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CONTACT: Tom Borgman
Marketing Manager
(320) 395-5227
tborgman@lesterbuildings.com

Lester Building Systems' Parent Company Celebrates 100th Year Anniversary
June 1, 2001

Kansas City, MO

Butler Manufacturing Company, a world leader in nonresidential construction and the parent company of Lester Building Systems, celebrates the corporation's 100th anniversary this year. Over the last century, what started as vision and handshake between three men in a Clay Center, Kansas, hardware store, has evolved into a billion dollar a year construction juggernaut.

The acquisition of Lester Building Systems in 1986 gave Butler a pre-engineered wood-frame building line marketed by a separate dealer organization. This broadened the Butler depth in the agricultural construction and light-commercial markets.

To commemorate this anniversary, the Kansas City, Missouri, based company has embarked on 11 months of celebration around the world at various Butler's facilities and plants, stretching from February through December, 2001. A celebration event was also held at Butler's Kansas City, Missouri, corporate headquarters on April 17, 2001, to coincide with the annual shareholders meeting.

Butler recently announced it would build a new corporate headquarters in a redeveloped site that takes in the former stockyards in Kansas City's West Bottoms District. The $25-million project will showcase the most advanced alternatives in building systems construction.

Butler Manufacturing originated in 1901 when Charles and Newton Butler, along with Emanuel Norquist, came together with the idea of manufacturing prefabricated galvanized steel water tanks for livestock. From this modest beginning Butler took root and continued to grow. During its earliest years, Butler produced a litany of products from biplanes to grain bins, steel fire-escape chutes to commercial hair dryers.

A century later, Butler is now recognized as the world's leading producer of pre-engineered building systems for the nonresidential construction industry, with offices in the United States, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and China.