Colleagues Celebrate Don King’s Retirement at AGG1

Dredge Central LLC gave Don King a retirement send-off at the AGG1 Expo/World of Asphalt show commemorating his dredging career that started in the 1950s.  

“I wasn’t ready to retire but was given a deadline for leaving the company” said King 89 whose plans include continuing to work as long as possible. 

Dredge Central is owned by a conglomerate of investors.  

King attended the Expo talking to visitors at Dredge Central’s exhibit. The reception well attended by family friends present and past co-workers customers suppliers and competitors was held on Thursday March 23 in a Music City Center hospitality room.

“Don King has the distinction of contributing greatly to the dredging industry for (more than six decades) and the admiration for Don was evident with the great turnout of well-wishers in attendance and the reception of many notes and emails of congratulations from around the world” said Larry Fleeman of Dredge Central. 

Dredge Central team members created a plaque featuring a shop-made representation of one of Don’s favorite dredge models and presented it to him at the party with an inscription honoring his dedication to the dredging industry. 

“Numerous members from former dredge companies associated with Don King were present and stories were told memories recounted and pictures of these historic teams were taken to be shared with all” Fleeman said. 

“As founder and president of Dredge Central LLC Don King and his drive for accomplishment will be missed and we wish Don well in retirement and his future endeavors” he concluded. 

DON’S CAREER IN BRIEF
Following service in the Navy at the end of WWII and succeeding years one of King’s first endeavors was working on a road project that used dredge fill in the late 1950s. Intrigued by the industry and the equipment he went to work for small dredge manufacturer AMMCO in Nashville in 1960 and from then until the present was involved as an employee partner and owner of the dredge manufacturers Dixie Dredge DredgeMasters International and Dredge & Marine Corporation (for 25 years) and finally starting Dredge Central in 2011 bringing together a team of people he had worked with throughout his career.