Mills Farm & Industrial – Serving Fallon for Five Decades

For Grant Mills, what started as a way to earn extra money in high school has turned into a thriving business going on 50 years. Mills Farm and Industrial celebrates 50 years in business this year.

While still in high school, Mills began hauling manure to Naval Air Station Fallon housing when servicemember’s wives wanted to start little gardens at their homes. He said his father only had two pick-up trucks, so Mills purchased a 1957 F-700 bobtail truck to fulfill those orders. He was paid in cash and still can recall he received $16 per load of manure. He graduated from Churchill County High School in 1973 and obtained his Nevada sales tax permit and Churchill County business license in 1975.

Following graduation, Mills attended the University of Nevada, Reno. He did so poorly his first semester he was put on academic probation, which he attributes to the thriving party scene in Reno. Soon though, he turned it around and made it to the dean’s list after switching his major to agricultural science. Although he completed three years of college, Mills did not receive his bachelor’s degree because his new business was growing so rapidly, he had to choose between a degree and a livelihood.

More trucks were added to the MFI fleet and he continued hauling manure from Mills Jersey Farm to farms around the valley. It was around this time he purchased the business site at 4545 Sheckler Road from his grandmother’s estate. Mills secured a lucrative deal hauling barite from the Soldier Mine near Austin to the Standard Plant in Fallon. He bragged that he purchased the only brand-new Chevrolet semi-truck from Bill Janess Chevrolet in 1979 bringing his fleet up to five trucks.

When the market for barite collapsed just three years later, Mills needed to find a way to pay for his new truck, so he pivoted and began hauling grain like barley and wheat from farms in the Lahontan Valley and Eureka. He continued working with area farmers as his open-bin trucks followed combine harvesters.

“The 80s were thin,” Mills joked. “In the early 90s, we were recovering, and we learned that we want to own everything we haul.”

Mills began farming his own barley, wheat and alfalfa, and continued working with other famers chopping and harvesting silage for many years. In 2001 he purchased his first crane to help erect a grain mill at MFI. Mills said at that time, crane operator certificates didn’t exist in Nevada. He has, however, held a crane operator’s certificate for 17 years now and is certified through the National Commission for Crane Certified Operators. He noted that he is a three-star crane operator, one of just 4,000 operators in the United States.

Currently, MFI has four cranes ranging from 60 to 100 tons, several tractor-trailer trucks and 12 employees. Surprisingly, Mills’ largest customer is the U.S. Forest Service – he’s helped set many prefabricated concrete bathrooms across the West. He joked that he’s on the third generation of prefab bathrooms, and the newer multi-section wet bathrooms drove him to secure bigger cranes.

His cranes are also called upon by geothermal companies to help during construction and repairs, to assist construction companies in setting trusses and modular units, and to help set large air conditioning units atop commercial and residential buildings. His most interesting crane job was replacing the elevators at the historic Mizpah and Belvada Hotels in Tonopah.

Mills has been married to Edith Isidoro-Mills for 38 years, and having just turned 70 years old, Mills acknowledges he probably needs to slow down, but “I couldn’t NOT do something,” he said, adding he’s slowly dialing back his hours. Looking to the future, Mills said he would like to sell MFI someday to the right person, as he has no children of his own.

Mills has been involved in local organizations for most of his adult life. He’s served with the Farm Bureau, the Lahontan Valley Pilots Association, Fallon Chamber of Commerce, and he’s the current Church Council Chair for Epworth Methodist Church and the Wolf Center. Both he and Edith also serve with the Carson City Symphony – she’s a flutist and he’s a stage manager (herding musicians, he quipped).

Although MFI specializes in crane service, they also have rentals and used equipment for sale. For more information, call the office at 775-867-3000. Congratulations on marking 50 years in business, Grant!