Management style

Iversen was described by many former employees as the glue that held Mesta together. In the 1930s he won a large contract with a steel manufacturer by foregoing the company's standard fee in exchange for a share of the profits of the manufactured mill. He would regularly cheer on his workers and had a ritual of standing on a hastily made stage every time Mesta won a new contract and exclaiming: "We got this job because you’re the best mechanics in the world!" He often had face-to-face talks with employees and would work the factory floor on weekends, holidays and Christmas, asking workers about new babies or ailing family members. Mesta workers repeatedly voted down efforts to unionize the factory despite its proximity to unionized steel mills including the (infamous in labor history) Homestead Mill. Iversen credited his employment policy based on human relations as the chief reason his workers rejected unionization. A month after his death in 1967 (and four years after he stepped down as president) Mesta was unionized.^[2]

World War II

Mesta's West Homestead plant was a center for WWII production. It earned the Army-Navy E Award, and was one of seven factories to earn six stars.^[2] Mesta specialized in manufacturing 16-inch naval guns, ship-propeller shafts, artillery carriages and "Long Toms" 155-mm cannons. Iversen personally oversaw the production of "Little David", a 36-inch bore mortar that was put into production for the canceled Japanese invasion.^[3] During the war, Iversen transformed Mesta into one of the nation's top ordnance suppliers, personally working 18-hour shifts in the factory. His accounting department also ran two 8-hour shifts per day.^[2]

Mesta, and later Iverson, operated the Hays Army Ammunition Plant from the 1940s through the 1960s.

Post war success

A fifty thousand ton Mesta press manufactured for Alcoa in 1952.

The company manufactured a 50,000 ton press (the "fifty") as part of the Heavy Press Program, initially owned by the Air Force in 1952 and operated by Alcoa, which purchased it outright in 1982. The press manufactures structural components for aircraft such as the 747 and DC-10 jetliners.^[3] After being taken out of service due to cracking in the structure, it was refurbished over three years at a cost of $100 million, and returned to service in 2012.^[8][9]

Khrushchev Visit

In September 1959, Nikita Khrushchev visited the Mesta Machinery Co. factory on his tour of the U.S., where he received a cigar from a worker.^[10]