Community News
Founder of Karmak explains company to Area Rotary
Been in business for 31 years
30 years ago, J. Richard Schien founded Karmak Technologies and on Tuesday, June 5, he explained to the Benld Area Rotary how the Macoupin County business has evolved and survived over the years.
It was spun off his father’s business at the time which was a machine shop located in Carlinville, Illinois. In 1948, his father then bought a welding shop. J. Richard was usually seen running around in his diaper in the shop, but he was only 7 at that time. “I take exception for that,” he opened.
His father started building truck bottoms for Prairie Farms through the welding shop. He was always busy during the summer time due to tractor and farm equipment repairs, but business went dead in the winter time. That is when J. Richard found his niche.
Karmak grew out of the heavy equipment truck business because machine body parts and technology grew rapidly in the late 1960’s. His father’s machine shop was the receiver of some big ticket repair work. The parts business then grew and grew and grew. “The parts business got to be about 1/3 of the machine shop’s business which was about 6 to 7 million dollars a year,” Richard noted.
To try and keep up with the large amount of business coming through the machine shop, Richard looked into various computer systems. Richard graduated from Greenville College and then attended SIU Carbondale to achieve his master’s degree in physics and math. He never was able to finish his master’s because he was exposed to computers as he worked in the computer center at SIUC.
“I got a good understand of what they could do, so that was a big plus for me,” Richard explained. He also met his wife at SIUC, so that was a real big plus for him. Still in search of the computer system to solve the machine shop problem, his wife’s brother told him that he should write a computer program like he did in Carbondale.
Karmak was then formed on December 31, 1981 and has been in business for over 31 years marking this year. They are the leading designer and provider of business management solutions specializing in the commercial transportation industry. They have been delivering innovative software and superior customer service to heavy-duty businesses throughout North America.
The company design, develops, and then sells the software to companies who sell trucks, repair trucks, sell truck parts, or lease trucks. “Some of our customers do all of these things,” Richard added. Karmak also has companies who are strictly leasing or rental companies who have a repair shop and some who do not have a repair shop. “It is really a big field.”
One of Karmak’s most surprising moments was when they thought they would make money by selling computer systems. “Those are high priced, but computer popularity has driven the price down,” he added. Richard then realized visual equipment was not a vertical market, but he did establish that Karmak has only been successful because they have stayed one niche: heavy duty industry.
“We really understand heavy duty industry,” Richard hammered. He went on to say that the company lives off their continuing support revenue. They are not inexpensive for support, but are also not the highest guy out there either. According to Richard, Karmak is in the top tier.
We really provide support. Richard’s brother used to work with Karmak and his favorite thing to do was to call Karmak and time how long it took to get an actual person on the phone. Sometimes he even had two cell phones set-up, one with Karmak and one with a competitor, and timed both conversations before he spoke to a live operator.
Generally, Karmak’s time is around 2 minutes. Their biggest competitor, ADT, is around 30 minutes. That is a big difference and Karmak has to charge for that. The company has systems all over the United States and even up into Canada and down in Mexico and Puerto Rico.
The major part of their growth, especially since the downturn of the economy, has been from companies consolidating. It is the same aspect of car dealerships combining, Richard explained. Truck dealerships combine and the industry is adding twice as many branching as it is losing branches. “In other words, if ADT has a customer that has 15 branches and a branch buys another branch, they are not going to switch to Karmak for that additional branch,” Richard explained.
Karmak has had tremendous growth from their businesses’ success. Richard thinks it is a nice compliment to Karmak’s software as well as their good business practices and picky customer. “There have been deals when I have said we don’t need to sell this guy anything,” Richard explained.
Over the years, Karmak started out with one system they designed and developed in Carlinville, Illinois. Then in 1997, Karmak bought out a competitor in Springfield, Missouri. Right now, Karmak has 40 employees in Springfield, Missouri office and about 140 in the Carlinville headquarters. They were forced to keep the 40 employees in Springfield because they were unfamiliar with the system in use.
“We are trying to replace both systems and have been since the early 2000’s,” Richard said. “We want a full-blown windows system. Our strongest competitors don’t have a full blown windows system other than one.” Karmak is finally cracking away at finalizing that product and have 3 customers running a trial version since March. They expect that number to triple by the end of the year. When Karmak gets to 25 customers on one item, Richard will then consider it a product.
Karmak has 70 companies’ systems sitting in Carlinville, Illinois tied through the internet. “We are a big fan of the cloud,” Richard noted. But, it has to be maintained properly before we put anything in the cloud. “They have to have really good back-ups and, of course, generators if they lose power. They must have a second telephone line in and out of their building in case they have problems,” Richard explained.
The headquarters in Carlinville has two paths out of the building in fiber optic wiring and two paths to their office in Springfield, Missouri. One path is in fiber optic and one regular wire. “That has been a lot of years and money,” Richard noted.
Right now, Karmak is second in the industry behind ADT and has developers living all over the United States. They have about 240 employees worldwide.
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Dana Carr Skinner, 52, of Gillespie has announced her candidacy for Macoupin County Circuit Clerk. She will be on the November 5, 2024, General Election ballot.
Dana, a lifelong Macoupin County resident was born and raised in Wilsonville by her
parents, Barb and Van Baker. She graduated Gillespie High School in 1990 and attended SIUE
before starting her family. She has raised eight children all of whom graduated college or attended trade school. Dana is married to Todd Skinner.
Dana is currently a public servant, serving the people of Illinois as a paralegal. She has
over 25 years legal experience with 15 of those years being directly in the courtroom. She has
worked in law firms that practiced in all areas of the law from probate, family, civil, traffic,
criminal and real estate. After working several years in the legal field, Dana went back to college and obtained a paralegal degree.
Dana is running for Circuit Clerk because, “It is time for me give back to my community
and the residents of Macoupin County. Lee Byots Ross has done an amazing job as our current Circuit Clerk and I want to continue the work that she has accomplished. My adult life has been focused on my family and my children, and they are now grown. My focus now, would be to demonstrate to the residents of Macoupin County that I can and will do an excellent job as
Circuit Clerk,” Dana said.
The Circuit Clerk is responsible for establishing, maintaining and keeping all records of
the court, as well as several administrative, financial and public services.
“There are employees in the office now that have worked there a number of years, and I will be committed to them and their opinions, as well as the people the Macoupin County. I will learn from the current employees if I am elected in November and I believe that I have the experience, the knowledge and the work ethic that would make me an asset to the Circuit Clerks Office’s team,” Dana said.
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United Mineworkers of America President Cecil Roberts will commemorate the 125th anniversary of Union Miners’ Cemetery in Mt. Olive on October 13. Ceremonies begin at noon with a short historical parade, Roberts, IL AFL-CIO President Tim Drea, and frequent labor music.
Afterward, a meal will be provided as the labor music continues. The event is free and open to the public. A portable chair is recommended.
The cemetery is located on near 5536 Mt. Olive Road in Mt. Olive and can be found by following North Lake Street.
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Background of Union Miners Cemetery by the Mother Jones Museum:
The Union Miners Cemetery is in Mt. Olive, a small mining-town that was once the center of a rebellious group of miners who helped to secure Illinois as the solid rock for the United Mine Workers Union. Today thousands of visitors come each year to pay their respects to the memory to Mother Jones and the spirit that guided her and the founders of the labor movement in the United States. They reflect about the connections between the past and the present.
The cemetery was established in 1899, when commemorations of the miners killed in the 1898 “Virden riot” became controversial in the Mt. Olive cemetery where they were originally buried.
The bodies of the Virden “martyrs” were re-interred in a cemetery established as the Union Miners Cemetery by the Mt. Olive United Mine Workers local. Commemorations of these events in the following years contributed to a generation of activism in the Illinois coal fields.
They did this by claiming the kind of memorial space that was denied in other places, such as Haymarket, where police often disrupted commemorations. This built a sense of connection between past and present in the area, and made it clear that ordinary workers had changed the course of history. The role of the ordinary worker came into focus. Mt. Olive was one of the few places in the country where labor history was taught before the 1970s.
This is a unique place in the history of the labor movement; it was the only union-owned cemetery in the country. This is a place with a monument to Mother Jones, but it also evokes the power and potential of the labor movement. It is a place of reflection and remembering, of thinking of the labor movement’s roots. It is a shrine not only to Jones but to the sacrifices that connected human rights and labor rights, a place where people wonder when and why labor lost power.
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When I decided to write this article, my original intent was to find out when they removed the rails down the middle of Macoupin Street, but I thought I might research when the railroads came and went in Gillespie. So here is a brief history!
In the 1850’s, railroads were becoming more important to the US for both transportation of people and goods. Chicago was the hub of railroad traffic in the west and cities throughout Illinois were vying to have railroads come through their section of the state. Having a railroad meant prosperity and growth. Towns would grow with increased population. The key question was where are the railroads going to go? Influence by key political people throughout the state was important.
Prominent people in the US and central Illinois like Judge Joseph Gillespie, William Mattoon, Electus B Litchfield and Robert Rantoul (Massachusetts senator) and others help bring the railroad south.
The move south was brought about by the chartering of the Terre-Haute & Alton Railroad in January 1851 out of Mattoon, Illinois. It was to extend south to Alton because legislators wanted Alton to compete with St. Louis in the growth of the area. The work was started in 1852 to originally go 172 miles. It was completed in March 1856. Extensions were created from Alton to Belleville and eventually to St. Louis. By 1857 the route was completed and a railroad went through Gillespie. The St. Louis connection was helped by the building of the Eads Bridge in 1874.
In June 1867, the Terre-Haute Alton Railroad was leased to the Indianapolis & St Louis Railroad but went into foreclosure in 1882 and sold to the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad (known as the Big Four). This railroad came under control of Vanderbilt and the NY Central Railroad system.
The Terre-Haute Alton Railroad/Big Four Railroad came to Gillespie on an east west route. It passed through Gillespie today in the land next to the Civic Center, crossing Macoupin Street next to Subway. The Big Four Terminal was just off Macoupin Street where the Civic Center is located. There were additional terminals in Hornsby and Dorchester.
A 2nd railroad will add additional prosperity to Gillespie. The Illinois Traction System was a brainchild of William B. McKinley (not the president). He had a vision to create an electric railroad empire that covered at its peak 550 miles of rail.
The Traction system started in connecting Danville and Champaign in 1901-02, then to Decatur to Springfield in 1904. He also completed the route from Springfield to Granite City going through Gillespie and Benld in 1904. This Interurban as most people called it was a passenger service. It would eventually connect to Peoria by 1907 and St Louis by 1910. It was also possible to go to Chicago by connecting with other railroads. The Illinois Traction Terminal was on the corner of Macoupin and Spruce Streets where United Community Bank is located and at one time did have a small spur to the east.
Everyone associates the growth of Gillespie-Benld and the surrounding area to the coal mines, but the railroad also played a key part in the growth of the area.
You might wonder why main street is so wide compared to other towns’ business districts? Gillespie was unique by having the Interurban rail down the center of Macoupin Street but also the Big Four crisscrossed near Walnut Street. The town has to be one of the few towns in Illinois to have that unique situation.
In the early days, the crisscross intersection was controlled by only railroad signs. The “Stop, Look and Listen” slogan did not stop accidents at the crossing. Eventually, a crossing watchman was hired to control the car and pedestrian traffic at the intersection of the two railroad lines. It was also not unusual for a parked car to back into the Interurban in the business district.
These two railroads went north-south and east-west throughout town until the Interurban ceased to operate. The last Interurban use was on March 3, 1956. The rail line was eventually taken over by other railroads and would only be used for freight transportation, especially by Norfolk Western and other railroad lines. The rail line did have a brief arrangement to transport coal from Monterrey Coal Junction to Edwardsville in 1970, but the last use of the old Interurban Line for freight use occurred on August 20, 1970.
The eventual decline of the railroads in Gillespie coincides with the decline of the coal mines. Railroads were being transformed from coal to diesel and coal use immediately declined.
The Big Four stopped operating on December 17, 1964. Slowly they started to remove the tracks between Litchfield and Bethalto. Illinois maps show Big Four railroad tracks in 1965, but they are gone by 1967.
Now to the original premise of the article, when were the railroad tracks removed down the middle of Macoupin Street? My sources throughout town were varying, I got all kinds of guesses. I narrowed it down by my own memory. It was there in 1972 when I started teaching but then all of a sudden it was gone. I searched newspapers in the fall of 1972, then 1973 and I found it in 1974.
In January of 1974, the city decided to do something about the water lines in the business district. There was a conversation in late February to remove the tracks, but when will they do it? At the same time there was discussion about the sewer lines where the tracks are located. So, the city decided to it all at the same time, remove the tracks, and do water and sewer lines. By early April 1974, the tracks are gone and by early May, the downtown was a mess because of the water main project. After the downtown removal of tracks, the city eventually moved further north and south on Macoupin to remove the remaining tracks.
So, what proved to be a simple search gave you, the readers, a history of the railroads in Gillespie. Stop by the library and see the assorted railroad pictures and if you have anything railroad-related or an interesting picture involving the railroad such as an accident involving the railroads. I would like to see them.
