Meet 87-Year-Old Joan Kerns, A True Trailblazer Who Helped Carve Out A Niche For Her Family Nearly 60 Years Ago

Cut by cut. Slice by slice. Every detail counts for Edgewood Locker, a northeast Iowa-based business that’s been spliced together for nearly 60 years in 1966.

With no master plan, it started when Tom, a farmer, and Joan, a nurse at the time, were forced to find a new place to live.

“We were on his dad's farm for five years when his dad announced he was going to sell the farm. He wanted us to buy it, but we could not afford to buy a huge farm back then,” Joan explains.

So, they found a farm to rent three miles outside of Edgewood, until an accidental fire on that farm sparked another change.

“Talk about an act of fate. We knew the lady who owned that farm was going to make us move, because she believed those stories that we started the fire,” Joan remembers. “Tom came home one day and said, 'The locker in town is for sale.' So, we bought it.”

It was that decision that changed the course for the Kerns family. Neither Joan nor Tom knew anything about running a meat locker, but they had the tenacity to make it work.

“Tom wanted to do the actual meat cutting and that sort of thing, and I was going to do all the books and the book work,” says Joan.

The business started out with minimal equipment: only a saw and a grinder at the locker. That didn’t stop the Kerns from seeing phenomenal growth.

“And every year we were in business, we grew. Every year we got bigger. And so, finally, we outgrew our plant,” she says.  

The growth wasn't always easy, and it didn't come without financial hardships. Joan says the couple borrowed money to expand and grow six different times.

“But I remember, maybe the second or third time Tom said, 'I’m going to go up to the bank tomorrow and borrow some money for the next addition,' and I went up to do our daily banking that day. And the girl said, ‘Oh, we can give you the money.’ So, I borrowed the money, got back home and I told him. I said, ‘Well, I got the money borrowed for our new addition.’ Tom said, ‘They let a woman do that?’ That's the way it was back then,” says Joan.

A Force of Nature

Joan’s son Terry will be the first to tell you how much his mom was a driving force behind the scenes, if she didn’t always get the  credit she deserved.

“She's kind of a force of nature, there's no doubt about it, and probably even more so than anybody realizes,” says Terry, who’s one of two second-generation owners of Edgewood Locker.

What makes Joan’s role so essential to their growth is the fact Joan’s husband, Tom, was dyslexic. So behind the scenes, Joan handled the paperwork and books, all while raising four kids at home.

Bringing in the Second Generation Straight Out of High School

Joan is still a true trailblazer today, as the Kerns’ unconventional ways and business decisions also helped fuel the family operation.

“The boys had come into the locker business as they graduated from high school, which really let us dream bigger,” says Joan.

That was in the early 1980s. Tom and Joan didn’t just see their sons Terry and Jim as employees, they allowed the boys to buy into the business fresh out of high school.

“It wasn't popular with their peers that they allowed Jim and me to buy in at such a young age, you know. They gave us a huge opportunity," remembers Terry. 

“And I think that's why we grew as we did, because they were partners. They were going to be in this, and it made a big difference," Joan says. 

The growth has been impressive over the past 60 years, including building a new facility in the late 1990s that has seen even more expansion since.

“We built this business because she paid attention to detail. And she wanted to make sure it was done right. She still keeps us on our toes,” says Terry.

At 87-years-old, Joan is sharp, and attention to detail may still be one of her greatest strengths.

“She is not afraid to tell us when she thinks we've done something wrong,” says Terry.  

Bringing in the Third Generation 

While Joan doesn’t overlook the small things, she’s also the first to celebrate how much the family business has grown. It now includes four grandkids who have become part-owners.

“Oh my gosh, I did not see that coming. And they each bring their own experience, knowledge, their forte to the business,” says Joan.

“All of us in the third generation, all I feel have a very unique skill set, which allows all of us to bring something different to the table,” says Baili Maurer, one of Joan’s grandchildren who bought in as a third-generation owner.

“None of us really overlap much. We all have our own thing that we do, and it just works,” adds Katie, who’s also one of four grandchildren who are partners.

Katie and Bailli, along with Luke Kerns and Payson Kerns, are the third-generation owners of Edgewood Locker.

“They've got experience, they've got education in meat science in business. So, as fun as it was to grow with Mom and Dad adding Jim and me, this next generation really has the potential to do amazing things,” says Terry.

Third-Generation Growth

“We're just doing what we can to take the business to a new level,” says Baili.

“We really expanded into wholesale stores and retail stores carrying our products. And we just keep going with what the second generation and first generation have been doing, as well,” adds Katie.

The growth is evident everywhere you turn. Construction in their retail and lobby area is a clear sign of even more progress.

“We had a major expansion of 19,000-square-feet that we've been in now a little over a year and a half, and I think it's running well,” says Terry. “We remodeled our old processing facility and updated that, and it looks like brand new.”

The decision to expand and remodel their retail and lobby area was propelled by the busiest season for Edgewood Locker: deer season.

“I think last year, we did 3,700 whole-carcass deer, and then over 3,500 batches of boned-out deer that came in, so well over 7,000 different batches to jerky,” Terry says.

With that type of volume, Edgewood Locker has also been able to invest in bigger and better equipment.

“I'd like to say we had this great master plan, but we never had a real plan to say, 'Well, next year, we're going to get into wholesaling, or next year, we're going to do this.' We just kind of took it as it came. Something presented itself, we ran with it, and ran hard with a lot of it,” says Terry. 

A Legacy Worth Sharing 

With 130 full-time, part-time and seasonal employees, Edgewood Locker also offers other custom processing, and has products for sale, in more than 100 retail stores across Iowa. And it’s that side of the business the third generation has already helped expand.

“I hope we can just continue the legacy,” says Baili.

“I'm hopeful that we can just keep doing like we're doing, keep growing where we can and keep expanding things and have it all set up for the fourth generation if they would like to join in someday,” Katie says.

Walls of awards are a product of what Joan and Tom started in 1966, but that isn’t what Joan is most proud of today. The greatest gift just may be the fourth generation and the chance to carry on a business that started on hopes and dreams.