A division of Cornejo & Sons once again is going to be owned by a Cornejo in Wichita

Cornejo & Sons has been a name in Wichita business for seven decades, and now a division of the company once again is going to be owned by a Cornejo in Wichita.

The entire Cornejo & Sons business, including construction, paving and other services, sold to Denver-based Summit Materials in 2010.

Kurt Cornejo, whose grandfather started the family business in 1952, purchased Pearson Excavating in 2013 and grew the company from an excavating business to a construction business with a number of services. It’s now known as Pearson Construction.

Now, Cornejo has purchased the Cornejo & Sons construction, paving and concrete and asphalt recycling business from Summit.

“All I wanted to do was kind of reinvent the wheel because that’s what I grew up knowing,” Cornejo said.

Pearson and the Cornejo business do a lot of the same work.

“Both divisions are very complementary to each other,” said Pearson vice president Pat Short. “It allows us to expand.”

Cornejo said Pearson does “a lot more highway paving than we currently did. . . . Adding them gave us the opportunity to expand for sure.”

Cornejo & Sons has portable asphalt plants that allow it to work around the state, and Pearson will maintain that portable business.

Due to labor shortages, “For us to grow organically in the next five to seven years would have been very difficult,” Short said.

Cornejo said the acquisition brings more than 130 new employees to his team, which already has 225 people.

“This acquisition we feel like leaps us forward,” Cornejo said.

The employees will locate at Pearson’s headquarters in the former Cargill building near 29th and Broadway.

Cornejo said he’s not sure what his grandfather would think, but he knows what his father, Ron, thinks.

Ron Cornejo used to co-own the Cornejo business.

“He’s pretty excited,” Kurt Cornejo said. “He’s excited that I found a path, and I’m moving forward.”