Power Curbers - About Us

About Us

50th Anniversary Celebration

Power Curbers, Inc., a 55-year-old family-owned company in Salisbury, NC, USA, manufactures machinery for slipforming concrete curb-and-gutter, highway safety barrier, bridge parapet, monolithic curb, gutter and sidewalk, irrigation ditches, and other special applications.

The company focuses on delivering the utmost value to its customers, with manufacturing designed to eliminate waste, drive down lead times and drive up parts delivery.

The associates of Power Curbers commit themselves to customers in all their work, from producing comprehensive manuals in different languages, to developing the products that customers want, to shipping parts, molds and machines efficiently to customers in more than 80 countries. This commitment means embracing the change that comes with new ideas.

Associates live by the company's mission statement, "Our Commitment Shows," showing a passion for educating themselves to what customers need, designing, manufacturing and delivering it.

In 2007, the company moved into a new manufacturing facility that is totally geared to increasing productivity.

In addition to curb and sidewalk applications, the Power Curber Research and Development Team works on special application needs, such as channel paving for a copper mining operation in Chile and the paving of the railbeds in the running tunnels for the Eurotunnel project. In the Eurotunnel project, Power Curber machinery slipformed the railbed and left-hand right-hand sidewalks on the sloped walls of the tunnels. A total of 31 miles (50 km) of railbed and 62 miles (100 km) of sidewalk was completed from Calais in a record 9 months, as opposed to 17 months of doing the same work by hand from Dover.

The Power Curber 5700-C is the largest selling curb-and-gutter slipform paver in the world. It can also pour concrete foot and bicycle paths and golf cart paths up to 8 feet (2.44 m) wide in the center-pour position. The machine also produces curb-and-gutter and safety barrier up to 48 inches (122 cm) tall.

Two smaller extruder products, the Power Curber 150 and 440 XL, are walk-behind pieces of equipment, pouring either asphalt or concrete curb. The 150 was the company's first product.

Power Curbers, Inc. was founded in 1953 by two Salisbury businessmen, John S. Henderson and E. L. Hardin. Mr. Henderson, an engineer, was the grandfather of today's president and CEO, Dyke Messinger.

The first machine, an extruder, was created to mechanize an otherwise time-consuming, manual process of laying out highway turnarounds and median islands. It was described as extruding asphalt much like toothpaste is extruded from a tube.

In 1957, the original invention was applied to curb-and-gutter work. This proved to be a major step for the company. The company' s first concrete slipformer was the Curb King Model 6500.

In 1959, Mr. Henderson' s son-in-law, the late Richard Messinger, husband of Mary Henderson Messinger, joined the company. Messinger's interest in international marketing proved vital in building the company into an international player in the construction industry and helping it diversify.

In 1983, Mr. Messinger received the U.S. Department of Commerce' s E Award for Excellence in Exports from President Ronald Reagan. In 1996, he was inducted into the Construction Equipment Industry Hall of Fame. His son, Dyke Messinger, became president and CEO in 1980, growing the business by more than 300 percent.