald Weinkauf, founded the company in 1950 after a brief stint in the milk transportation industry where he was “one of the first to transition from using milk cans to bulk hauling.”
After a short time in the milk industry, Weinkauf said his father purchased “a little (bull)dozer, cable machine, backhoe, a little five-yard dump truck and started doing small jobs” under the RiverView name.
“They had a shop on the west side of Wausau – it was an old horse barn,” he said. “Then, back in 1967, we moved up to the location we are (now) with our shop up on Highway W.”
Growing up in the business together, Weinkauf said he and his two brothers eventually took over RiverView’s operations – co-owning it prior to buying out his brothers in 2006 and 2011.
Now, Weinkauf said the next generation – including his stepson, RiverView’s VP, Jesse Turner and other family members – have stepped up to carry the company’s legacy into the future.
A bit of history
Over the past 75 years, Weinkauf said his family has grown RiverView Construction Inc. into what it is today, “having worked on more than 2,000 projects estimated at more than $200 million in revenue,” according to its website (riverview-construction.com).
Turner said RiverView employs roughly 170 people across its headquarters in Wausau and its other locations in Weston and Green Bay.
In the early days under Ewald, Turner said RiverView “focused on small, residential house projects” before branching out into bigger, more complicated jobs in the 1960s.
“Ewald (expanded) RiverView’s scope, taking on larger commercial accounts, such as Wausau Papers in Brokaw and 3M on Wausau’s northwest side,” he said. “By the late 1960s, he upgraded his equipment, purchasing his first hydraulic backhoe.”
After moving to the company’s then “state-of-the-art” facility in 1967, Turner said RiverView’s capability – and therefore, its clientele – grew.
“The 1970s were a decade of growth, hard work and hands-on learning,” he said. “With the new shop on Highway W fully operational, Ewald began taking on more work at 3M and the Weston Power Plant for Wisconsin Public Service (WPS).”
The following decade, Turner said, was marked by diversification for RiverView – as they took on “larger commercial and environmental projects while expanding our workforce and equipment.”
“We handled the dirt work for Wausau’s new hospital, the Wausau Mall and Sentry Insurance in Stevens Point,” he said.
By the 1990s and early 2000s, Turner said RiverView had begun niching down – focusing on environmental contracting.
“We started taking on larger projects, like working at LP in Tomahawk and the Holtz and Krause Landfill in Wausau,” he said. “In January 1996, we expanded to Green Bay, starting fly ash operations for WPS, which was a huge step forward for the company.”
One of RiverView’s biggest moments in company history, Turner said, came in 1999 with the demolition of the Ward Dam in Merrill.
“It was a challenging project that let us prove what we could do,” he said.
Throughout the past two decades, Turner said RiverView has “experienced steady, incremental growth” of about 10% per year.
“Most recently, our company has grown through strategic acquisition of other companies in similar industries,” he said.
Turner said RiverView’s most recent acquisitions include:
- Professional Landscape Management (PLM) in Green Bay in 2017 – resulted in the formation of RiverView Professional Landscapers LLC, which continues to offer the same landscaping and property maintenance services that were provided by PLM
- Scott’s Enterprises of Ringle in 2018 – which enabled RiverView Construction and Professional Landscapers LLC to further expand its landscaping and restoration services
- RC Excavating of Suamico in 2019 – absorbing its employees and adding additional talents and expertise to RiverView’s Green Bay location
“The recent acquisitions have led to a diversification of services that we can offer our customers,” Turner said.
In celebration of its 75th anniversary and recent growth, Turner said RiverView purchased three new quad dump trucks.
“We got the boxes wrapped with our details and with a 75th anniversary detail on it,” he said. “So those will be hitting the road shortly.”
Additionally, Weinkauf said they’ve purchased a new CAT excavator, haul truck and backhoe over the last year.
Environmental contracting, construction
Weinkauf said RiverView mainly specializes in the construction and maintenance of state-licensed landfills.
“Our main business is environmental – building landfills (and) closing them,” he said. “It’s like 80% of our work.”
Landfills, Turner said, are heavily regulated by the DNR due to the environmental repercussions improper construction and management can have.
“So, a lot of us in the company have our Wisconsin DNR landfill operators and manager certificates,” he said. “Then we also operate an MSW landfill for Monroe County, and then for WE Energies, we operate some of their industrial byproduct landfills.”
A MSW landfill – according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – is “a discrete area of land or excavation that receives (nonhazardous) household waste.”
RiverView’s employees, Turner said, all “have their 40-hour hazmat training” to work with landfills and the materials or chemicals they produce.
“We do gas piping in the landfills for the methane (gas produced there),” Weinkauf said. “There aren’t too many guys that do that kind of work around (here) – maybe one other guy in the State of Wisconsin does that (work). It’s pretty technical.”
To ensure the safety of RiverView’s team, Turner said “a pretty strict safety program” is implemented when they’re “working around methane.”
“Just as far as having gas meters on the employees, keeping them calibrated, wearing the correct safety gear, (etc.),” he said.
Weinkauf said if managed or constructed incorrectly, “you could blow up a landfill.”
“You’re dealing with some dangerous stuff there, so we’re pretty fussy on that stuff,” he said. “(The job) pays well, but you have to really know what you’re doing, you have to have the guys trained and they have to trust each other.”
On top of their initial training and education, Turner said RiverView employees also have to complete continuing education courses annually.
“It’s a lot of continuous education as regulations change,” he said. “We have to keep up with them. (For) the 40-hour hazardous waste operation cards, every year, you have to get an eight-hour refresher on it.”
Weinkauf said RiverView Construction has also helped fill managerial gaps when they arise at the landfills they help operate.
“Jesse could run any licensed landfill in the State of Wisconsin, and we have about four other guys that could actually go in if someone needs a manager… because you have to have two managers available within a 75-mile radius of the landfill,” he said.
All landfill managers in the state, Turner said, are certified by the Wisconsin DNR, and because of their environmental implications, Weinkauf said RiverView regularly collaborates with the DNR regarding the state’s landfill regulations.
“It all relates back to the part of environmental contracting where you’re protecting the environment and human health,” Turner said. “It goes hand in hand.”
The most important thing Weinkauf said RiverView protects, however, is the health of his employees.
“We have very low turnover – very low turnover – and that says a lot,” he said. “We want to be a family… and (Jesse and I) have been in almost every position the guys are in, so we know what they go through.”
