J.F Brennan Company Receives Achievement Award Honor from National Rivers Hall of Fame

For its work on significant environmental projects and dedication to excellence in the field, the National Rivers Hall of Fame is honored to bestow the National Achievement Award to J.F. Brennan Company (Brennan). The National Achievement Award is the highest honor presented by the Hall of Fame to those who are making significant contributions to America's waterways.

Brennan has provided bridgework, commercial diving, environmental remediation, and marine and dam construction services to America's waterways for over a century. Expanding from its flagship office in La Crosse, Wisconsin, Brennan now has over a dozen offices spanning coast to coast employing more than 600 employees.

"On behalf of our entire Brennan team throughout North America, we are honored to accept the National Achievement Award from the National Rivers Hall of Fame," said Brennan President and CEO Matt Binsfeld. "During our 105-year history, we've had the good fortune to be involved with a great deal of significant water resource related work throughout this country, all of which has made a positive impact on commerce, our economy and the communities in which we've worked. At the basis of that work are generations of teams of exceptionally talented people with their unrelenting focus on safety, quality and executing our work in the most proficient manner.

"Since our founding by Jim and Gene Brennan in 1919, the Brennan 'story' is one of people coming together to do the exceptional. We are sincerely thankful to the National Rivers Hall of Fame for recognizing our people."

Brennan was founded in the early 1900s by two brothers, Gene and Jim Brennan, who were grandsons of an Irish immigrant. Gene and Jim Brennan grew up on a family homestead near Lansing, Iowa. As they completed 8th grade, they began an informal partnership pouring concrete floors in milk barns, threshing oats, operating a sawmill, and building bridges and became known as the Brennan Brothers. In 1919, Gene and Jim formalized their company as Brennan Brothers Construction.

In the 1920s, the infrastructure needs of Northeast Iowa grew, and the brothers begin building steel span bridges. Working through the Great Depression, in 1937, Brennan takes on a particularly challenging project in Argyle, WI, building a bridge across the Pecatonica River. Difficulty dewatering the cofferdam for the pier nearly puts the company under.
In the 1940s, Brennan Brothers is classified as a critical company for the war effort and increases their work on area railroads. Despite challenges placed upon them by the draft and strict rationing, their company continues to excel. By 1945, Jim Brennan and his family moved to La Crosse, opening a new shop near the banks of the Mississippi River.

In the 1950s, the U.S. Coast Guard becomes a client of Brennan, contracting the company to maintain navigational markers between St. Paul and St. Louis. As the company continued to prosper, Brennan Brothers is reincorporated as J.F. Brennan Company in 1959, officially establishing La Crosse, WI as their headquarters. Jim Brennan becomes its 1st president, working alongside his son Ralph and son-in-law Roger, focusing primarily on river work.

In 1976, a pivotal year for the company, demand soared for barge salvage work along the Upper Mississippi, and Brennan employed their first hardhat diver. Divers were needed to pump out flooded compartments to salvage a barge, while large A-Frames were used to raise the barge out of the water. Brennan eventually grew to employ over 100+ ADCI-certified commercial divers.

In the 1980s and 90s, Brennan increased its work in marine construction, teaming with F.J. Robers Company on several levee restoration projects. In 1984, an offshoot company, Brennan Marine, was born specifically to move barges in the port of La Crosse. By the 1990s, Brennan purchased hydraulic dredging assets from F.J. Robers Company, independently pursuing large-scale environmental projects.

Over the last 105 years, the company has grown into a multi-generational, national organization and has executed hundreds of large environmental dredging and restoration projects. It also maintains its focus on inland river work, including infrastructure repairs on locks and dams along the Mississippi River.

Matt Binsfeld will receive the National Rivers Hall of Fame award on the company's behalf at the 2024 Captain's Ball held at the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium on November 1, 2024.