SMITH SPS10 DCS Scari
SMITH's SPS10 DCS High-Production Scari er is ideal for removing tough pavement markings and leveling trip hazards. The SPS10 DCS builds on the proven capability of the SPS10 by adding SMITH's electronic DCS Depth Control System, which allows operators to precisely control their cut depth with the push of a button.
¡ Ideal for removing markings, trip hazards, and inlay grooving
¡ Remove paths up to 10 inches wide
¡ Electronic DCS Depth Control System for precise cut control
¡ Wide variety of cutters available, including PCD shaving drums
¡ Reliable 13HP Honda® Gasoline Engine with electric start
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20 Alan Curtist Industry Service
Etnyre International is a storied and major innovative contributor to the paving and roadmaintenance industry.
24 Hall of Fame
Mark McLeod, owner of Maintenance, Inc., is inducted into the Pavement Hall of Fame.
30 Seal & Stripe Small Job
Tri-State Sealcoating in Cincinnati, OH took their small crew of four and won on a high traffic job with a small project window.
32 Seal & Stripe Large Job
Love’s Asphalt overcame mounting obstacles during their work on the Red Lerille’s Health & Racquet Club parking lot.
34 Paving: Non-Parking Lot
Howard Companies went above and beyond for their customers with a project for The City of Fishers.
36 Paving: Parking Lot
Organization and communication were key elements for Esso Brothers and their extensive mill and pave project inside an elite housing community.
38 Best Marketing Video
Royal Pavement Solutions, last year’s runner up makes a splash in 2023.
44 Good Neighbor
An ordinary job is transformed into something so much more, when a Marathon Solutions brought joy and color to children through striping.
The company took an hour during a live-streamed press event to discuss their corporate vision, future products, and how they plan to transform the industry by empowering their customers.
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https://pavemg.com/qs6goy
Entrepreneurs know that the work of managing a business is a constant balancing act between risk and reward.
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https://pavemg.com/xo54z6
Many contractors may have a great business, a stellar reputation, and a top-notch end product, but still find themselves struggling with recruiting talent, vetting possible candidates and retaining the best people for the job.
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https://pavemg.com/1294lz
Vol. 36, No. 2 February 2023
Published and copyrighted 2023 by AC Business Media. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.
Subscription policy: Individual subscriptions are available without charge in the U.S. only to pavement maintenance contractors, producers and government employees involved in paving or pavement maintenance; dealers, and distributors of pavement maintenance equipment or materials; and others with similar business activities. Complete the subscription form at www.forconstructionpros.com or use your company letterhead giving all the information requested. Publisher reserves the right to reject nonqualified subscribers. One year subscriptions for nonqualified individuals: $35.00 U.S.A., $60.00 Canada and Mexico, and $85.00 all other countries (payable in U.S. funds, drawn on U.S. bank). Single copies available (prepaid only) $10.00 each (U.S., Canada & Mexico), $15.00 each (International). Pavement Maintenance & Reconstruction (ISSN 1098-5875), is published eight times per year: January, February, March/April, May, June/July, August/September, October/ November, December by AC Business Media, 201 N. Main St., Fifth Floor, Fort Atkinson, WI 53538. Periodicals postage paid at Fort Atkinson, WI and additional entry offices.
POSTMASTER: Please send change of address to Pavement, PO Box 3605, Northbrook, IL 60065-3605. Printed in the USA.
PAVEMENT MAINTENANCE & RECONSTRUCTION is proudly supported by these associations:
ADVISORY BOARD
Agua Trucks Inc
Wickenburg, AZ, Scott Duscher
Asphalt Contractors Inc., Union Grove, WI ............................................... Robert Kordus
Asphalt Restoration Technology Systems, Orlando, FL ........................ Connie Lorenz
Brahney Paving, Hillsborough, NJ Steven Brahney
Eosso Brothers Paving; Hazlet, NJ Tom Eosso
Maul Paving/Concrete/Sealcoating, PLainfield, IL Chris Maul
Parking Lot Maintenance, Lake St. Louis, MO Todd Bruening
Petra Paving, Hampstead, NH Chris Tammany
Pioneer Paving, Albuquerque, NM Don Rooney
Roberts Traffic, Hollywood, FL Lisa Birchfield
Show Striping Inc. (SSI), Wisconsin Dells, WI ...................................... Amber Showalter
T&N Asphalt Services, Salt Lake City, UT ........................................................ Nick Howell
Young Sealcoating Inc, Lynchburg, VA Steve Young
The Paving Lady Mauro Comuzzi
JMP Excelsior Services Jim Panzenhagen
Sweeping Industry Veteran Gabe Vitale
Flat Nickel Management Michael Nawa
Wis-Coat Asphalt Maintenance Marvin Joles
Clear Choice Sealing Warren Johnson
Jacketta Sweeping Services .........................................................................Debbie Jacketta
ASSOCIATION REPRESENTATIVES:
Pavement Coatings Technology Council Brian Riggs, Executive Director
This month is the annual Pavement Awards issue, where we take time to honor and recognize some of the most hard working, talented, and up-and-coming contractors working in the industry today.
One of the big benefits of preparing for this issue, for me, was getting to contact the winners, tell them the good news, and then talk to them about their company. Everyone has a story, and when you sit down and ask people to share it, usually, they are more than eager to talk about the work they do and who they do the work with.
Brandon Noel, Editor
bNoel@ACBusinessMedia.com 234-600-8983
Family histories are entwined with so many of our winners this year, and it is important to recognize how much continuity and legacy play a part in small business ownership and development. From talking with our winners from 2023, you can’t own or run a business in this industry without the support and help of family. Sometimes that’s the found family on the jobsite, and sometimes it’s the family that you’re born into. Either way, none of our winners got here on their own, and each would say so.
They are teams of people waking up every day to put on their boots and gloves, and head out to do the work. Looking at this year’s winners, folks, the work is good.
I took on the role as editor only seven months ago, and since day one there has been talk about "ConEXPO", and it has continued to loom larger than life over the past half of a year. This year's trade show will undoubtedly be one for the history books, due to the fact that the last show was cut short by the pandemic, and everyone was sent home early. In-person events have steadily been coming back ever since, all the while ConEXPO has been in its normal cycle of off-years.
The 2023 ConEXPO will be the first one for several of our editorial team, and we've been in the trenches since late October, planning our coverage well ahead of time, so that when the bell rings, we will be the number one stop for all the news you want and need. Whether or not you are able to be in Las Vegas this March, you'll be able to stay on top of the latest and greatest.
Not to mention that our parent company AC Business Media (ACBM), that houses all of the print magazine brands, as well as ForConstructionPros.com and IronPros. com, will have a booth of it's own! If you find yourself at the North Hall, come visit me and the rest of the ACBM team at booth #N12839. Myself and the other editors will be there from time-to-time when we aren't out covering the show for you!
It might seem like ConEXPO is a show that is only geared towards the “big guys” in the industry, but the more I see the educational session topics and pre-show product showcase listings, the more I think that contractors of any shape and size could benefit from the largest construction tradeshow in North America. I can’t wait to see it for myself, and hopefully see you there too! ■
EDITORIAL Editor Brandon Noel bnoel@acbusinessmedia.com
Contributing Editor Jessica Lombardo jlombardo@acbusinessmedia.com
Digital Content Director, IRONPROS Wayne Grayson wgrayson@acbusinessmedia.com
Managing Editor Gigi Wood gwood@acbusinessmedia.com
Technology Editor Charles Rathmann crathmann@acbusinessmedia.com
AUDIENCE
Audience Development Manager Angela Franks
PRODUCTION
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Art Director April Van Etten
ADVERTISING/SALES
Publisher...................................................................... Amy Schwandt aschwandt@acbusinessmedia.com
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AC BUSINESS MEDIA
Chief Executive Officer Ron Spink
Chief Financial Officer .......................................... JoAnn Breuchel
Chief Revenue Officer ............................................. Amy Schwandt
Chief Digital Officer Kris Heineman
Brand Director, Supply Chain & Green Industry Jason DeSarle
Brand Director, Construction Sean Dunphy
VP, Audience Development Ronda Hughes
VP, Operations & IT Nick Raether
Content Director Marina Mayer
Director, Online & Marketing Services Bethany Chambers
Content Director, Marketing Services ...............Jess Lombardo
Director, Demand Generation & Education ............. Jim Bagan
Director, Enterprise Sales Kay Ross-Baker
CIRCULATION & SUBSCRIPTIONS
P.O. Box 3605, Northbrook, IL 60065-3605 (877) 201-3915 | Fax: (847)-291-4816 circ.pavement@omeda.com
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Published and copyrighted 2022 by AC Business Media.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.
The highest quality and most reliable pavement preservation products for roads, bridges, and athletic surfaces.
Crafco offers preservation materials that provide long-lasting performance and equipment that is the safest and most reiable in the industry. A dedicated team of engineers and scientists are always working to develop new and innovative products that offer superior performance for our customers.
Crafco has a team committed to providing customers with product support, exceptional service and expert advice. We carry over 3,000 quality products – sealant and mastic materials and equipment, sealcoating, traffic paint, safety apparel and traffic control, athletic surfaces, concrete curing, tools and more.
Helping you find the right product solution is our commitment.
BROCK, a supplier of equipment, parts, and on-site construction services for hot mix asphalt plants, announced Lance Clark as its new Regional Sales Manager – Southwest. He takes over the states previously covered by Sales Representative Phil Hoffman who will be helping Mr. Clark as he transitions into the area. In his role he will be responsible for providing outstanding customer service while selling BROCK equipment, parts, and on-site construction services in the territory.
Mr. Clark has over 16 years of successful engineering and sales experience in the hot mix asphalt equipment industry. He came to BROCK in 2021 after several years with Astec Industries to help develop the BROCK line-up of quality hot oil heaters and liquid asphalt storage tanks.
Commenting on the announcement Ben Brock, President and CEO of BROCK, said, “We are pleased to announce Lance as our Regional Sales Manager – Southwest Territory. Lance has been successful at all points of his career, with some of it in sales covering the area he now covers for BROCK.
Many of the customers in the territory already know Lance, and we are excited to have him back in the field serving them with BROCK. We have already had remarkable success in the territory thanks to Phil Hoffman, and we are excited about our future in the territory with Lance.”
Texas First Rentals, a division of HOLT, announced that it acquired Rental One, a full-service equipment and storage container rental company offering a complete line of construction equipment and supplies in 15 locations throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and Central Texas regions.
Texas First Rentals, a construction equipment rental company, offers rental solutions through its full line of aerial, dirt and portable power equipment. The equipment Texas First Rentals provides includes boom lifts, scissor lifts, excavators, generators, pumps and trench safety equipment.
Rental One, founded in 2004 in Colleyville, Texas, with equipment rental roots going back to the 1950s, is a family-owned, full-service equipment and storage container rental company offering a full line of well-maintained, quality construction equipment and concrete, safety, erosion control and construction supplies throughout its locations.
“Our team has worked to build a successful business with meaningful relationships that span three generations,” said Rental One President Mike O’Neal. “Our customers will benefit from a broader range of products and combined expertise as we join the Texas First Rentals team.”
With this acquisition, the 300 current Rental One employees, including the leadership team, will become employees of Texas First Rentals and will continue to operate from current Rental One locations. This acquisition will allow Texas First Rentals to expand its presence to a total of 40 locations in highly attractive regions poised for future growth.
Felling Trailers Inc.recently appointed Dan Klimek to the role of Quality Assurance Manager over its production facilities. Along with Quality Management, he will oversee weld production for the Litchfield manufacturing facility as the Production Manager. As the Quality Assurance Manager, Dan will manage the installation and maintenance of the company’s quality assurance programs.
In the role of Litchfield Production Manager, he will work with the production team to implement new processes and technologies to reduce lead time and increase team productivity.
Klimek brings over 30 years of manufacturing, quality control systems, and processes to his position. Before accepting the Quality Assurance and Production Manager positions with Felling Trailers, Dan held a similar collection of roles with Polar Tank Trailers, LLC for over a decade. Most recently, he was the General Manager for Polar Tank Trailers’ Minnesota Trailer Operations for the last six years.
“Dan brings an extensive background in quality control and lean manufacturing. We are excited to have him as part of the Felling Trailers’ team and to see the positive impact he will bring to our production and quality assurance processes,” said Brenda Jennissen, CEO/Co-Owner Felling Trailers.
“To be able to add an individual of Dan’s class and expertise is a huge win for Felling Trailers, I look forward to working with him.” said Paul Radjenovich, VP of Operations. ■
For more information visit https://pavemg.com/2a6kgs
This combination diesel and diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) transfer tank for pickup trucksk provides 100 gal. of diesel and 18 gal. of DEF capacity that fits seamlessly into the bed of pickup trucks (half-ton and larger) with both pumping systems concealed within its structure. The sleek design ensures optimal rear visibility by taking up no more than half of the rear window. Diesel is pumped at 15 gpm via an industrial-grade 12V pump, while DEF is pumped at up to 10 gpm. Both fill nozzles (automatic or manual) are located on the driver side of the truck and extend out 10 ft. from the tank. The tank and all components are concealed within a lockable, weather-sealed enclosure with optional diamond plate aluminum doors. An optional 2-in-1 DEF pumping solution pumps DEF in and out of the tank via a closed system to ensure fluid quality.
Video: www.ForConstructionPros.com/12313026
The MX FUEL 6-in. Green Concrete Saw will join the system providing easier, more accurate cutting of control joints. This solution allows users to cut 1 1/2-in. depth on a 6-in. blade, maximizing users’ productivity. This solution delivers instant starts with no gas headaches, no regular maintenance, and zero emissions providing a safer workspace indoors and outdoors. Milwaukee is excited to continue revolutionizing the light equipment market with their groundbreaking cordless system and provide contractors with solutions that increase performance and productivity, removing the frustrations and limitations of gasoline and power cords.
Announced at World of Concrete 2023, this release joined the launch of multiple new concrete solutions including a 20-in. Plate Compactor, 24-in. and 36-in. Walk-Behind Trowels, Core Rig, 12.0AH and 8.0AH Batteries, and SuperCharger.
A high performance sealcoat blended with polymers and special surfactants for superior flexibility and adhesion. MasterSeal pavement sealcoating replenishes the binder that is lost through weathering and aging, and provides superior protection against environmental distress.
• User Friendly – No Irritating Fumes
• Deep, Rich Black Color
• More Flexible – Won’t Check Crack
• Ideal for all Asphalt Pavement Surfaces
Part of the SnowLogix line of snow blowers, the I Series includes four models of industrial-duty, tractor-mounted units available in 9- and 10-ft. widths for efficiently moving large amounts of snow.
• Feature a two-stage design with 16-in.-diameter augers and 36-in.-diameter fans
• Use a reliable chain drive, oversized gearbox, large bearings and thick steel construction for maximum durability
• Equipped with a hydraulically adjustable spout with a 14-in. diameter and 270° of rotation
• Truck loading spout options available
Family-owned businesses make up a large part of successful contractors in the paving and pavement maintenance space - and for good reason. Hard work is instilled in these business owners from the day they are born into the company, and their passion for the work and the organization continues to grow throughout the years.
This is certainly true for Finley Asphalt & Concrete, a third-generation family-owned company and Pavement Maintenance & Reconstruction Magazine’s 2023 Contractor of the Year.
Finley Asphalt & Concrete began like many other family-owned businesses; small. In 1965, Lonnie Finley worked for his father-in-law, John Vannoy who was in the excavation and utility business. Lonnie was installing a sewer line in a subdivision and one of the homeowners approached him about paving his driveway. At first, he declined, but the homeowner was very insistent, and
Lonnie agreed to take on the challenge. He borrowed a dump truck from his father-in-law, rented a roller, rounded up some help and paved the driveway.
“Although according to my dad, it did not turn out very well, the homeowner was happy,” Erick Finley, owner of Finley Asphalt & Concrete said. “What Dad learned from this experience was he saw a future in paving, it would keep him out of ditches and the mud from installing utility lines. It wasn’t long after that the Finley Paving and Construction Company was formed. My mother Ethel Finley was very instrumental in the starting of the company and tending to the office side of the business.”
The 2023 Contractor of the Year continues to take risks that grow both their services offered and the quality of their business.
Erick and his brother Lewis grew up learning the business from their dad and never had any doubt they would join him full time when they were able.
“We have no complaints about our childhood, but it was different from how most kids grow up,” Erick said. “We were either in school, or working, but we all enjoyed it, and it was fun to us. Little did we know that what we were learning as kids would be needed, as young men, to carry on the family business. We were always planning to build our careers in the family paving business.”
In the late 1980’s, the brothers were out of school and were ready to help their father grow the company from a residential paving contractor to a larger commercial-based business. Unfortunately, in February of 1990 Lonnie was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer that took his life six months later. At the time, Erick was 18 years old, and Lewis was 23 years old.
“We were very young when our father passed, however we had been working with him since we were old enough to remember,” Erick said. “Quitting was never a thought; we just pushed forward and did the best that we could. Did we know everything there was to know? Absolutely not, but we gave it everything that we had. In our early years, the company specialized in residential paving and light commercial. We felt like there was a lot more we
could do. Our goal before he passed was to expand and focus on 100% commercial and that is what we did.”
Growth in paving businesses does not come easy. There is a lot of hard work, planning and time away from home but the Finley brothers had plans to expand the company and stuck to them with exponential growth happening in the early 2000’s.
In the late 1990’s, the company noticed they were using a lot of subcontractors for their jobs. Not only does this require companies to work around other schedules, but it also leaves some quality control issues out of your hands as well.
“As we were starting to grow and starting to do more work, using subcontractors exclusively just wasn't working anymore, both from a monetary standpoint, and scheduling,” Erick said. “We knew if we could do it ourselves, we could control our own scheduling and also quality and price.”
They brought both milling services and concrete work in house in the early 2000’s and the business started to take off.
“We certainly weren’t home very much at that time,” Erick said. “This business requires a lot of you and we were working long hours and that's when we really started adding on people.”
And not just adding people, but adding good people to the mix.
“Luckily, we have some good solid family members that were here to help us with the growth,” Erick said. “We also found other people that we could depend on like Marty Aubrey and others who, in the early days of our growth, were certainly instrumental in what we did.”
As growth for the company continued, they needed to work on more efficient ways to complete their work and started to rely heavily on technology for help.
“I grew up measuring the parking lots with a measuring wheel and performing plan area takeoffs with an engineering scale ruler,” Erick said. “I am glad that I was able to learn this way, as you become intimately involved with the project, but it is not an efficient way to do things. To be honest in the early 2000s, we were still doing everything by pen and paper. And then as we brought on some other people, they really introduced us the technology that could help us.”
The company began using satellite technology to measure the parking lots and a computerized takeoff system to perform plan area takeoffs. Prior to this technology, the teams would spend many hours measuring the parking lots. Today, they can measure a parking lot using satellite imagery in minutes and have an estimate/proposal prepared 10 times as fast as years prior. This also helps with project management.
“I used to have to meet with our teams and review their estimates each week,” Erick said. “Now, we store things on Google Drive and I can review them no matter where I’m at. We no longer have to have these lengthy in person meetings and things can be done remotely at any time of day. We still go visit the sites because the satellite can’t do justice to an in person visit when coming up with a game plan, but now we can enter that information on our iPads and measure the site from our desktop making it so much easier to put proposals together, much quicker than we used to.”
During their growth period, and still today, Erick read magazines and attended tradeshows to gain more knowledge of ways to help improve his business.
“Pavement Maintenance magazine, Construction Business Owner, and equipment magazines such as Rock and Dirt and Machinery Trader helped me to learn about new technology and the latest in equipment,” he said. “Plus I have attended many National Pavement Expo shows since the mid 90’s. Today I am still reading magazines (although mostly digital) and attending trade shows such as the NPE show to stay informed with the latest, ever-changing technology.”
Last year, Finley was also able to bring in Full-Depth Reclamation services in-house due to their partnership with a private equity company. The creation of “Pavement Partners” will help Finley accelerate their growth in other markets while also enabling the company to better serve their employees and existing customer base.
“We have just a vast amount of resources available to us now after the partnership,” Erick said. “We’re able to tap into other equipment and manpower that we didn’t have before and it’s made doing business easier for both our company and our customers.”
This ‘simple’ way of doing business has served the Finley family well over the years and they will continue to see success because of it.
Since the 1990’s, Finley Asphalt & Concrete has been completing more commercial work while also making a name for themselves in the sports court paving business.
“One day, a tennis court contractor called us up and asked if we could pave his tennis court,” Erick said. “We met with them and talked about what they needed and thought we could be pretty good at this.”
The company soon realized that there was not a huge niche for this type of business and the competition was not heavy. Plus they saw better margins in this type of work and decided to specialize in this work in their region.
The company also has grading crews and a drainage crew that can do “light earthwork.”
“We have customers who come to us and tell us that they need their parking lot expanded and we’ll take on those jobs from start to finish,” Erick said. “There are not a lot of contractors that are willing to do that, they just want to do the paving and we found there was a pretty big need for someone to take that parking lot expansion as a prime contractor. So we’ll do that type. of work, as well.”
The company has also been dabbling in Full-Depth Reclamation (FDR) work for a few years in an effort to help give their customers the best value for their pavement and was able to bring this service in-house in 2022.
“We are very excited about self-performing FDR,” Erick said. “FDR is the process of chemically altering a pavements subbase in lieu of removing the subbase, trucking, and disposing of the soils at a landfill, then importing new stone from a rock quarry. This process allows us to utilize the existing soils without hauling any materials off site or bringing new materials on site. The end result is a solid foundation for the new pavement, a cost savings over the traditional removal and replacement, the preservation of natural resources, and many dump trucks kept off the road.”
Finley knows that sustainable solutions like FDR will be in-demand for future projects and is positioning themselves as a “green” partner.
“Ninety-five percent of the asphalt we mill is transported back to the supplier for recycling,” Erick said. “The concrete that we remove is transported back to a recycling yard to be crushed and turned into a usable stone product. Our crews also utilize an asphalt release agent that is a citrus based product in lieu of a solvent such as diesel fuel to lubricate the paver hoppers, asphalt tools, and the dump truck bodies so that the asphalt will not stick to the metal surfaces. This requires a bit more work and effort as it requires holding tanks in our equipment yards, secondary tanks on the equipment, sprayers on the job sites, etc. However, it’s the right thing to do.”
“Once Lewis and I took over, it was our goal to grow the business into a commercial asphalt company focused on quality work, modern equipment, and simply just being easy to work with,” Erick said. “Being simple and easy to work with sounds simple, right? Well, I have run into so many businesses (not just paving) that are simply just difficult to work with. Customers do not want
difficulty or to fight with their service provider. We simply treat our employees and customers how we would like to be treated. It’s a simple stupid approach and it has served us well.” ■
For more information visit https://pavemg.com/mz1q1r
In an industry slow to adopt change, More Clean of Texas is breaking the mold.
Since 2004, owner Steve Watts served the Abilene, TX area as an exterior commercial maintenance provider. During the day, Steve would mow lawns in the area and then at night take his Tymco out to take care of their sweeping needs.
In 2011, Steve’s son Cole joined the business and began to grow a service area around their commercial contracts. They added more landscaping services and two more sweepers.
“In Abilene, we were the only sweeping company within 100 miles so we knew in order to grow, we had to expand everything,” Cole Watts says.
“We focused on word-of-mouth and old
The 2023 Sweeper of the Year recipient has experienced tremendous growth since embracing a “forward-thinking” mentality.
fashioned relationship building to get our services out there.”
Between 2011 and 2016, the company outgrew their Abilene service area and began providing services in their surrounding communities, adding satellite locations in two towns on the edge of that 100 mile radius. Though, only a short drive away (by Texas standards, at least) from the new locations, the Watts’ quickly found out that managing people and equipment remotely required solid processes and organization. SOPs were developed to ensure every employee was sweeping a lot with the same approach no matter what location they worked in. Pre and post trip inspections were digitized, allowing ownership to track maintenance and repairs without seeing the trucks every day. Cloud based time tracking was introduced, routing and dispatch were moved from paper to iPads, and every employee was given a company email address to facilitate communication.
In 2016, they took a leap of faith and started a 3rd satellite location in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex- a stark contrast to the more suburban and rural towns that Steve and Cole were familiar with.
Cole recalls, “We really grew our company strictly on word-of-mouth referrals from our customers, and our three locations were in geographically isolated towns of around 100,000 people. Expanding to an area with over six million residents where we had very few connections was daunting, but we were excited about the new challenge.”
The company also developed multiple third party partnerships to obtain larger contracts, which helped to give
them a footprint in the new area.
In 2017, the company experienced “rapid fire growth” adding 16 sweepers in six months. Along with the growth came hundreds of new sites to sweep, 30 new employees, and a whole new world of opportunities for the company.
“That year we followed an opportunity for growth and were awarded the contract to self sweep almost every location of a retail chain in Texas,- about 180 stores in total,” Cole Watts says. “This ‘overnight success’ came after 10+ years of hard work, sales, and relationship building. Everything just started to fall into place.”
beginning their first day. When we know we have the right people, we know we can be successful.”
Adding to the challenge of accelerated growth, not only was More Clean onboarding new employees, equipment, and customers at a much higher rate than ever before, the team was expanding geographically, as well. Four new offices were opened in major cities in Texas to service the contracts, and the father/son duo quickly learned that they could not be everywhere at once. “In the blink of an eye, we expanded our coverage area tenfold; we couldn’t just hop in a truck and handle problems ourselves quickly or efficiently like we had in the past,” Cole explains. “Maintenance planning, procurement, payroll, accounting, and route building being easily managed by a single person was no longer an option.”
Any business owner knows that rapid growth can cause extensive challenges. Steve and Cole knew that, in order to be successful with their growth, they needed to shore up the processes and operations behind every facet of the business.
“You need to identify the areas that you can make the most impact and focus there,” Cole says. “I realized I didn’t have to be involved in everything we were doing as long as we had the right people and process in place.
We start with company identity and culture, and instill quality and service standards in all our employees
Cole, Steve, and their new support staff worked to develop a framework that allowed for centralized purchasing, accounting, and routing to increase efficiency. Their mechanics built travel schedules that kept preventative maintenance on track while being able to react to urgent needs as they came about.
“We try to rely on technology to help us get the work done as much as we can,” Cole says. “We use route mapping to get drivers to where they need to go faster, and are 100% paperless in the process. Each vehicle has a GPS unit that tracks its location in real-time. We know there will be a time when we have to show proof of time on site and areas cleaned and so we want to be prepared for everything that entails.”
Steve and Cole recognized that their employees were the most critical factor when it came to scaling and success. To manage a team that was spread out over an area roughly the size of Pennsylvania, several technology initiatives were adopted.
A Human Resources Information System (HRIS) was implemented that integrated hiring, onboarding, benefits, and document compliance all into one easy to access system. Hiring is done through a platform that post jobs in multiple places, can schedule interviews directly from the interface, send offer letters, and seamlessly
transfer new employees’ information into the HRIS. Employees then have a single point of access for updating personal information, completing onboarding documents, entering or updating payroll information, and selecting health benefits both during onboarding as well as open enrollment. This allowed More Clean to fully eliminate all physical documents related to employee compliance, while giving employees control over their personal information—something that is increasingly important in today’s digital age.
“Our employees quickly learn that technology is integral to all facets of our business, and by introducing this concept on day 1 and showing how we
benefit from our systems, even the least tech-savvy hires becomes comfortable using it within a very short period of time,” says Cole.
Sadly, Steve passed away in November of 2021 after a lengthy battle with cancer. Though a challenging and emotional transition for the entire team, Cole has stepped up to continue the legacy that Steve began building almost 20 years ago. Today, the company owns 22 sweepers, both air and broom, and completes services in areas around Abilene, San Angelo, Wichita Falls, Dallas/Fort Worth, Waco, and San Antonio.
They grew from providing basic landscaping and sweeping services, to now, also, offering portering, powerwashing, and snow removal. The company has one, three, and five year plans with goals during each phase and diversification is continually an area of focus.
“We can’t do it all, but we strive to do a few key things the best,” Cole says. “We are continually working to identify where our competencies are and where we can be a full provider for our customers. The goal is a diverse mix of customers in multiple industries and sectors, and we keep pushing towards that.”
More Clean of Texas knows that the key to their success has always been their ability to adapt to the needs of their customers and will continue to do so in the future.
“You have to be prepared, but you also have to sometimes take a leap of faith,” Cole says. “You always want to have your eyes open and take advantage of every opportunity presented to you.” ■
No matter what your pavement preservation goal, the team at Etnyre International has a solution.
ConExpo is the construction industry’s largest trade show, and it’s heading back to Las Vegas in 2023. Equipment manufacturers will feature their latest innovations for the industry on the show floor and, for the first time ever, the experts at Etnyre International will be showcasing all four of their brand solutions in one booth.
Etnyre International has been providing groundbreaking equipment for the pavement industry for 125 years. Over the last decade, they have expanded their equipment catalog to include BearCat, Rayner Equipment Systems and SMF products. These acquisitions have helped the company provide expanded offerings for their customers through these wellrespected legacy brands.
The company will continue their legendary commitment to the industry through these trusted brands, producing the equipment that customers know and love while also developing new solutions to meet future demand.
These acquisitions allow Etnyre International to better serve the industry by offering the best solution for a customer’s needs, regardless of the product’s brand. Engineers for all four companies are working together to produce the very best products that feature the latest technological advances, providing customers maximum performance and reliability.
With over 1,000 team members across three states, the Etnyre International team is dedicated to one thing - paving the way to the future of the asphalt paving and application industries by manufacturing reliable solutions that get the job done.
No matter what your pavement preservation needs, all lanes lead to Etnyre International. Join them in Booth C31332 at ConExpo to learn more, and follow them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/etnyreinternational/
For more information visit https://pavemg.com/fdbyom
he recipient of the Alan Curtis Industry Service Award for 2022 is a company with a long and innovative history, which continues to this day. A company of sales representatives, engineers, and manufacturing members, along with many others, continue the long legacy of what began over 100 years ago on a farm in Illinois. From horse drawn inventions, to chip spreaders, crack sealers, liquid asphalt distributors, and many more quality products--the history and development of America's roadways is the history and development of Etnyre.
"An important thing is that Etynre is still a family owned business," said Brian Horner, Director of sales for the
Tcompany, originally started in 1985. "It's not a publicly traded company. We currently have fourth, fifth and, now, sixth generation family members working here."
Horner attests to the growth he's seen during his tenure, "When I first started in 1985 there were around 160 people here, and now we have over 400 people just here in Oregon, as well as over 800 across all our brands and locations."
The Etnyre Company has been involved in the road maintenance industry longer than pavements have covered those roads. It started in 1898 with Edward D. Etnyre and his first product, an automatic hog waterer that he built for himself, to use on his farm. A series of large riveted construction "stock tanks" would proceed from that first concept, and eventually construction took up residence in an old battery factory in Oregon, Ill.
By this time, Etnyre's first road based product was seeing commercial use and
The 2023 Alan Curtis Industry Service Award is presented to the Etnyre Company for their historic and continued industry contributions.From Etnyre International's Official Website
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production. They were water sprinkler wagons. "In those days, everything was dirt roads," said Brian Horner. "They made horse drawn water tanks that would be filled up, and had spray nozzles at the back. These would spray water on the roads to try to keep the dust down."
In the early 1900s as pavements were employed, road oilers, street flushers and bituminous distributors were born and continually refined. The types of products that would lay the groundwork for the future of the company, all the way into the present day. However, the company came of age during the tumultuous time of World War 2. Almost 100% of the company's manufacturing capacity of bituminous distributors were dedicated to the Army, Navy, and Air Force.
This is a legacy that carries into Etnyre's company culture even now. “We are still involved in US military contracts. We build fuel tanks and farms. We have built portable fuel tank farms and water tanks,” Horner said. "As well as, distributors and some chip spreaders for the army so they can go overseas, and put in new runways. We've always been pretty proud of the fact that we've been able to build equipment for our military."
Acquiring other companies has been apart of the Etnyre business strategy since the early parts of the twentieth century. The Etnyre International "group" is made up of four separate brands that all exist under the one historic company's umbrella of operations. The companies of Bearcat, Rayner, and SMS all retain their individual names as the trusted entities they are in their own right, but now gain the benefits of being apart of the larger
Speaking specifically about Bearcat prior to the acquisition, Horner remarked, "They make distributors and chip spreaders also, and they make a good product. It's well known, viable brand, especially out west." In addition to making similar products, what else the two companies shared is a history of being family
owned. When the last member of the family intended to retire, he didn't want to see the generations of work disappear. "They worked out a deal where we would keep that brand going."
Rayner was also a family owned company that specialized in microsurfacing and pavement maintenance. It's all too common to see a family owned company without an heir to take control of the company. With Etnyre's long history of private ownership, these deals benefitted both parties and the families on either side of the deal.
Moves like these ensure that Etnyre will still be bringing decades of quality and innovation to the industry they've served for nearly one hundred and twenty-five years. And for all these reasons, contributions, innovations, and more, they are a worthy company, led by an excellent team, to receive this year's Alan Curtis Industry Service Award. ■
For more information visit https://pavemg.com/q8tdox
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Pavement Maintenance & Reconstruction Magazine is proud to induct Mark McLeod, owner of Maintenance, Inc., into the Pavement Hall of Fame.
It’s not uncommon for members of the Pavement Hall of Fame to start with nothing. The same is certainly true for our 2023 inductee, Mark McLeod. His career in the industry spans over 50 years and the impact he made will continue to be felt for years to come. But it had to start somewhere.
For Mark it was 1966 when he was asked by his brother Steven to join him on a jobsite - on a Saturday.
McLeod's contracting days in Loveland Colorado. McLeod owned Thompson Valley Sealcoat (TVSC) at the time. In this photo, the company is spraying sealer with a 1500 spray unit on a 1963 Mack Thermodyne.
“We pulled up to this school and boy was it filthy,” McLeod said. “We had to broom the lot off, shovel it, scrape it. I had never worked so hard in my life!
When it was done though, the parking lot looked so much better, and everyone at the school said how beautiful it was. I was hooked. The work was rewarding and it was really good money for what we did.”
McLeod and his family continued on the contracting business for several
years, purchasing an asphalt plant and growing the business until selling in 1970. From there, McLeod embarked on a journey across the country experiencing life on the contractor side of the business.
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Another educational passion for McLeod surrounds the use of additives in the sealing industry and how to make your sealer work for you. Maintenance, Inc. features a state of the art laboratory that they use to help develop sealers and additives for different manufacturers around the world.
“There have been a lot of changes in the types of sealers over the years and people have been questioning them,” McLeod says. “We have liquid petroleum sealers, asphalt based sealers, cold weather sealers, and all these different sealers that are coming into the market. Maintenance, Inc. has been really privileged to be out there talking to people about the different sealers and what we found can work best in their product and the type of additive that we could manufacture to help them.”
The Maintenance, Inc. Fast Sealing Additive (FSA) was one that they found would work with almost any product on the market. But McLeod is quick to point out that Maintenance, Inc. products may not always be the best for the application, and that’s ok.
“The one thing I think is lacking in our industry is education around additives,” he says. “I always ask contractors ‘what do you want your sealant to do today,’ ‘how do you want it to react?’ ‘How’s the weather out there, is it cooler? If so, you need the sealer to dry faster. We want to teach contractors how important additives are, or should be, in their daily routine. It doesn’t matter which one they use, just so they know to use them when they need them.”
His first stop was Thompson Valley Sealcoat in Colorado where he built the business and sold it after 10 years. During that time, he made many relationships with the Thorson family and took a career opportunity with SealMaster in Sandusky, OH as National Sales Director.
From there, McLeod continued the trek back across the country, traveling to Denver and working with the James Schermerhorn family to rebuild nine SealMaster locations with a team of people.
“Rebuilding these plants was an incredibly rewarding challenge,” McLeod said. “I learned a lot about running a business and what business owners need to be successful.”
That, coupled with his experience on the contractor side of the business, gave him plenty of insight, which he was happy to share with customers who needed help with their pavement maintenance business.
“I have basically held every job you can in this business,” McLeod said. “I have worked on driveways, roads, parking lots, and racetracks; and have enjoyed every minute of it. Every single one of these experiences taught me an incredible amount, and, eventually, led me into the manufacturing side of the business.”
McLeod’s travels took him to Florida to purchase a SealMaster franchise, then back to Wisconsin to help his family with the contracting business and finally to Ohio again where he found his home.
“In 2004, I was asked by a good friend of mine, Bill Neckermann who owned Maintenance, Inc. at the time, to come to Wooster, OH and visit his facility,” McLeod said. “I had never heard of the place before but I fell in love with the area. It is a town full of hard working blue collar families and it seemed like a really good place to keep
my business relationship going.”
McLeod joined Maintenance, Inc as sales manager and hit the ground running, developing sales strategies and marketing plans for the business. When Neckermann passed in 2008, McLeod was asked to take over the business as president and owner.
“That was really a struggle,” McLeod said. “We found our way through it, strengthened our purpose, and started to attend more tradeshows and events to bring the brand to the industry. I don’t think I’ve missed more than one National Pavement Expo in 20 years.”
McLeod also started to look at acquisitions to bolster the Maintenance, Inc. brand and in 2015, the company
purchased Able Industries, adding their line of equipment to the portfolio.
“One thing we learned from Able Industries is that you have to get the
contractor's hands on the equipment to make them believe in it,” McLeod said.
“Many contractor’s don’t know what a good product is for their business or
even how to use it but if you start one up for them. When they can see the best way to use it, that’s when they start to feel comfortable, and that’s when you know they’re going to put down a quality product.”
This passion for showing contractors the best way to work is one that has stuck with McLeod throughout his entire career and is a legacy he hopes to leave in the industry.
“Education will always be number one,” he said. “I have taught hundreds of seminars and educated thousands of contractors and I don’t just do it to sell equipment. I do it because it’s what is best to help our industry grow as a whole.”
McLeod wrote articles for several industry publications as well, sharing his
knowledge with those who needed his help the most.
“I always signed my articles with the phrase ‘Happy Sealing,’” McLeod said. “Because that’s what I want them to feel - happy. They are in an industry that can be extremely lucrative, providing them with a great life and I truly want everyone to be successful in doing this work.”
McLeod recommends tradeshows and continued education for those contractors considering the business.
“Don’t be afraid of the work and don’t give up,” he said. “I came from nothing. I know how to work with contractors who need help, and I still want to be able to teach the younger generation about building a life in this industry. Because without them, we won’t have anything left.
This is a resilient and viable industry and the members of the Pavement Hall
of Fame who went before me can attest to that as well. We all came into the work and then dedicated our lives to it, because we are passionate about it. We know the excellent life it can provide to those who do the work.”
McLeod hopes to continue teaching young people for years to come, long after his retirement in 2023.
“I know we have helped a lot of people out there and I am just so grateful for all the opportunities that have been given to me,” he concluded. “I hope we continue to reach people, and I am honored to be able to guide them in any way I can.”
In the words of Mark, Happy Sealing ■
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Everywhere you go in the country, you’ll find a state or region that claims to have the best of something. The best pizza, the best burgers, or BBQ. In the south of Ohio, however, the city of Cincinnati has an entire food named after it: Cincinnati Chili. Now, the city can add Tri-State Sealcoating LLC, and the four person crew that works alongside Operations Manager Mike Sindiong, to the list of notable local features, because they are this year's winners of the Seal & Stripe: Small Job Award.
Sindiong was a laborer on a crew for another company in the area, then a project estimator, but then decided this year that it was time for him to fully branch out on his own. At first, Tri-State Sealcoating was focused on residential type work, but quickly saw that the commercial market could bring in larger profits, with higher margins. However, before taking the job that landed them this year's award, they had yet to really break through in this area.
So, the big question was, how did their four-person operation take on this two-location job for Skyline Chili (famous purveyors of the aforementioned Cincinnati Chili) that had to be completed, with two coats of sealer, all on Memorial Day.
Mike recounted the story, "A couple locations reached out to me in March.
It scared me to death, but I knew that we would get it done. I made sure in advance that I had talked to my guys ahead of time, and everyone was on the same page. Whatever it takes."
Sindiong also reached out to their sealant providers at Neyra, and ensured that they could get access to materials for the big double job, because, in total, they would need around 800 gallons and their tanker only holds a maximum of 550 gallons. However, there was another added complication. Skyline wanted the first coat applied by hand, and the second coat sprayed on. The job locations deal with heavy daily traffic, nearly all day long, as popular drive-thru spots.
"I think that's the best way to apply," Sindiong remarked. "If you're looking at a squeegee coat versus a double spray coat, I think it is the preferred application if you have the money to put into it." And because Tri-State hadn't done commercial work like this up until then, this two-coat method was going
to literally be by hand. "It was going be a pain for me to do it, because I didn't have a squeegee machine."
They were determined to get it done Mike said, "We knew it was going to be an extremely long day." And he was right, because it turned into a sixteenand-a-half-hour project. But by evening, they celebrated a job well-done.
According to Sindiong, one of the things that set's Tri-State apart in their work is that they are still a small enough operation that Mike himself is out on each location. "That brings an attitude of ownership over every job," he said, "There's pride in it, and I want every job I step on to, to look its best. To bring curb appeal back, and help the customer's property really shine." ■
For more information visit https://pavemg.com/gdxf5q
Designing and building a 37,000 sq. ft. new parking lot addition, while also maintaining another 270,000 sq. ft. of an existing lot, is a big job. It was a job the crew at Love’s Asphalt was more than ready for when Red Lerille’s Health & Racquet Club asked them to complete the work. What they weren’t ready for? A giant sinkhole opening up near the entrance of the fitness center during the first few
days of construction on the new lot.
“Red’s is a 185,000 sq. ft. club sitting on 20 acres,” Kristofer Love, owner of Love’s Asphalt Solutions, Lafayette, LA said. “We have a long history of maintaining this lot and so when it came time for expansion, the club trusted us with the work.”
The racquet ball club is home to 10,000 members and the property owner wanted to add additional parking
spaces to accommodate the growing membership.
“Our crews began tackling the new lot construction first,”Love said. “We were digging down about five inches to develop the base and while we were hauling off dirt, our dump truck located a sink hole near the front door entrance of the fitness center. Luckily it was one of my trucks
that fell in it and not someone else.”
So while working on the development of the new parking area, Love’s simultaneously had to repair the sinkhole - and fast.
“Not only did we have to find the cause of the issue, we also had to complete the repair with a certain urgency since it affected the main entrance of the facility which brings in approximately 8,000 people a day,” Love said. “There are only two entrances into the area so we needed to get the repair done quickly to keep traffic moving in the facility.”
The crew presented the owner with a plan to replace the rotted out culvert and repair the sinkhole. They excavated a 30-ft. by 20-ft. area to make the repair and worked 15 hour days to get the work done. They dug the old rotted culvert out, hauled away the dirt, replaced 100 tons of rock and repaved the area with 4-in. of asphalt to get the sinkhole repaired.
“Our crew was able to locate a culvert 120 miles away, install it and complete the repair of the sinkhole in four days, start to finish,” Love added.
Then, believe it or not, the real work began.
While Love’s Asphalt is very familiar with parking lot reconstruction, designing and building a brand new parking lot is not on the list of jobs they complete every day.
“This was the largest new build that we have done,” Love says. “And with the exception of some dirt excavation on the front end, we did all of the work on this project in-house.”
On the new addition, the crew removed approximately 450 yards of dirt and put down approximately 400 tons of rock. Next, they laid down 597 tons of asphalt at 2-1/2-in. compacted. Finally, the crew installed 750 linear feet of 6-in. concrete risers, a task they weren’t initially hired to do, but completed to accommodate the customer and his schedule when another contractor fell through.
Next up on the docket was getting the existing 270,000 sq. ft. of pavement maintained. Love had worked on this lot before, and was familiar with what was needed to complete the work. They broke the area into phases and planned to seal about 30,000 sq.ft. each day to keep the lot operational. One entrance to the parking lot needed to be open at all times, as well as access to the entrance of the building.
The crew first patched 600 sq. ft. of damaged asphalt, then resealed the 270,000 sq. ft. parking lot using two application coats. Based on the current state of the pavement, Love’s chose to use Neyra Tarconite with an Armorflex additive and put it down in two coats.
“The first coat was applied using our SealMaster squeegee buggy followed by a coat using our SealRite with a spray wand,” Love says. “The reason I went with one squeegee coat and one spray coat is because I wanted to apply the maximum amount of volume I could on the initial pass and the buggy would get as much material into the pits and pores on that first pass.
“Then I came back on top of the lot with a spray coat at about a 60 square foot per gallon ratio,” Love continues. “I wanted to coat the pavement very well so that it would hold for a long time. This is a common method for me on large lots.”
In all, the crew put down 9,500 gallons of mixed sealcoat with 2-lbs. sand
per 100 gallons of sealer and 2-gallons of additive per 100 gallons. A total of 25 boxes of tar was used.
Upon completion of every section, a complete redesign of parking lot striping was conducted to align the stripes to correct errors from previous striping.
“Years ago when they initially completed the striping, before we started servicing his area, none of the stripes were lined up,” Love says. “Each parking bay was misaligned with the following parking bay. After the lot was sealcoated, we completed a new layout over the whole parking lot. We re-measured and re-striped so that when you look down the lanes, every line would match up.”
The crew put down 50 gallons of paint to complete this project in a total of 30 days, winning them the Seal & Stripe Large Job Award for 2023 for their hard work. ■
For more information visit https://pavemg.com/gdxf5q
SEAL & STRIPE LARGE RUNNERS UP Maul Paving Sealcoating & Concrete, (Fairburn, GA)
T&N Asphalt Services, Inc (Salt Lake City, UT)
The year 2022 presented difficulties in most markets across the country, and Indianapolis was not immune to them either. They were faced with shortages in liquid asphalt, aggregates, and the diesel prices too. One unique way they tackled these issues is in the organizing structure of the company itself. They are the only vertically integrated asphalt paving company in the area.
with which we were able to complete the project with change orders by the end of 2022."
Although the Howard Companies were just formed in 2018, the company has a much bigger legacy in the Indianapolis area that goes all the way back to the 1960s. Previously, they were known as the Harding Group, but after they came under new ownership, they rebranded.
Mike Isaacs, Director of Quality Control, said that, "With the rebrand, we felt it was important to emphasize our core values as a paving company, and quality is one of those values." And they’ve shown their commitment to all of their values over the last four years by adding a wealth of new team members with many decades of combined experience.
"We own our trucking fleet, asphalt plants, milling operation, asphalt maintenance & preservation crews, concrete crews, and site preparation crews," Isaacs continued, "we believe these are distinct advantages."
"We understand what it takes to bid work, win work, and execute work to the highest quality," Sean Rizer, Howard Companies CFO, said. "The project we received the award for, the City of Fishers contract, came together in February 2022 and the base contract was completed in October. The City was so impressed with our product and partnership, they added additional scope
Their pre-construction and operations teams assessed the mainline city streets and subdivision neighborhood roads. It was a large project at almost 40,000 tons of mill and resurfacing. It would take several months to complete, and required constant communication between the field, their offices, and the city administration to ensure a safe, prompt, and on-budget delivery.
In addition to the milling, replacing, patching, and straight paving; the company would also need to pave round-abouts, cul-de-sacs, bike paths, and walking trails. The job had a little bit of everything. However, the team was confident they had formulated a plan that was efficient, safe, and would be able to achieve all the goals and deadlines outlined by the city.
There was also one other key hurdle that pushed this job and Howard Companies even further, and that was a tight six-hour window to work within each
The 2023 award for Best Paving Job: NonParking Lot, goes to the Howard Companies for going above and beyond expectations for The City of Fishers project.
day. From 9:00am to 3:00pm every day—that's it. Fishers is a community that is still growing, and has seen an uptick in motor traffic in recent years. So, the small work window was needed to keep the bustling streets moving as much as possible.
But in the end, not only did they satisfy the demands of the City of Fishers, they exceeded them. "The city was very impressed with the work we performed," Rizer said proudly, "So much so, additional scopes were added, and we performed several additional streets which were not initially planned to be done."
That is a pretty big vote of confidence for, not only the quality of the work performed, but also "how" the work was carried out. Navigating a city administration’s needs, along with the community residents’ daily transportation needs, is no small feat.
Howard Companies describes itself as an employee first company. "We know without quality employees there is no chance of producing a quality project,"
Rizer said. "Our people are our greatest resource, and we look for ways to provide the top tier benefit package as well as fun activities like a huge summer party that includes employees and all family members."
That's helped them stay ahead of the game in the Indianapolis area, with staffing shortages being a major issue in the industry nationwide for the last year. They keep meeting deadlines and performing above expectations, and that might be due to their overall company cultural outlook, according to Sean Rizer. Since their rebranding, even through the pandemic, Howard Companies has experienced steady growth both organically and through some acquisitions.
"We embrace change," he said. "In an industry that is generally tagged as lagging behind, we are constantly looking for ways to provide best in class. HMA plants, new construction equipment, a new fleet of approximately 75 triaxle, and quadaxle dump trucks to service our projects. This award is the crowning achievement of a successful 2022 year for Howard Companies.” ■
For more information visit https://pavemg.com/mz1q1r
PAVE NON-PARKING RUNNERS UP Idaho Materials & Construction, (Ogden, UT)
K & L Industries and Diversified Contracting (Mulino, OR)
Organization and communication were key elements to this extensive mill and pave project inside an elite housing community.
Every contractor knows that completing work in retirement communities is no easy task. There are many different details to organize and parties to notify when work needs to be completed, with the most important goal of minimizing community disruption.
Eosso Brothers Paving, a Brothers National Company out of Farmingdale, NJ, is no stranger to these types of projects. In fact, the company prides itself on being able to effectively
communicate with homeowners and make these projects seamless for everyone involved.
In 2022, the company completed work in the Encore Monroe community, a $1.5 million project that involved 589,000 sq. ft. of milling and 8,000 tons of paving in just 26 days. And they completed the work while also ensuring all parties were informed and pleased with the work.
But the project began long before the work was bid in 2021.
Eosso Brothers Paving a 30-year old business in the paving industry, has been a partner with the Encore Monroe community for several years. In 2015, the company started replacing the 400 driveways in the community over a two-year period. In 2017, the company sealed those driveways and began repairs on the roadways, crack filling over 40,000 linear feet of cracks.
“The community board members knew it was time to do something to
further repair the roadways inside the community and were considering sealcoating,” Thomas Eosso, owner at Eosso Brothers Paving says. “Based on the size of the project and condition of the pavement, sealcoating would not be a cost effective solution. We suggested that the roadways be milled and paved.”
Eosso developed a budget for the entire project and presented it to the board.
“Even though the community was familiar with our company, they weren’t going to award a $1.5 million project to our team without getting other options and we understood that,” Eosso said.
“Based on the scale of the project, we recommended they hire a third party engineer to come up with specifications for the job that all parties would bid off of. Once we saw those, we were confident we could build a program and win the work.”
Even though the company came in with a higher bid than their competitors, Eosso’s experience, coupled with their organization and ability to keep the community moving during the work through a genius golf cart service, won them the work at the end of 2021. Work was set to begin in spring of 2022.
As business owners in our industry know, work that was bid in 2021 looked very different from work that was to start in 2022.
“When we bid the work, fuel was $3.25 a gallon,” Eosso said. “By the time we began the project, fuel was up to nearly $6 a gallon and we knew we couldn’t eat that cost. We gave the community the option to space out the project over two years or accept a $72,000 increase from the original proposal.”
Luckily, the engineer of the community built a $500,000 buffer into the proposal in the event of any unforeseen structural damage with the pavement. Once the crew milled the pavement, the engineer walked the site with the project manager and found no further damage and work could proceed as bid with the increase.
To accomplish this work effectively, the company broke the work into 12 different phases.
Gary Eosso, VP of Operations at Eosso, visited the project 10 times prior to starting the work to verify the daily production and maps. Eosso office staff project coordinators got to work creating the custom maps and getting all pertinent info to project managers. From
there, the Eosso office team worked diligently to keep residents informed by distributing the maps and notices each day of where work was happening and when. Signs were placed throughout the community to ensure that residents knew what was going on and all safety hazards were clearly marked.
Each day, Robert Tampone, Project Manager for Eosso for over 25 years, worked closely with the Community Manager, Shirley Santos.
“Rob met with Shirley and discussed every aspect of the project,” Eosso said. “He created a text chain that had the engineer, manager, sales team and operations and sent a text every morning to say the crew was onsite.”
During work, traffic patterns were clearly marked with cones and staff members were on site to route cars through the area so that residents were still able to get in and out of the community. In the event residents couldn’t get to their cars? The Eosso Courtesy Cart came to the rescue.
“The Eosso Courtesy Cart is a golf cart service that is like Uber for the homeowners on these projects,” Eosso said. “Eosso has a driver that picks up and drops off homeowners to their cars and houses. During paving, the roadways are closed so cars need to park out of the area and the cart creates a happy community by eliminating those long walks to their homes. Some of the elderly people have trouble walking and this was really a key factor in Eosso getting this work.”
“Keeping a community informed with accurate information is one of the most important parts of a project and Eosso excels in this area,” Shirley Santos, Community Manager, Taylor
Management Company says. “My homeowners were extremely impressed with the workmanship. Numerous residents stopped in or called to tell me how helpful and friendly the crew was to them.”
Music to the ears of the experienced Eosso team.
“It was overwhelming the amount of positivity and great comments to our crews,” Eosso said. “Our crews are all trained to give our communities a great experience even though we inconvenience them. The community kept saying how organized our crews are and the job came out beautifully and completely transformed the community. Plus, we were able to deliver the project on time and on budget.” ■
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Last year's runner up makes a big splash with a phased job site construction project video that checked all the boxes—including some cool music, it's more than just good vibes.
Royal Pavement Solutions is the result of a long line of paving professionals. Kenneth Roy, president and owner of RPS, is a third generation paver, dating to a company his grandfather started back in 1963. Though this iteration of the company is comparatively "new" (formally organizing in 2019), the people that joined up with Roy all had ties back to him, his family, and the industry.
"All of this happened in the course of a couple months," said Roy. "At first,
I was doing everything by myself. And when it was small, it was manageable, right? But I couldn't do that anymore. I needed people. And if I'm gonna get people, I want the right people."
Moving at lightning speed, he added familiar personel in key positions, all people he knew were perfect fits for the job—from sales, to operations, and even the right office manager. Last year, the company submitted a video for this award, and were recognized as one of the two runners up. "Our video
submission for last year was damn good. Good enough to get second place," said Roy. This year, the company stepped up their game even further and created something interesting, informative, and, also, really cool to watch.
The video is shot at night, in a parking lot, with a familiar blue glowing "Wal-Mart" sign in the background. Though the sky is dark, every bit of action is well lit and visible. Several workers cutting, milling, and clearing broken-up pieces of old asphalt, to make
way for a fresh layer. Everything set to some funky electric tunes that make the smooth sweeping visuals feel cinematic.
However, what set this video apart form earlier versions of content they'd produced was the on-site documentary nature of it. The video features Peter Pappas, VP of Sales,explaining each phase of the project directly to the camera, rather than just a disembodied voice-over.
"The videographer acts as an extension of me," said Pappas. "Nothing is staged. We want our customers to have full transparency of who we are and how we operate." And according to Pappas, the videos create real results, increasing their visibility, interest from potential clients, and their credibility when working with people for the first time.
Roy said that the company had produced what he called "hype videos" in the past, and sent them to customers, but they wanted to make something that
might actually help non-paving experts know what is happening. "Not every job is a perfect fit for a docu-style video," Roy admits. "But in this video we've got concrete work getting done, milling and paving getting done, as well as sealcoating. All these different sections having to be phased out over multiple weeks."
The video clearly communicates what each new phase of the work will be, and then the high quality, professional camera work, and quickly paced editing keeps the viewer constantly engaged. Even in regards to the production of the video, Royal Pavement kept things "in the family." The production of the video itself was the work of Kenneth Roy's own sister, Kristen Tetrault of KJ Visuals.
"My little sister is a bonafide videographer," Roy spoke with pride. "She is so freaking good at it, and self taught. She'll
be on site andwe just have to explain to her what the job entails. And then she does all post production, as well, and all the editing for it. Does a hell of a job. She is the unsung hero of it all for sure."
The docu-style video is a powerful addition to the company’s aresenal when pitching or submitting bids to a potential customer. Roy added, "Now, we can send a video to a prospect. It's an opportunity for a customer to really get to know the people they're dealing with, and the company that's backing them up. Just a massive tool in terms of getting work, whatever the scope is." ■
Mark Estrada and Zach Lovett have worked together since high school. They initially chose the “school of hard knocks” path to success. The duo temporarily disbanded after high school, but it wouldn't be long before they joined back up. Zach served in the US Air Force and Mark was land surveying.
In 2005, while painting handicap symbols for extra cash, Zach saw a bigger opportunity and got a loan from family to buy a striping machine," said Estrada, Senior VP, and Co-Founder of Marathon Solutions Group.
"The first year in business, we made many mistakes, we were trying to figure out what we had on our hands and how to develop it,” said Lovett. They were determined to grow and operate a small business. First, implementing line drivers and lasers on all projects, and then taking the leap of faith purchasing paving equipment. Their determination paid off, and now it's paying back into their community.
"It started with a call from a local elementary school (Lakewood Elementary, Tomball ISD)," Estrada recounted. "Their Parent-Teacher Organization did some DIY markings on concrete, and wanted it removed.
They were discouraged by the years of built-up chipping paint and the lack of texture. It was a quick blasting job. Afterward, we noticed there wasn’t much color. No hard scapes. Schools usually have something colorful, something vibrant that beautifies it. We knew what we had to do.”
"You introduce creativity, and something magical starts to happen, Imaginations get ignited," Estrada said.
They approached the school about donating their time and materials for their playground. After considering several different designs, the school gave them the green light. At first, they installed a colorful number chart and a basketball court alongside brightly shaded four-square court spaces. "They loved it," said Estrada. "I went out there right after school the next day and saw the kids were taking selfies with their parents along the vibrant hard scapes. It was amazing.”
This year, they returned to the school and installed a huge multi-colored stencil of the U.S. map overnight.
Estrada said, "They ended up using the map as part of their curriculum in the classroom lessons. It was incredible."
The overall map shape was a stencil, but the inside lines showing each state were trickier. "That's when we had to
use our artistic skills and customize every little niche. We used an unfamiliar anti-skid made of ground glass, and the final product is very robust and vibrant.”
Kids were excited by and curious about how the map was made, so due to the heartfelt donation by Marathon Solutions Group, they may have seeded the interest of the next generation of striping professionals!
Estrada said, “The little details make all the difference.” ■
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GOOD NEIGHBOR RUNNERS UP Kevin Gray, ADC Paving, (Louisville, KY)
Shonda Decker, Affordable Striping & Sealing, LLC (Las Vegas, NV)
An ordinary job transformed into something much more, when a Marathon Solutions Group brought joy and color to children through striping.
