ISCO: From Louisville Legacy to Global Infrastructure Powerhouse

Episode 29:  This episode features Mark Kirchdorfer, President of ISCO Industries. We discuss the company's evolution from its Louisville roots into a global supplier building infrastructure around the world. ISCO was officially founded in 1962 by his father as Irrigation Supply Company (ISCO), focusing initially on golf course irrigation systems. By the early 1990s, when Mark and his brother Jimmy joined, ISCO was a $45 million revenue company. The company currently operates with three primary divisions, manufacturing, distribution, and equipment rental; supported by a fourth pillar of technical expertise. Globally, ISCO targets large infrastructure projects like LNG facilities and mining and has been involved in high-profile jobs such as the Abu Dhabi nuclear power plant and modern data center cooling systems.

 

Chapters

• Welcome and Guest Introduction
• Meet Mark Kirchdorfer
• Setting the Stage: Louisville Roots and Global Reach
• The Origins of ISCO: From Hardware to High-Density Pipe
• The Four Pillars of ISCO: Strategy for Global Growth
• Growth Mindset and Removing Barriers
• "Calling Our Shot": Domestic and International Infrastructure
• The Fifth Legacy: Golf and Community Connection
• Conclusion

 

Episode Transcript

Welcome and Guest Introduction

Jim Ray: Welcome back. Today we are going to talk about ISCO Industries and how they are building infrastructure around the world. As usual, we have the CEO and President of the World Trade Center Kentucky, Dr. Omar Ayyash. Omar, how are you?

Omar Ayyash: Hey, Jim. It's always a pleasure to be with you,

Jim Ray: Buddy I’m glad to be back in the studio with you. And today, I'm very honored to welcome into the studio Mr. Mark Kirchdorfer, who is the President of ISCO Industries. Mark, how are you? 

Mark Kirchdorfer: Hey, great Jim.

Jim Ray: Good. I'm so glad you’ve come in here. I know, having grown up in Louisville, obviously, your name, your company name is very prevalent around here and it's just going to be a fascinating discussion to listen more about your company's history, more about what you guys are doing on a global basis. It's a fantastic conversation.

Mark Kirchdorfer: Yeah, thank you. Appreciate the invite. Glad to be here.

Jim Ray: Absolutely. Omar, as we typically do, I'm going to hand the ball over to you and let you run with the conversation and I'll pipe in from time to time as appropriate and I'll come back in toward the end of the podcast. So, with that, Omar, why don't you take off and let's get underway.

Omar Ayyash: Let's take off. Thank you, Jim. I really appreciate it. Hey, Mark. How are you doing?

Mark Kirchdorfer: Hey, great.

Meet Mark Kirchdorfer

Omar Ayyash: You know, it's really great to have you here. We're very excited to learn about your business and your involvement with building infrastructure all over the world. But, always like to start with, tell us about your background, Mark. Who you are, just a general overview of who's Mark.

Mark Kirchdorfer: Okay. I'm a Louisville guy, so grew up here. I had a great childhood. I have a brother and a sister. I'm the youngest of three and have always had a close relationship with them. I’m a product of Louisville schools, went to St. Xavier High School and went to college at the University of Dayton. So I'm an engineer from there. I had a big idea to go to Europe after college. I was going into a family business with my brother, my dad, and graduated on a Saturday and went to work on Monday. So, didn't do that Europe trip, but went straight to work and have lived here most of the time. I moved to Michigan for a couple years, getting started in business with ISCO and helping us expand and then moved back after a few years.

Jim Ray: After a few winters, you mean?

Mark Kirchdorfer: Yeah. Great summers, but pretty tough winters. But, love it here. I mean, I'm a Louisville guy and really proud of our city and our community. We attract a lot of people here now to live here and glad to be able to share this community.

Omar Ayyash: Well, you know, I'm really happy to have connected with you, Mark, this year. We started talking about doing business together with the World Trade Center Kentucky and ISCO. And I know there's a history there for a number of years. There's been a relationship. But I in particular, when I look at the leadership in this city, there's days that I compare when I was here in the '90s and I directed international affairs for the city of Louisville and where the position of leadership is today. I was really happy to have met you and see that we've got great leaders in you and your brother that are stepping up and doing great things here in this community. It's wonderful. You're also on the GLI (Greater Louisville Inc.)Board, right?

Mark Kirchdorfer: Yes. Yeah, really involved in organizations here. But Omar, I was really glad to get hooked up with you. There's a lot of support around here. What we do, we're an international business and we're founded here. We do a lot of different things and a lot of different end markets and we're new to a lot of situations. We're pretty opportunistic, so it's always dragging us into new areas. I’m fortunate to meet people like you that have some expertise in some areas and share that information. We couldn't do what we do without resources like you and the Kentucky World Trade Center.

Things change; political laws change. I know this year tariffs and trade topic been a little bit of change, right? So, it's nice to have those resources to reach out to and that are willing to help. Our people, they're learners. I always say if we know what to do, we're really good executors. We can take it and do it. So, one of my jobs is to reach out and to be connected with people in the community that can help us and we're really fortunate to have a lot of them.

The Origins of ISCO: From Hardware to High-Density Pipe

Omar Ayyash: I appreciate that. So, let's jump in. Let's talk about ISCO Industries. What's the history? I mean, I know that Was it Barrett or Baxter where you all started?

Mark Kirchdorfer: Baxter Avenue. Yeah.  We got started in the Highlands and we're a family business. So my father started the company but it really goes back beyond that. There is a building on the corner of Baxter and Christy which is in the Highlands and it was the first building with electricity on that street. My great-grandfather built that and he was in the hardware business. Kirchdorfer, a German family, the corner hardware store, there were a lot of them back then. My grandfather grew up working at the hardware store and he took it over and then my father worked in the hardware store as he grew up. At that time, in the '50s and getting towards the '60s, you started to get the kind of the predecessors to those companies like Amazon, Home Depot, or Lowe’s were coming on and displacing the corner hardware store.

So my father grew up in an environment where he worked in the family business, but it didn't look like a great opportunity there. So he was going to school at Bellarmine and actually left. I called his Bill Gates moment. Bill Gates had to leave Harvard and had this great idea to start this company. My dad's idea wasn't quite at that level, but it was kind of the same spirit. He wanted to be the first one to do something: install underground automatic golf course irrigation systems.

Coming from the hardware business, at that time they all specialized in something and our hardware store specialized in agriculture and turf. My father knew a lot of the farmers and golf course irrigation superintendents and had a lot of connections and this was like the next big thing coming out. He was the first one to do that here in the Midwest. It was in 1962.

Dad got his first job at the Louisville Country Club and installed an irrigation system there. And that really, that was the start of the business. But so it was called Kirchdorfer Irrigation and it was really difficult at that time to get all the materials that you needed to install an irrigation system. Going and buying the pipe and the wire and the sprinklers and the process. He ended up starting a material distribution company just because he kind of needed to do that to get all of his materials. So, and he called that Irrigation Supply Company, which today is what ISCO stands for. That was in the summer of 1962.

That was the start of the business. And he was this gritty entrepreneurial kind of a renegade. He never had the best equipment or best line. He didn't have much capital, but a pretty hardworking guy and would figure things out and he figured out how to install an irrigation system.

He tried a lot of different things over the years. But the big break in the business came in the 1970s. This new type of material, plastics, were coming out and they started using plastic in pipe. The companies at that time in the 1970s that sold the concrete pipe and the steel pipe and the copper pipe and everything else.  They didn't want to take this new product on because this high-density polyethylene pipe had to be welded together. It was a different way of connecting it.

Those bigger companies already had all the business. They already had all the market share and they really didn't want to change to a different material. So all the small guys got set up during that time. My dad was a kind of a single market in a single geography.  So he was Kentucky for golf irrigation and he also sold some water and sewer pipe.

He loved the idea of taking this new pipeline on because my dad was a contractor. He's an equipment guy. He had backhoes and he had trenchers and he didn't mind having a machine that would weld this pipe together because this pipe was so much better than all the other types of pipe for so many applications. He could bring the material. He already had a material supplier but he was also a contractor, so it really fit well with his psyche and his abilities. So that was the kind of spark and, as we look back, that was kind of the big break in the company.

But it took a long time. So I'll fast forward a little bit. My brother and I come in the business in the early '90s. So Jimmy comes in in 1991. I come in in 1995. And at that time, it's just a $45 million revenue company and half was selling golf course irrigation systems and half was selling polyethylene pipe systems. So, we walked into that and that's kind of the origins of the company. And Jimmy and I, we saw while my dad was in the golf business, so we grew up playing golf, golf wasn't as cool as it is now. As the '90s roll around and Tiger Woods comes on the scene and you got these housing developments and golf courses everywhere, golf became pretty cool. It's one of those things, it's nice to learn at an early age.  It's a hard sport to pick up and become proficient and all that.

We loved golf and we really loved the golf business but when we looked at our future, we compared ourselves to the irrigation companies in Florida and Texas and the big markets. They were just so much further advanced than we were and they had such better markets. We didn't see the opportunity on the golf side that we did on the pipe side.

Here was a product that was under-marketed that was kind of artificially held back and we thought we could really grow that. For Jimmy and I to be in business, it wasn't really big enough for both of us. We knew we were going to have to grow it. This wasn't a business that you come in and just kind of incrementally let it go along. We were going to have to find ways to grow it if we were going to have great careers.

The Four Pillars of ISCO: Strategy for Global Growth

Omar Ayyash: What a phenomenal story. I mean, Jim and I are sitting here in awe, looking at the history of your grandfather and then your father and then the family tradition continuing on in 1991 with Jimmy coming on board and then you in 1995, that's just pretty exciting. So, to me today, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think of you as a company that manufactures product and you've got a manufacturing facility out in the Riverport. You've got a distribution business and at the same time you have major infrastructure projects around the world. I became introduced to the company maybe 15 years ago or less now when you started doing business in Abu Dhabi at the nuclear power plant. I was pretty impressed. So, is my assessment correct in terms of the three parts, three divisions that you've got?

Mark Kirchdorfer: Yeah, it's really a manufacturing company, a distribution company, and we're in the equipment business. So, we sell equipment, but we also rent it. And so, we have a large rental fleet that travels the world to weld pipe together.

Growth Mindset and Removing Barriers

Omar Ayyash: So, one of the things that, we've had a lot of conversations, again the times, tariffs, it put a lot of important stamp on how to do business. I know that you've got a very good-sized business here domestically but you also have a very large-sized business in Canada and in other parts of the world. But one of the comments that one day you said to me that really impressed me is that you know you're going to compete. Can you talk to us a little bit about that in terms of the culture of the organization, the way you set up the business for making the opportunity for your employees to help them grow?

Mark Kirchdorfer: Yeah. Definitely. It goes back to Jimmy and I coming in the business and realizing we had to grow the business for us. We wanted to provide long-term opportunities for everybody that works in our company. Really the only way to sustainably do that is to grow the business. Because if you're growing the pie, everybody can win. As we recruit people and bring them in, they understand there's a mandate we have to grow. We would be terrible running a really low growth or no growth or a dying industry where you have to cut things. But a growth business, we've been able to have success and we attract people that want to grow.

Sometimes the goalposts get moved on, like when the tariffs change or a new product comes out, but that's just an obstacle. You have to find a way to change the game or you have to do something to win. We're pretty solution-oriented and we come up with a plan and then we're pretty good executors of plan.

Omar Ayyash: Fantastic. You know, I'm a huge fan of several people at Stanford University. There's a Stanford professor called Carol Dweck and I don't know if you've heard about when she talks about fixed mindset versus growth mindset and what you just described is exactly growth mindset. People in a growth mindset have the 'not yet' attitude and they're ready to take on that challenge.

Mark Kirchdorfer: Yeah, that's the whole idea of a growth mindset. People that have a fixed mindset just don't do well in our company. But people who have a growth mindset do really well with us. That's positivity, too. We're optimistic. Continuous learning and improvement is a core value. If we didn't have people that grew and improved and learned new things, it would be a house of cards. There's no way you can continually grow your business and sustain it.

Omar Ayyash: So another thing, Mark, that you and I have talked about one day when we were strategizing about trade policy and trade compliance. You said to me, "My job as the leader of this organization is to remove barriers for my employees and when I remove barriers they succeed". Can you talk a little bit about that? That fascinated me.

Mark Kirchdorfer: Yeah. Our people are operators. We invest a lot in our leaders. It's really important to have outstanding leaders in our company. I believe people work for people. It's my commitment that whoever they are with, they're going to be a really good leader. Part of being a great leader is you have to have a growth mindset. They know their job is to do that for other folks, too. 

"Calling Our Shot": Domestic and International Infrastructure

Omar Ayyash: Fantastic. So, what's next? This has been actually a good year for Kentucky, or Louisville in particular, with GE Appliances and Texas Roadhouse doubling down and then Ford committing more. What's next for ISCO Industries?

Mark Kirchdorfer: Well, we always have a lot that's next. Our theme this year is Calling Our Shot. We're very intentional. We're building a new distribution center out at a Riverport plant. We bought 17 acres across the street. We're building a 100,000 square foot building, but we also have a large pipe yard and we are putting state-of-the-art equipment in there that's never been used before in a pipe facility, to be the most efficient processor of the products that we distribute.

We just sold our largest project we've ever sold before. It is a 70-mile rural water line in South Dakota. Water, we have a lot of water in America, we just don't have it always in the right spot. As you go around the country, water is their Achilles heel. We've done nuclear plants in the UAE. We're seeing traditional building materials like steel and iron and concrete that don't last. Water is becoming more of a precious resource rather than a commodity. We're the solution to the world's energy and environmental problems. Every municipality in the US are using products that are supposed to leak day one. They've never had the mindset of a zero leak rate system. As that emerges, we're the product of choice to do that.

Jim Ray: Mark, that speaks definitely to the domestic market here, but looking globally? How are you identifying those large infrastructure projects? You mentioned the Abu Dhabi nuclear project being a very significant project for you guys at the time.

Mark Kirchdorfer: As we do international business, it's more geared towards the really large infrastructure, the LNG facilities. It's used a lot in mining and a lot of large infrastructure. We don't have a lot of bricks and mortar overseas, but we have a lot of business development people and we're finding projects. They're pretty sporadic and they're all around the world: Asia, Africa, some in Europe, some in the Middle East.

Jim Ray: You're more than just a pipe manufacturer. You've also got the equipment rental and you've got the general supply that goes along with that.

Mark Kirchdorfer: When we can find those opportunities and align and bring resources that they don't have available, kind of that fourth leg of our business is just the technical expertise and all the deep resources that we have. We play best on those projects.

Omar Ayyash: Outstanding.  The future of data centers and your involvement with the cooling of data centers. I mean, that's a hot topic right now.

Mark Kirchdorfer: That is the craze now, right? Because of AI and the demand for that processing power. It’s a national security interest, too. There's a race to build data centers. That's been the largest growth area. Data centers need a lot of water for cooling. They need power, and our products are used in power plants. It’s drawing on a lot of our capabilities and expertise.  Some of the opportunities are mind boggling. You wonder how in the world all of this is going to get done?  We’re working with the large scalers and we’re really excited about the opportunities ahead, in that end-market.

But our business is much more than that.  It’s very diverse. You’ve got to keep taking care of the customers that you’ve been working with for a long time.  We’re really focused on them, too.

The Fifth Legacy: Golf and Community Connection

Omar Ayyash: So, before we conclude here, we've talked about your business, but I know that you're also involved. You talked about the golf business, from a young age. I know you’ve invested in a championship and that you’ve invested in a little business here. Talk to us a little bit about that before we close out because that's an important part of the culture here in our city.

Mark Kirchdorfer: Golf's in our roots. My father got started in the golf business. He built Quail Chase golf course here in town. He died in 2012. At that time he owned six golf courses. Jimmy really leads all of our golf ventures but got involved in Valhalla and the purchase of that course. He was the chairman for the PGA. It's amazing the brand that we have at Valhalla really all over the country and throughout the world. ISCO, we sponsored a PGA tour event this year. We brought it to Louisville this year, and it was an amazing success out at Hurstbourne Country Club.

We've benefited a lot from golf. Anything we can do to support, promote golf.  We do a lot with Youth on Course and caddy programs and trying to make golf accessible and a big sponsor of The First Tee. We have a great history and legacy and heritage here in Kentucky with golf and we're really proud to be a part of that.

Omar Ayyash: Appreciate it, Mark. Thank you so much. It's been fascinating.

Mark Kirchdorfer: Yeah. Thank you.

Conclusion

Jim Ray: Friends, I hope you found that interesting. When you have a chance to sit down with the president of an organization that has such a humble beginning here for us here in Louisville, Kentucky, but then has grown that into a global powerhouse. It's just fantastic to listen not only the history, but also the insights and what's been able to drive that success over the years. So, it's truly a pleasure and I'll put a link to the website for ISCO Industries in the show notes there.

From all of us here at the World Trade Center Kentucky's This Global Trade Adventure Podcast, when you're ready to engage in international trade, we connect businesses globally.

To Learn More: 

Website:  www.ISCO-pipe.com

 

Upcoming WTCKY EVENTS:

• 12/03/25 – Tariff Strategies for Your Global Supply Chain
• 03/24/25 -04//01/25 – Discover Beautiful Ireland with WTCKY

 

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