Pavement Maintenance & Reconstruction February 2020

THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF NATIONAL PAVEMENT EXPO

MAINTENANCE & RECONSTRUCTION FEBRUARY 2020

SWEEPER OF THE YEAR Employee-focused, safetyconscious, environmentally friendly Commercial Power Sweeping sets itself apart Top

Contractor Survey Form Page 23!

CONTRACTOR OF THE YEAR

Strategic planning, core values, employee support propels Sunland Asphalt & Construction

2020 PAVEMENT AWARDS ★ Seal & Stripe: Small Job Love’s Asphalt Solutions Handles Nightly Logistics ★ Seal & Stripe: Large Job Asphalt Contractors Inc. Tackles Six Flags Great America ★ Paving: Parking Lot - A & A Paving Completes Complex Job Under Tight Schedule ★ Paving: Non-Parking Lot - Sunland Asphalt & Construction Builds First Racetrack ★ More! › › › www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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2020

TOP 25 PRODUCTS (SEE PAGE 60)

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What’s Inside February 2020 FEATURES

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Contractor of the Year Strategic planning, core values and focus on employees propels Sunland Asphalt & Construction’s growth.

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Sweeper of the Year Employee-focused, safetyconscious, environmentally friendly Commercial Power Sweeping sets itself apart.

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24 Seal & Stripe:

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Small Job

Love’s Asphalt Solutions handles nightly logistics.

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Seal & Stripe: Large Job Asphalt Contractors Inc. tackles 700,000-sq.-ft. job at Six Flags Great America.

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Paving: Parking Lot

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A & A Paving mobilizes extra equipment to complete complex hospital mill-and-pave job.

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PAVEMENT

Paving: Non-Parking Lot Sunland Asphalt & Construction’s racetrack is a “flat out” winner.

44 “Best of the Web”

49 Alan Curtis Industry Michael Nawa was possibly the originator – and certainly one of the orginators – of the National Pavement Expo conference program, and for more than 40 years has been an advocate for the sweeping industry.

46 Best Marketing

Video

High-profile job at Staples headquarters is perfect for showcasing U.S. Pavement’s work.

48 Good Neighbor

Asphalt Contractors Inc. donates $100,000 worth of work to Kansasville Grade School.

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Top

Service Award

ADC Paving’s website redesign aims at commercial customers.

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Pavement Hall of Fame Introducing 2020 inductees Cliff Cameron, KM International, and Jeff Lax, Let’s Pave.

Contractor

Survey Form Page 23!

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2020 Top 25 Products A review of the paving and pavement maintenance industry products that received the most interest last year from Pavement readers and visitors to ForConstructionPros.com.

February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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DEPARTMENTS 4

Editorial Make an Example of Your Company!

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Hot Mix The Latest News in the Industry

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Just In Select New Products and Upgrades

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Pavement Profit Center

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Classified Ads

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NAPSA Report

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New Certification Programs!

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WSA Update Florida Study Validates Street Sweeping.

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PCTC Dispatch Off-season Tips for Growth.

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Index

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Tailgate Talk

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My New Year’s Resolutions: 2020 Version.

ON THE COVER Sunland Asphalt &

Construction’s management team (from left) Tom Lawless, chief financial officer, Sunland; Pat Weaver, president, Solterra Materials; Roger Eischen, senior vicepresident, Sunland; Doug DeClusin, president/chief executive officer, Sunland; Matt Johnson, vice-president, Sunland; Steve Musegades, regional vice-president, Sunland. Photo courtesy Sunland Asphalt & Construction.

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ts Vol. 33, No. 2 February 2020

Published and copyrighted 2019 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.

PAVEMENT

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:

www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement • PAVEMENT • February 2020

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Editorial

Allan Heydorn, Editor

Make an Example of Your Company!

MOST JOBS PAVING and pavement maintenance contractors perform each year probably fit into a category of “typical” projects. Their size, complexity, and challenges are just what contractors face during their normal course of work. They’re not unique, they don’t require any outside-the-box thinking, and the contractor doesn’t need to take any kind of leap forward to get the job done.

But certainly every contractor completes a job each year that’s worthy of industry

recognition, and in this issue Pavement Maintenance & Reconstruction recognizes some of those projects. The award-winning jobs run the gamut of challenges overcome.

• Love’s Asphalt Solutions receives the Seal & Stripe: Small Job Award for completing five 14,000-sq.-ft. sections over five days, keeping the Pizza Village South business open • Asphalt Contractors Inc. receives the Seal & Stripe: Large Job Award for sealcoating 700,000 sq. ft. at

Six Flags Great America • A & A Paving receives the Paving: Parking Lot Award for milling/paving Northwest Community Hospital parking lot over two days • Sunland Asphalt & Construction receives the Paving: Non-Parking Lot Award for constructing their first racetrack We also recognize contractors for a marketing video, website, induct three industry pros into the Pavement Hall of Fame – and selected a Sweeper and

Contractor of the year.

These companies and the jobs being recognized are examples of some of the best the industry has to offer. As you progress in your season, be aware of the extraordinary work you do – and enter your work for next year’s Pavement Awards. Make an example of your company!

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February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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Hot Mix

by Jessica Lombardo

Seven Things Construction Leaders Learned at Ignite 2019 The premiere event for construction business owners offered insight into how they can better prepare their company for growth in 2020 and beyond Construction business owners and top level executives who attended the first-annual Ignite Construction Summit in Las Vegas were given exclusive access to information to help them immediately get their business ready for growth in 2020.

Seven industry-renowned speakers offered attendees insight into how to overcome their business challenges. Here's a look at some of the take-home information they learned:

1. Instill “Ownership Thinking” It's no secret that most employees are focused on their paycheck above everything else, but Garrett Sullivan, president of Sullivan & Associates Inc. wants you to help them think differently. “Ownership thinking” is a management system that creates a collaborative team environment where employees start to think about the "us" instead of just the "me" which helps to eliminate entitlement.

To establish ownership thinking, you need to have the right people, with the right education to do the job, the right measurements for success and the right incentives.

"The right people will move your business forward, then you add in financial and business education for all those employees," Sullivan says. "Next you identify and utilize critical leading indicators (measures) that will drive financial performance. Finally, design and implement and incentive program that benefits both the employee and the employer."

"You want to shape employees behavior towards driving financial performance," he says. "To do this, employees must

6

understand that the plan is self-funding and it is their responsibility not only to fund the plan, but to improve the company's financial performance."

2. Identify & Fix the Cracks in Your Business Bart Gragg, founder of Blue Collar University, says missed business opportunities are often created because of inefficiencies and poor business direction. He says these "cracks" in the business need to be addressed before growth can happen.

"Your employees should feel comfortable enough that they can come to you with problems and the information to help you fix them," Gragg says. "You have to be willing to trust your people and they need to trust you to listen as well."

To fix these cracks, businesses need to innovate and ask how they can make their processes better. But Gragg says that in fewer than 10% of companies are innovations implemented to influence results.

"In order to truly change, you have to make decisions," Gragg says. "These don't always have to be complex decisions but what matters is the result of the decision you made and that your company moved forward."

3. Contractors Need Legal Protection Statistics show that companies who have more than 100 employees can expect to receive an employment claim at least once every three years. Josh Ferguson, partner at Freeman, Mathis & Gary, offered Ignite attendees insight into construction litigation trends they may face in 2020 and beyond.

The highest number of claims in 2018 was for retaliation, which states that a

February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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manager may not fire, demote, harass or otherwise "retaliate" against an individual for filing a complaint of discrimination, participating in a discrimination proceeding, or otherwise opposing discrimination. The same laws that prohibit discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion, national origin, age, disability and genetic information also prohibit retaliation against individuals who oppose unlawful discrimination or participate in an employment discrimination proceeding.

According to Ferguson, there are five main legal issues facing construction contractors and business owners should seek coverage for these claims: • Sexual Harassment: According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, there was a 50% increase in sexual harassment claims from 2017 to 2018 and that number is expected to climb.

• Marijuana: The landscape for employers who require drug testing is getting more complicated as states begin legalizing marijuana. Check with local counsel in your area to determine if there are any state or city ordinances that may prohibit you from testing for marijuana usage.

• Website Accessibility: Did you know your website needs to be compliant for use by those who are visually impaired?

While this is mostly applicable to retailers and those in the hospitality industry, it is still important to know that your website should be accessible to the visually impaired so you are not violating Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act. • Employee Application & Background Checks: When making personnel decisions - including hiring, retention, promotion, and reassignment - employers sometimes want to consider the backgrounds of

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Still asTHERE sweet today as the day l bought it.” –Randy Bennett, Bennett & Sons Paving, Kentucky “I wouldn't use any “IT'S NICE TOpaver.

SEE ARE STILL other machine except for a LeeBoy They are strong machines.

Very friendly staff when you have questions. Couldn't ask for a better machine.”

–Derek Heater, Black Rock AMERICAN & Sons Paving, Honesdale, Pennsylvania "LeeBoy’s 8520 paver is simple to operate and results in a high production paving SOME COMPANIES OUT operation. No job is too big or too small. Our 8520 produces a quality mat day in and day“Iout!"

–Dan Zuber,FROM Cunningham Paving, Cleveland, Ohio “I SWITCHED A LEEBOY switched from a LeeBoy paver only to return. ” –Robert Wadsworth, THERE MAKING EQUIPMENT THAT Sunrise Asphalt, Las Vegas, Nevada "I'm a mid-size paving contractor, and for me, there's no better machine made. The versatility of the sizes available is amazing. Even the small LeeBoy can tackle largest project with ease. I tell PAVER ONLY TO the RETURN." LONG WORKS WELL.” everyone LeeBoy isLAST the reason my AND family and I are fed.

Have been and will continue to be a customer for life." –Noah Williams, SOS Paving LLC, Wadsworth, Tennessee “We’ve been doing asphalt paving since 1975 and owned seven LeeBoy asphalt pavers––Robert from the 700 all the way to the 8816, we would – Scott Flores, Empire Parking Lot Designed Services,with the paving professional in mind, use no other asphalt paver, they are the best machines.

GO LEEBOY OR GO HOME!” –Robert George, Sunrise Asphalt, The Asphalt Company, Michigan “Great machine!!!

Lundberg, Lundberg Paving and Excavating, Orange, CA The Legend screed makes for flawless seams!!!” –Matt Las Vegas, NVvery fluent controls.” –Thomas Brockway, Pennsylvania “I just bought a LeeBoy 8616C. Very good machine, lays a great mat, powerful engine, Clements, C&C Asphalt, Inc, Scottsboro, Alabama “BEST pavers, best people. Factory tour shows true commitment to manufacturing the GOLD standard of asphalt equipment.” –Henry Welch, Valley Supply, Hagerstown, Maryland “By far the best designer paver I have ever operated. Great customer service as well.” –Noah Cardamone, Waynesboro, Virginia “LeeBoy pavers are the only way to go. Hands down the best.” –Rocky Young, Louisiana Paving Company, Minden, Louisiana “My family business has been using LeeBoy for 3 generations now! When it comes to asphalt, SMI Paving is ‘LeeBoy Proud’ always!” –Jack Smith, SMI Paving, Fort Mill, South Carolina “I’ve been running LeeBoy equipment for over 20 years. Their pavers truly are ‘designed with the paving professional in mind’. These machines hold up better than any others too!” –Kevin Piona, Mr. Blacktop, Gilroy, California “LeeBoy is the best machine I’ve ran, period, enough said!” –Warren Anderson, Cambridge, Minnesota “LeeBoy is second to none. I’m a third generation paving contractor and they’re all we use. Professional results for the professional contractor.” –Rich Cooper, Colchester, Connecticut “Love our LeeBoy paver. Wouldn’t trade it for any other brand!” –Matthew Mordis, Asp-Con Asphalt Paving, Caseyville, IL “It's nice to see that there are still some American companies out there making equipment that last long and works well. We will definitely be purchasing more equipment from LeeBoy in the future.” –Scott Flores, Empire Parking Lot Services, California “I've been paving for 3 generations, the absolute best investment we’ve made as a company was buying a LeeBoy. If you’re thinking about buying one, stop thinking and make the best decision of your life. Thank you LeeBoy I will be spreading the word!” –Don Hopkins, D&H Paving, New Egypt, New Jersey “Best paver made in the USA. Parts always available.

Designed with the paving professional in mind. LOVE IT. Other pavers to me are not an option.” –Alan Taylor, Connecticut “I’ve been in the paving business for 30 years and wouldn’t pave with anything but a LeeBoy!” –Jeff Jarzombek, USA Seal & Stripe LLC, Celebration, Florida “I have been laying asphalt for 32 years now. I come from a time when we used to lay asphalt with a ‘dragbox’. I used to dream of a machine like the LeeBoy paver. In my opinion there is no better or labor-friendly machine like the LeeBoy. From the 1000 to the 8515, the work output and quality is simply unparalleled.”

–Frank Cidade, Cidade Blacktop, Massachusetts “Can’t beat a LeeBoy. They’re tanks. It feels wrong to use any other brand. They last forever and are very comfortable.” –Nick Stanley, California “The Legend Heavy-Duty Electric Screed on our 8520 produces an impeccable mat. The noticeable level of quality continues to bring us repeat business and new referrals.” –Shawn Lail, Carolina Paving, Hickory, North Carolina “My old 8515 laid 510 ton on a church lot in Hopkinsville, KY today. Ain’t even broke a sweat yet, might even stop and do a small drive on the way home. Suns up, “Sons” working.

Still as sweet today as the day l bought it.” –Randy Bennett, Bennett & Sons Paving, Kentucky “I wouldn't use any other machine except for a LeeBoy paver. They are strong machines. Very friendly staff when you have questions. Couldn't ask for a better machine.” –Derek Heater, Black Rock & Sons Paving, Honesdale, Pennsylvania "LeeBoy’s 8520 paver is simple to operate and results in a high production paving operation. No job is too big or too small. Our 8520 produces a quality mat day in and day out!" –Dan Zuber, Cunningham Paving, Cleveland, Ohio “I switched from a LeeBoy paver only to return.” –Robert Wadsworth, Sunrise Asphalt, Las Vegas, Nevada "I'm a mid-size paving contractor, and for me, there's no better machine made. The versatility of the sizes available is amazing. Even the small LeeBoy can tackle the largest project with ease. I tell everyone LeeBoy is the reason my family and I are fed. Have been and will continue to be a customer for life." –Noah Williams, SOS Paving LLC, Tennessee “We’ve been doing asphalt paving since 1975 and owned seven LeeBoy asphalt pavers – from the 700 all the way to the 8816, we would use no other asphalt paver, they are the best machines. Designed with the paving professional in mind, GO LEEBOY OR GO HOME!” –Robert George, The Asphalt Company, Michigan “Great machine!!! The Legend screed makes for flawless seams!!!” –Matt Lundberg, Lundberg Paving and Excavating, Brockway, Pennsylvania “I just bought a LeeBoy 8616C. Very good machine, lays a great mat, powerful engine, very fluent controls.” –Thomas Clements, C&C Asphalt, Inc, Scottsboro, Alabama “BEST pavers, best people. Factory tour shows true commitment to manufacturing the GOLD standard of asphalt equipment.” –Henry Welch, Valley Supply, Hagerstown, Maryland “By far the best designer paver I have ever operated. Great customer service as well.” –Noah Cardamone, Waynesboro, Virginia “LeeBoy pavers are the only way to go. Hands down the best.” –Rocky Young, Louisiana Paving Company, Minden, Louisiana “My family business has been using LeeBoy for 3 generations now! When it comes to asphalt, SMI Paving is ‘LeeBoy Proud’ always!” –Jack Smith, SMI Paving, Fort Mill, South Carolina “I’ve been running LeeBoy equipment for over 20 years. Their pavers truly are ‘designed with the paving professional in mind’. These machines hold up better than any others too!” –Kevin Piona, Mr. Blacktop, Gilroy, California “LeeBoy is the best machine I’ve ran, period, enough said!” –Warren Anderson, Cambridge, Minnesota “LeeBoy is second to none. I’m a third generation paving contractor and they’re all we use.

Professional results for the professional contractor.” –Rich Cooper, Colchester, Connecticut “Love our LeeBoy paver. Wouldn’t trade it for any other brand!” –Matthew Mordis, Asp-Con Asphalt Paving, Caseyville, IL “It's nice to see that there are still some American companies out there making equipment that last long and works well. We will definitely be purchasing more equipment from LeeBoy in the future.” –Scott Flores, Empire Parking Lot Services, California “I've been paving for 3 generations, the absolute best investment we’ve made as a company was buying a LeeBoy. If you’re thinking about buying one, stop thinking and make the best decision of your life. Thank you LeeBoy I will be spreading the word!” –Don Hopkins, D&H Paving, New Egypt, New Jersey “Best paver made in the USA. Parts always available. Designed with the paving professional in mind. LOVE IT. Other pavers to me are not an option.” –Alan Taylor, Connecticut “I’ve been in the paving business for 30 years and wouldn’t pave with anything but a LeeBoy!” –Jeff Jarzombek, USA Seal & Stripe LLC, Celebration, Florida “I have been laying asphalt for 32 years now. I come from a time when we used to lay asphalt with a ‘dragbox’. I used to dream of a machine like the LeeBoy paver. In my opinion there is no better or labor-friendly machine like the LeeBoy. From the 1000 to the 8515, the work output and quality is simply unparalleled.” –Frank Cidade, Cidade Blacktop, Massachusetts “Can’t beat a LeeBoy. They’re tanks. It feels wrong to use any other brand. They last forever and are very comfortable.” –Nick Stanley, California “The Legend Heavy-Duty Electric Screed on our 8520 produces an impeccable mat. The noticeable level of quality continues to bring us repeat business and new referrals.” –Shawn Lail, Carolina Paving, Hickory, North Carolina “My old 8515 laid 510 ton on a church lot in Hopkinsville, KY today. Ain’t even broke a sweat yet, might even stop and do a small drive on the way home. Suns up, “Sons” working. Still as sweet today as the day l bought it.” –Randy Bennett, Bennett & Sons Paving, Kentucky “I wouldn't use any other machine except for a LeeBoy paver. They are strong machines. Very friendly staff when you have questions. Couldn't ask for a better machine.” –Derek Heater, Black Rock & Sons Paving, Honesdale, Pennsylvania "LeeBoy’s 8520 paver is simple to operate and results in a high production paving operation. No job is too big or too small. Our 8520 produces a quality mat day in and day out!"

–Dan Zuber, Cunningham Paving, Cleveland, Ohio “I switched from a LeeBoy paver only to return.” –Robert Wadsworth, Sunrise Asphalt, Las Vegas, Nevada "I'm a mid-size paving contractor, and for me, there's no better machine made. The versatility of the sizes available is amazing. Even the small LeeBoy can tackle the largest project with ease. I tell everyone LeeBoy is the reason my family and I are fed. Have been and will continue to be a customer for life." –Noah Williams, SOS Paving LLC, Tennessee “We’ve been doing asphalt paving since 1975 and owned seven LeeBoy asphalt pavers – from the 700 all the way to the 8816, we would use no other asphalt paver, they are the best machines. Designed with the paving professional in mind, GO LEEBOY OR GO HOME!” –Robert George, The Asphalt Company, Michigan “Great machine!!! The Legend screed makes for flawless seams!!!”

MARCH 10-14 LAS VEGAS –Matt Lundberg, Lundberg Paving and Excavating, Brockway, Pennsylvania “I just bought a LeeBoy 8616C. Very good machine, lays a great mat, #C31258 powerful engine, BOOTH very fluent controls.” –Thomas Clements, C&C Asphalt, Inc, Scottsboro, Alabama “BEST pavers, best people. Factory tour shows true commitment to manufacturing the GOLD standard of asphalt equipment.” –Henry Welch, Valley Supply, Hagerstown, Maryland “By far the best designer paver I have ever operated. Great customer service as well.” –Noah Cardamone, Waynesboro, Virginia “LeeBoy pavers are the only way to go.

Hands down the best.” –Rocky Young, Louisiana Paving Company, Minden, Louisiana “My family business has been using LeeBoy for 3 generations

TRUST LEEBOY

TRUST LEEBOY. AS DEPENDABLE AS YOUR DAY IS LONG.

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Hot Mix

applicants and employees. However, any time you use an applicant's or employee's background information to make an employment decision, regardless of how you got the information, you must comply with federal laws that protect applicants and employees from discrimination. New legislation also bans employers from asking applicants about their salary history.

• Cyber Data Breach Claims: Protecting the private information of your employees is critical and Ferguson says data breach clams will be the next litigation issue facing construction business owners. A data breach is a security incident in which sensitive, protected or confidential data is copied, transmitted, viewed, stolen or used by an individual unauthorized to do so. Data breaches may involve financial information such as credit card or bank details, personal health information, personally identifiable information, trade secrets of corporations or intellectual property. Most data breaches involve overexposed and vulnerable unstructured data – files, documents and sensitive information.

4. Communication is Key During their training, Navy SEALS undergo two full weeks of communication training before they even begin physical training.

That’s because to be an effective combat unit, each team member must be able to move, shoot and communicate seamlessly in chaotic environments.

So when former Navy SEAL John Choate told attendees at Ignite that they need to focus on communication to improve their business, they listened.

Choate unveiled the four pillars of success for a SEAL team and how they can be applied to a construction business: 1. Mission practice 2. Mission planning 3. Dynamic communication 4. Self-awareness

5. Develop Leaders Today to Build the Future Brad Humphrey, Pinnacle Development Group, says the first 90 days of employment are critical to the success of a future leader.

"Without a clear vision for your new leader, you are either setting them up for failure or for one of the roughest rides that any leader can experience," Humphrey says. "Once you have identified what you really want out of this person in the leadership position, you need to strategically line out the exposure of this in a 90-Day Plan."

Humphrey says the 90-Day Plan provides an opportunity to cast a vision for the new leader as well as explain the “why” behind their role. A good 90-Day Plan should: a. Clarify what is and is not expected in the role b. Introduce the new leader to your company's processes, systems, tools, etc. c. Engage the leader to formal and organized learning d. Advance the leader down the road faster than just letting them figure it out e. Provide a bit of pressure to see how a new leader handles the learning curve while balancing their daily tasks f. Allow the leader time to adjust and reset their focus in the new role while also allowing your company the opportunity to decide if this is the right person for the role

6. Make Marketing a Priority Dave Nelsen, Dialogue Consulting, told Ignite attendees about the importance of adding inbound marketing to their business plan. He presented 11 steps for developing an inbound marketing plan: 1. Identify Objectives & Conversion Steps: What goals do you have for your website? How do you measure success?

2. Conduct a Competitive Analysis: How does your competition measure up in terms of their website and social media presence? What are they doing that you like/hate?

3. Identify Your Target Audience: Who do you want to see your messaging?

4. Keywords: Find the phrases your identified audience is going to use to search for your company and services. Incorporate those in to content on your website.

5. Create a Value Proposition: Build a relationship and trust with your potential customers by listening and asking

questions through your website and electronic communications.

6. Platforms & Associated Budget: Where and how will you reach potential customers?

7. Owner(s): Who in your company will own this marketing plan?

8. Frequency & Engagement Metrics: How often will you post and how will you measure success?

9. Content Plan & Sources: The content you share will drive the traffic.

10. Promotions (Awareness) Initiatives: Promote your website or brand shamelessly. Use business cards, e-mail signatures, trade shows, brochures and even guest bloggers.

11. Measurement Plan: Success can be measured by website visits, blog views, calls to a dedicated phone number and more. How will decide the success of your marketing efforts?

7. Put Profit First

It's not a secret that making a profit is the end goal for a successful business, however most construction business owners approach profit the wrong way, according to contractor consultant Shawn Van Dyke, who anchored the Ignite Construction Summit with a how to" distillation of his "Profit First for Contractors" book.

Van Dyke's mantra, repeated at the beginning, throughout and at the end of his session, is that "profit is not an event.

It's a habit." He said his cash management method that turns the traditional approach to profit on its head.

Van Dyke says that the traditional GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) accounting method determines that profit is what's left over from sales after expenses have been paid. In the "profit first" method, however, profit is determined in advance, and whatever that percentage is determined to be is pulled from income twice a month and placed in a separate bank account. He said that while traditional accounting methods still apply, the "profit first" cash management approach not only guarantees the level of profit a contractor wants, but gives the contractor greater control over profit in the future.

8 February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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Truck-mounted Slurry Seal and Micro Surfacing Paver Bergkamp Inc. The M310E Tier 4 truck-mounted slurry seal and micro surfacing paver with EMCAD (Electronic Mix Control And Diagnostic) is developed from the original M210 paver but features PTO-driven hydraulic pumps, eliminating the side engine.

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February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

Contract # 0

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Preserve Pavement with High-Quality, Reliable Crafco Products MASTIC ONE®

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Crafco Mastic One is a hot-applied, prepackaged, pourable sealant for asphalt and Portland cement concrete pavement. Comprised of a highly modified asphalt binder and lightweight aggregate, this proven material offers a sealant service life of 5+ years. Open to traffic in minutes; no compaction required!

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Allan Heydorn, Editor

Contractor of the

YEAR

Strategic planning, core values and a focus on employees propels Sunland Asphalt & Construction’s growth FEW PAVING AND pavement maintenance companies, regardless of how big or small they are when they start, grow to the heights of Sunland Asphalt & Construction, Pavement’s 2020 Contractor of the Year.

Since 1979, Sunland Asphalt & Construction Inc. has completed projects across the country, ranging from parking lot maintenance to major highways. With offices in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, Sunland has grown from an asphalt maintenance company into a full service general contractor. Sunland offers an array of construction and maintenance services including asphalt repairs, crack sealing, sealcoating, chip seal, milling, pulverizing, reconstruction, paving, striping, earthwork and grading, as well as concrete, utility adjustments, underground wet utilities, structures and bridges. The contractor provides about the broadest range of services of any Contractor of the Year recipient and has shown recent growth in the “specialties” area such as constructing racetracks (for which Sunland received Pavement’s 2020 Paving: Non-parking Lot award).

Sunland Asphalt & Construction's management team (from left) Tom Lawless, chief financial officer, Sunland; Pat Weaver, president, Solterra Materials; Roger Eischen, senior vice-president, Sunland; Doug DeClusin, president/chief executive officer, Sunland; Matt Johnson, vicepresident, Sunland; Steve Musegades, regional vice-president, Sunland.

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February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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The growth, led by founder and President Doug DeClusin, is the result of strategic planning, well-defined core values and company mission, and an employee-ownership culture that has enabled Sunland to find and retain employees who buy into and carry out the Sunland vision of being the best place to work. None of those elements alone would enable Sunland to succeed at such a large size, but together they form one of the most successful operations in the Southwest.

“You can’t execute or meet a goal if you don’t have a strategic plan on how to get there, but you can’t execute a plan if you don’t have the right people,” DeClusin says.

An Uphill Time Line At 22 years old, Doug DeClusin started a sealcoating business, and for the next five years he worked the business with one other person. “It took me five years to figure out I had to pound on doors and not just wait for the phone to ring,” DeClusin says, looking back. “I finally figured out how to market and it’s been an uphill trajectory ever since.”

That’s for sure; check out this time line: • 1992 - Opened an office location in Tucson, AZ • 1994 - Launched Sunland Sports to construct and maintain sports surfaces • 1998 - Acquired Saguaro Pavement

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Sunland Asphalt & Construction generates 70% of its work from municipal clients and 30% from private clients – a complete reversal of what it was 10 years ago when they were 65% private and 35% public.

Maintenance to expand operations in southern Arizona • 2000 – Opened an office in Las Vegas, NV • 2007 - Launched a Public Works Division to focus on partnering with governmental agencies and municipalities throughout Arizona • 2009 – Started the National Accounts Division for clients with multiple properties across the Unites States • 2010 - Acquired Lamb Asphalt in Las Vegas, NV, to expand operations in Nevada, California and northern Arizona • 2011 – Opened an office in Albuquerque, NM • 2014 - Launched the Civil Division to focus on earthwork and grading, underground wet utilities and concrete • 2015 - Sold Sunland Sports to focus on asphalt maintenance and heavy highway construction • 2017 - Acquired Black Gold Asphalt & Concrete in Littleton, CO • 2018 - Started Solterra Materials, an asphalt materials operation that produced 520,000 tons of hot mix asphalt in 2019

Strategic Planning, Strategic Results Over the last decade, Sunland has expanded its customer base from private work to public work. Today, the company generates 70% of its work from municipal projects and 30% from private work – a complete reversal from 10 years ago when 65% of work was private and 35% was public. “The market shrank during the recession so we had to find and create other sources of revenue,” DeClusin says. “We saw an opportunity in the public/municipal sector and went after it. We went where the work was.”

DeClusin attributes the company’s growth and shift to the municipal market to Sunland’s strategic planning efforts. “We plan and then we execute,” he says. “As a result, we have never missed our goal. Sometimes we’ve been delayed hitting a goal, but we’ve always achieved the goal.”

Describing himself as “a lifelong learner,” DeClusin attributes his involvement in various CEO groups, including Vistage for more than 15 years, with educating him on the strategic planning process and to how to successfully implement initiatives.

Sunland does “a little bit of everything” to try to find employees including online and print ads, employee bonuses for finding new workers, hiring college interns to expose them to the industry, and seeking out military veterans who have a ready-made skill set.

“We like to bring in people who don’t know anything about our business and we teach them,” says Doug DeClusin.

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“We identify what we want to achieve, set goals, set time lines and assign champions to lead each initiative,” he says. “We focus on bigger picture, long-term plans and financial goals, but we also determine things like whether we need additional people at the administrative level or another IT or accounting person. That’s all part of strategic planning.”

One strategic planning initiative from several years ago was to hire a safety director and include safety training in all onboarding of new employees. Since then, Sunland’s Experience Mod Rate (EMR or often referred to as EMOD) declined from 1.08 to .62 – reducing their insurance costs.

14

Each year, Sunland holds two-day strategic planning meetings with the leadership team of 20 executives, division managers and directors to determine the future direction of the company. To make sure all voices are heard, Sunland conducts an annual employee feedback survey prior to the strategic planning for feedback. “When we did it this year we got marked down on communication, so now we have a communication initiative for 2020,” he says.

Beyond Business: Company Culture In 2016, Sunland revamped their CORE values, mission and vision to align with a renewed focus on growth of the

Sunland offers an array of construction and maintenance services including asphalt repairs, crack sealing, sealcoating, chip seal, milling, pulverizing, reconstruction, paving, striping, earthwork and grading, as well as concrete, utility adjustments, underground wet utilities, structures and bridges.

company, as well as providing superior products, services, and employment opportunities. Sunland’s CORE values include five factors: • Customer Focus – We keep the customer in mind in everything we do • Ownership – As employee-owners, we hold ourselves and others accountable • Relationships – We build long-term relationships with our customers, community and employees

February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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• Ethics – We act with honesty and integrity • Safety - Our foundation.

“Our mission is to do what we say we’re going to do when we say we’re going to do it. That’s been my mantra for 40 years and I know it sounds really corny, but it works,” DeClusin says.

“That means the focus has to be on the customer. To be successful you have to put yourself in their shoes. How would you feel if you’re the customer?”

DeClusin says the vision is “To be the best place in the world to work.” He says Sunland is aware that without all of the hardworking employee-owners who make up Sunland’s work force, the business would not be successful.

DeClusin’s philosophy is simple: “Hire talented people, set them up for success with processes and procedures, get out of their way, and let them do their jobs,” he says. “We have the most talented staff I’ve ever been associated with in my 40 years here.”

Sunland's services include pavement preservation such as this surface treatment of a road in Paradise Valley.

Recruiting & Retaining Top Tier Talent

the end of 2020, and will begin a 401(k) match for employees post-ESOP. “We’re one of the most transparent companies because of the ESOP,” DeClusin says. “In 2007 the crunch hit us and we put a freeze on in 2008, 2009 and 2010 with no raises and we had to have some layoffs. Employees were walking around like zombies,” DeClusin says. “To show employees that there was a bit of light at the end of the tunnel and that there would be an upside, we decided to create an ESOP.” “Having an ESOP takes a lot of education. You do have to convince employees that they’re stockholders in the company,” he says. “Until they start seeing their ESOP account grow…it’s difficult. It took four or five years to get some traction with it. People who have been with us 10 years have quite a bit of stock.”

“I’m really proud of the people we have working here,” says Doug DeClusin, president. “I love coming to work every day because I know everybody is at the top of their game and they’re all working in the same direction. They make Sunland successful.”

With the current job market, recruiting and retaining skilled employees is a common struggle throughout the construction industry. DeClusin says the regardless of whatever strategic plans the company has in place, none of them can come to fruition if the company can’t hire the people needed to put the plans in place and execute to meet the goals.

Every effort is made to hire and retain the right people, including paying “top-of-scale” wages and providing a comprehensive benefits package including an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP).

In 2009 the company converted to an ESOP in which the employees are stockholders and own 30% of the company.

The ESOP will become fully funded at

Each year, Sunland holds two-day strategic planning meetings with the leadership team of 20 executives, division managers and directors to determine the future direction of the company.

To make sure all voices are heard, Sunland conducts an annual employee survey prior to the strategic planning for feedback.

www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement • PAVEMENT • February 2020 15

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Allan Heydorn, Editor

Co (fro (w Pet

Commercial Power Sweeping staff.

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2020

Employee-focused, safetyconscious, environmentally friendly Commercial Power Sweeping sets itself apart

PAVEMENT’S 2020 SWEEPER of the Year, Commercial Power Sweeping, Suffolk, VA, serves Virginia and North Carolina with 30 employees who operate 13 parking lot sweepers, nine street sweepers and 14 utility trucks. They generate 10% of sales from street sweeping, 30% from construction sweeping and 60% from parking lot sweeping and exterior building maintenance.

Owned by Karl and Lori Stauty, Commercial Power Sweeping looks like a traditional sweeping company until you delve deeper into what “exterior building maintenance” really means and until you take a closer look at the way they treat their employees, approach safety, and follow

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Sweeper of the Year

environmentally friendly policies. That’s what sets Commercial Power Sweeping apart and earns them Pavement’s Sweeper of the Year recognition.

Started in 1986 with one truck, sweeping three days a week while the worked other jobs, the company saw slow but steady growth, mainly the result of word-of-mouth endorsements by customers who passed the company name along to fellow property managers. Eventually, when they were running six sweepers, Commercial Power Sweeping added landscaping and snow removal to better compete with other sweepers. They abandoned those markets after eight years because they weren’t profitable and, they felt, detracted from the sweeping business.

“I was nervous about getting out of them and was afraid it would affect us long-term, but it was the best thing we ever did,” says Karl Stauty. “We concentrated on sweeping and providing the best service we could. We made a big

How Operators Should Handle Texts Karl Stauty says operators texting and making or receiving phone calls has become more of a problem at the company, just as it has for the industry. “It’s hard to police but we have a policy and we print it out and have them sign it and we keep it in their personnel file,” he says. “We realize that sometimes operators need to take or make a call or make a text.

So if something comes up we expect them to pull over to the side of the road and come to a complete stop before returning the call or text.”

business decision to specialize in one thing and we really went after it. We stuck with local property owners and it’s worked out.”

February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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Commercial Power Sweeping administrative staff (from left) Mike Russell, Daniel Stauty, Lori Stauty ( with Lillian Grace), Jeff Stephenson, Clarence Pettaway, Brian Haynie, Karl Stauty.

But that doesn’t mean they steered away from other services.

“We’ll handle pretty much anything to do with the exterior of the property,” Stauty says, including patching and repair, crack filling, sign installation and repair, lighting repair, interior sweeping and scrubbing, pressure washing, installation of speed bumps and car stops, large item removal, event and holiday banner installation and graffiti removal. And they have the equipment to support those services including an infrared repair unit, five trailers with hot boxes, and asphalt rollers.

“We do almost all of it on our own [they sub out striping and paving] because we want a 48-hour turnaround when the customer asks for something, and subs just can’t do that. We have some customers that we handle everything for them, from sweeping to HVAC. We provide good, quality service, that’s how we grew.

We do what we say we’re going to do.

“Everything we do is guaranteed. If you’re not happy with it, we fix it and we’ll fix it right away -- regardless of the cost,” he says. “That goes a long way toward developing relationships, and we established some great relationships as we went along. The beauty of the relationships is I grew up with my customers. We were growing at the same

pace so many of the customers I started with I still have today.”

Developing a Long-term Team Providing that broad variety of services would challenge any company, and Stauty credits his team of long-time employees – and the company’s approach to its employees -- with much of the success.

“Retaining employees is more difficult today than it’s ever been,” he says. “But it’s never been easy.” He says three of his employees have been with him for more than 25 years. Another four have been with the company more than 20 years, and another 10 have been with Commercial Power Sweeping 10 years or longer.

And the key to that great retention history is a focus on employees – from basic (and even rare) company benefits, to an awareness of the difficulties of the job (with an effort to ease them), to

dollar-based bonus opportunities and an emphasis on employee safety.

Let’s start with the basics: Commercial Power Sweeping provides dental, vision and health insurance; buys its workers two pairs of Red Wing Shoes steel-toed work boots each year; provides all work uniforms and all safety gear; and offers above-market-average pay.

Now for the rare.

The company offers paid vacation and sick time. For vacation, employees

Firing Customers?

You Bet! “We went to a seminar at NPE where one of the takeaways is to fire one customer a year and we follow that every year,” Karl Stauty says. “We keep track of complaints and at the end of the year we figure out which relationship isn’t working out for us and we fire that customer. We thank them and we tell them it just hasn’t worked out and good luck.”

Commercial Power Sweeping was one of nine inaugural members of the North American Power Sweeping Association (NAPSA) and was the second company to receive NAPSA’s Certified Sweeper Contractor status. Commercial Power Sweeping is also a founding member World Sweeping Association (WSA), a member of WSA’s Advisory Board, and one of the first companies to sign on to WSA’s Ethics in Sweeping program.

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complete a form 30 days in advance and turn it in to their supervisor. The supervisor approves it and then looks for volunteers to pick up that route.

“Usually we have no trouble finding someone,” Stauty says.

And switching doesn’t impact quality on that route because every few months the company “shakes up” the routing, so operators are cross trained on at least two and often three routes. “A lot of people don’t want to do the same parking lot for seven years, so it’s nice to mix it up. We shake up the routes and the days, so no one always has to work weekends unless that’s what they want to do – and some do. About 80% of employees like the shake ups and 20% don’t.”

Training & Keeping Operators Fresh “Our operators are keeping our image what it is, what it’s always been,” Stauty says. “When these guys go out there and we cut them loose on their own, they have to understand not only what our customers’ expectations are but what our expectations are.”

To make sure they understand, operators are put through four-weeks of training by supervisors who were trained

by Stauty. “Our key supervisors on the parking lot side have been in business with me for 20 years. They were riding with me when they started and I trained them, so they got their training straight

A Safety Partner with Insurance Karl Stauty says that establishing a safety program has resulted in a better relationship with their insurance provider. “They know what we’re doing, and they know we’re working to increase safety awareness. They have a vested interest in us,” he says.

As a result, Commercial Power Sweeping’s workers’ compensation premiums have held steady over the last few years. “That’s at least partly attributable to our safety program,” Stauty says.

from the horse’s mouth.”

New hires spend one week riding and picking the property; one week blowing, picking and changing garbage bags. In week three the supervisor and new hire switch roles with the new hire driving. In week four the new hire does everything on his own with the supervisor in the cab coaching, but the operator does all the work like he would on a normal shift.

“It’s expensive and time consuming but it’s proved to be very effective,” Stauty says. “Yes, it can be done with GPS and an iPad and we could just send them out there on their own after a couple of days, but we don’t think

that’s enough to get across how we want things done.”

Stauty recognizes that “it takes a special breed to be a parking lot sweeper,” estimating that 10% of new hires fail training, usually in the second week. “Most often they’re a person who hasn’t worked nights but thinks they can do it.”

Operator Bonus Incentives Stauty says Commercial Power Sweeping works to make sure that employees not only feel a part of the company but reap some of its rewards. So they’ve set up several bonus opportunities from which operators can benefit.

Another bonus opportunity is a cash incentive to encourage night sweeper operators to be vigilant about potential job opportunities on their route. Operators use an app, which is also given to property managers. If an operator sees a problem on a property, whether it’s a safety issue that needs immediate attention, a large object that needs to be removed or a repair or cleanup that’s needed, they’re encouraged to let the supervisor know. Operators are trained to take a picture of the problem and then provide as much basic detail as they reasonably can – the size of the pothole or how big the graffiti is or the height of a sign that’s been damaged, for example. Commercial Power Sweeping sends a report, a photo of the

Commercial Power Sweeping runs separate meetings for the day and night shifts, but at all driver meetings they review new accounts, customer complaints, truck issues, safety, and GPS routing.

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Commercial Power Sweeping generates 10% of sales from street sweeping, 30% from construction sweeping and 60% from parking lot sweeping and exterior building maintenance.

parking lot problem, and an estimate to fix it to the property manager. In roughly 70% of the cases the customer replies by accepting the bid and giving them the work.

“We reward our guys for everything they send to us and if we get the job, they get a percentage of that,” Stauty says. “Some of the guys are all over it and some guys hardly every touch it. It blows my mind when guys don’t participate in it because it’s really free money.

Some guys get as much as $300 or $400 a month in bonus as a result of the pictures they send in.”

Commercial Power Sweeping’s oncall service also provides a bonus. The sweeper is on call 24 hours a day and rotates the employee who is on call.

“We used to have a problem getting people to be on call even though they got paid time-and-a-half. So we instituted a bonus and the problem went away.

People not only don’t complain when it’s their turn in the rotation, they often let others know they’ll take it on from them if someone doesn’t want it.”

A Proactive Focus on Safety An important aspect of employee retention has been the company’s safety efforts. Stauty says today the company views safety from a both the personal and an environmental standpoint and so decided to take a proactive rather than a reactive approach to both. But that wasn’t always the case.

Stauty says that about 10 years ago their insurance provider spent some

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time following their operators and watching them through binoculars.

“She came back and told us what was happening out there that was unsafe and it was things we didn’t know about, even simple things like operators not wearing their seat belts.

“At first I was a little intimidated by it, but she told me, ‘Hey we’re a team.

We’ve invested in you and so let’s make

Equipment Breakdown Policy Commercial Power Sweeping operators in the field are not permitted to contact company mechanics. Instead operators contact their supervisor because the supervisors know most of the mechanical issues and how to resolve them. “The supervisor is the only one allowed to call the mechanic because otherwise the drivers would drive the mechanics crazy with calls from drivers all day or all night long,” Karl Stauty says. “And if we call a mechanic out in the middle of the night we’ve lost him for that next day because he’s just not going to be as productive.”

When an operator calls a supervisor with an issue, it’s up to the supervisor to decide the next step.

Can the operator make it through the night with the situation as it is? Should he divert other drivers to finish that route? Should he call the mechanic?

this relationship work.’ That was really the first time I thought about safety in that way and it’s probably what got us more focused on it.”

Stauty says he also attended National Pavement Expo seminars by John Meola, safety director at Pillar Inc., “and that got us really pumped up.”

Meola presents safety sessions for the company, they developed and put in writing a company safety plan, and now safety is a regular topic at the company’s monthly meetings.

Operator Safety in the Field “We encourage everyone to be as safe as possible and our number one safety rule is simple: If you feel uncomfortable with the situation then leave... No ifs, ands or buts about it. You will not be disciplined for that,” Stauty says. “We tell our operators, ‘Use your judgment.

It’s a judgment call’. They know more about that area and that property than we do so if something feels out of the ordinary then it probably is, so get out.

“That’s not only because some properties are in a bad part of town but also because sweepers are working behind buildings away from the view from roads and from better lighting. We’re also out there sweeping parking lots that have bars and that can create its own problems.

“Most personal safety is common sense,” he says. “Operate the equipment the way it’s supposed to be operated and the way you’re trained to operate it, wear the right safety gear for whatever you’re doing, use safety chocks when you should.”

He says a good example is how operators are trained to remove blockage. He says operators are taught that if there seems to be a blockage they should back up to a dumpster, dump what they have, put the safety chocks in [the company provides an extra set for

February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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Routing and GPS Commercial Power Sweeping uses GPS primarily to monitor operators for safety and efficiency, but it’s a problem-solving tool as well. All routes are preprogrammed into GPSbased software that delineates the jobsites on each route and tells the operator turn by turn what he needs to be doing. Because they rely on that system Brian Hanie, operations manager, can push routes through the company’s GPS system without leaving his house.

“If there’s an unexpected problem he can push the routes to the operator,” Karl Stauty says, adding that they’ve only needed to use the system three times in the last three years. “But it really helps to solve problems in a worst-case scenario.”

each truck] and then check the intake tube from the top and from the bottom.

“Basically, don’t trust your life to a 1/4-in. rubber hose,” Stauty says. “There are built-in safety chocks on most trucks but if you need to raise the hopper use the chocks and use the backup ones too.

“Nine times out of 10 if the problem is in the intake tube it’s because the operator got lazy and tried to pick up something he shouldn’t have and it got stuck,” Stauty says. “Just get out of the truck and pick it up next time. That’s not only the best way to handle it, it’s the safest way.”

Bay and the rivers that feed it, so we take extra care to protect those waters from contamination,” he says.

He says one of their biggest concerns is hydraulic leaks because there’s so much hydraulic fluid on sweepers. Every truck is outfitted with spill kits and if there is a hydraulic leak, operators are trained to move the sweeper away from any drains, and preferably on to a grassy area. The company also switched all its hydraulic fluids to a biodegradable fluid that breaks down within 48 hours.

“It costs twice as much as regular fluid but it’s worth the cost if we ever have a spill,” Stauty says. “Plus it demonstrates to our customers that we’re concerned about the environment and are taking steps pro actively to protect it. We don’t want to wait for something to happen before we take action.”

He says that hydraulics can be an especially difficult challenge for street

sweepers, who are usually putting down a fine spray of water as they sweep.

“These hydraulic lines move every time you engage or disengage part of the sweeper. They might only move 1/4 in. one way and then 1/4 in. back, but they move,” he says.

Eventually that small movement wears down the hose, often creating a pinhole-size leak.

“That can create a problem because with the operator spraying so much water he might not know there’s a mist of hydraulic fluid leaking out. You can’t see it until the water’s dried and suddenly you can see a hydraulic sheen on the pavement surface.”

So each sweeper is outfitted with a spill kit that includes safety goggles, gloves, absorbent material, booms, socks, rags, and a 5-gal. bucket in case it’s possible to pick up to pick up material.

Preventing Hydraulic Leaks

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Preparation is essential so operators can act promptly should a spill occur, and Commercial Power Sweeping follows preventive measures as well.

When Commercial Power Sweeping gets a new truck, Mike Russell, head mechanic, goes over it in detail to make sure everything is working properly and protected. He wraps hydraulic pinchpoints or run areas with additional rubber and often zip-ties hoses or cables together to try to minimize movement and friction.

The same procedure is followed any time a sweeper is brought in for repair.

Every sweeper is also checked each night before it’s taken out on a route.

Seven days a week the mechanics perform a complete walk-around on the truck. “They don’t do it parked outside; they drive the truck into the shop, lift the cab and the hopper and check everything out every day, including the air pressure in the tires, lights, fluids – everything,” Stauty says.

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Commercial Power Sweeping recently recognized operators Brian Holder (left) for 25 years of service and Clarence Pettaway for 20 years of service.

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Proactive on Environmental Safety Stauty says that as a sweeping company they are a firm believer in protecting the environment, so they take extra precautions to assure environmental safety.

“Our market is right near Chesapeake

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Operators are responsible for their own pre-trip inspection as well, but they look for more obvious issues. “Part of the training for the operator is we walk them around the whole vehicle and we point out what issues they’re eventually going to have and we teach them how to resolve those issues,” he says.

Monthly Meetings Encourage Partnership

A Uniform Look – and Savings Commercial Power Sweeping used to rent its uniforms but discovered that few employees turned them in to be washed, choosing instead to launder their uniforms at home. So they bought and now provide uniforms in a higher-quality, high-visibility fabric, put a logo on each one – and saved $14,000 a year. “Because the employees were taking the clothes home to wash we were paying for a service we weren’t even using. Switching to providing our own uniforms has worked out great.”

Karl Stauty says that when employees need to replace uniforms they just go to a closet and get what they need. “We want everyone to represent the same image we’re trying to present to our customers with our trucks and our uniforms,” Stauty says. “It’s all one in the same.”

Stauty says Commercial Power Sweeping runs separate meetings for the day and night shifts “because they are really two different beasts,” but all driver meetings operate as an open forum with a free exchange of ideas. They review new accounts, review customer complaints, review truck issues, review safety, watch any appropriate videos because they have camera in trucks, and review GPS routing.

Meetings start with GPS-based driver incident reports, “the good, the bad and the ugly.” Incident reports are printed weekly so operators can see them and then they are compiled for the month and discussed at the meeting. “We’re not trying to throw anyone under the bus,

ASPHALT engineered to endure.

vancebrothers.com

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we’re just trying to identify areas where we can approve in as a company,” Stauty says. “If there are too many violations the driver gets a day off without pay,” Stauty says. He says that at the end of the year drivers are rewarded with bonuses based on employee performance and some bonuses “can be very substantial.”

Safety topics covered can include new accounts, customer complaints, equipment violations, sleep needs, and seasonal issues such as hydration in the summer.

“We also use these meetings to seek their feedback,” Stauty says. “We want to know what they think of what we’re doing, what we’re not doing, or if there’s something we’re not doing correctly.

And if they have suggestions about topics we should be talking about or concerns they have we address those too.”

Often Stauty is not present in the meeting because they want everyone to feel free to speak their mind. “We don’t want to discourage communication, but I’m there to greet everyone on the way in,” Stauty says. “We’re all in this together. Most employees feel it’s management vs. employees but the companies that are successful are the ones that keep everybody involved. That’s part of what these meetings are designed to do.

“They appreciate it anytime you can show that you are truly concerned about employees’ well-being,” he says.

“This is a partnership; it’s not me vs. you. We’re all here to share the same goal and if we can do it profitably, we can all share the wealth.”

February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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PAVEMENT 2020 Top Contractor Survey WELCOME TO THE Pavement Maintenance & Reconstruction survey of paving & pavement maintenance contractors. Our hope with this survey is to develop verifiable Top Contractor listings in each of five industry segments: Paving, Sealcoating, Striping, Sweeping and Pavement Repair. To do that we need to know: • Gross Sales Volume for your fiscal year 2019 (regardless of the date that fiscal year ended) • A breakdown by percentage of the type of work that generated those 2019 sales

• Third-party verification of that sales total (see additional explanation at the end of the survey) To determine whether a company qualifies for one (or more) of our five lists we will multiply your total 2019 sales dollars by the percentage of work done in each industry segment. For example, if a contractor reports $1 million in 2019 sales and generated 40% of those sales from striping, the number used to determine qualification for the Striping Top Contractor List would be $400,000 ($1 million x 40%).

Name & Title of Person Completing This Form *First ______________________ Last ______________________________

CONTRACTOR

TOP

2020

Top Contractor Survey

2019

TOP

CONTRACTOR

Note: No sales figures will be reported or published; sales figures will be used only internally for determining each list. Also, no contractor will be eligible for the list without third-party verification of your Fiscal Year 2019 Gross Sales Volume.

There are 3 ways to complete and submit this form: • Online at https://www. surveymonkey.com/r/ TopContractor2020

• Complete a hard copy and fax (920-542-1133) or mail it to: Pavement Maintenance & Reconstruction, Top Contractor Survey, 201 N. Main Street, Fort Atkinson, WI 53538; Attn.

Jessica Lombardo.

• Complete a hard copy, scan and e-mail to aheydorn@ ACBusinessMedia.com Thanks very much for your participation. We do appreciate it.

DEADLINE: April 23

5. * What percentage of your fiscal year 2019 Total Gross Sales is generated by working as a subcontractor for other contractors? __________________

E-mail ______________________ Phone ____________________________

6. * Do you self-perform more than 50% of your work?

*Company Information Company Name (as you would like it to appear on the magazine) ______________________________________________________________ Street Address _________________________________________________ City State Zip Code ____________________________________________ Phone Number with Area Code __________________________________ Website ______________________________________________________ Years in Business ______________________________________________

7. What was your overall company-wide profit margin in FY 2019? (Not for publication; results will be presented for the industry as a whole.) ______ Less than 3% ______ 5%-10% ______ More than 15% ______ 3%-5% ______ 10%-15%

Please indicate your number of employees at peak season (If employees fulfill more than one function please include them in the category they perform most often): ______ Management ______ Field Supervisors ______ Laborers ______ Office Staff ______ Sales May we contact Your Company by e-mail? ___Yes

___No

1.* What is your company’s Total Gross Sales for your Fiscal Year 2019?

___________________________________________________________

___Yes

___No

8. How many different customers did you work for in FY 2019? ______ Fewer than 100 ______ 151-200 ______ 301-400 ______ 101-150 ______ 201-300 ______ More than 400 9. How many different jobs did your company complete in FY 2019? ______ Fewer than 100 ______ 151-200 ______ 301-400 ______ 101-150 ______ 201-300 ______ More than 400 10. What is the estimated replacement value of your equipment fleet (including trucks)? ______ Less than $250,000 ______ $1 million - $2 million ______ $250,000 - $500,000 ______ More than $2 million ______ $500,000 - $1 million Signature _____________________________________________________ Title (please print) ______________________________________________

(This figure used internally for listing purposes only; it will not be published.) Please round to whole dollar amounts. (Example: 1,548,222; note: when entering online please omit commas.)

Date: ________________________________________________________

2. * What percentage of your fiscal 2019 Total Gross Sales is represented by each of the following areas (must total 100%):

IMPORTANT! SALES VOLUME VERIFICATION

______ Paving ______ Sealcoating ______ Striping ______ Sweeping ______ Other (explain) ____________________________

______ Pavement Repair ______ Concrete ______ Surface Treatments (Micro, Slurry, Chip, Fog, etc.) ______ Hot mix asphalt plant operation

3. * What percentage of your fiscal 2019 Total Gross Sales is generated from work done on each of the following (must total 100%): ______ Highways ______ Driveways ______ Streets/roads ______ Other (explain) ____________ ______ Parking lots

To qualify to have your Top Contractor application considered, third-party verification of your FY 2019 Total Gross Sales is required from your company’s CPA, an independent CPA or your accounting firm, or a copy of the appropriate page from your tax return. Verification must be on the CPA or accounting firm letterhead (no photocopies) and must include a statement to the effect that “I have reviewed the company’s Top Contractor application, and the FY 2019 gross sales response to question Number 1 is accurate to the best of my knowledge.” The letter must be signed and dated and include the person’s name, title and telephone number.

No financial information will be revealed; it will be used only internally to determine qualification for each listing. Send verification to:

aheydorn@ACBusinessMedia.com

or

Pavement Maintenance & Reconstruction 2020 Top Contractor Application 201 N. Main Street, Fort Atkinson, WI 53538 Attn. Jessica Lombardo

4. * What percentage of your fiscal 2019 Total Gross Sales is generated from each of the following types of customers (answers must total 100%). ______ Commercial/Industrial Questions? Allan Heydorn, Editor; Phone: 920-542-1302; ______ Municipal (state/local agency) aheydorn@ACBusinessMedia.com ______ Multi-family residential (apartments/condos/HOAs) ______ Single-family residential www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement • PAVEMENT • February 2020 ______ Other (explain) _____________________________________

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Allan Heydorn, Editor

SEAL & STRIPE: Small Job Award Winner

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Love’s Asphalt Solutions Handles Nightly Logistics Moving work zones and sealing drive-through in pieces keeps Pizza Village South open CONTRACTORS ALL WORK hard pursuing the new clients, and all contractors have the client that, for whatever reason, they can’t seem to land.

But often contractors land that job that always got away – and they do a good job on a challenging project. That’s what happened with Love’s Asphalt Solutions, Lafayette, LA, and it’s why Love’s Asphalt Solutions receives Pavement’s Seal & Stripe: Small Job Award for 2020.

The award-winning job was at Pizza Village South, one of two premier pizza restaurants in Lafayette. Kristofer Love, owner, says the company has done work on the other pizza property but wasn’t able to break through to work for Pizza Village South until 2019.

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“We worked the last two years to get the work and to get them to do something on their parking lot, and when we finally got the call, they wanted it done right away,” Love says.

The work they wanted done included more than 1,100 linear ft. of crack repair, 428 linear ft. of striping, striping of five handicap parking spaces and 65,360-sq.-ft. of sealcoating. When Love’s bid it they’d planned on doing the work over three days, but because of the timing of the job, Pizza Village South restricted when access to the restaurant could be closed.

“The major challenge was the job was right in the middle of the AllStar Softball season and the place was open seven days a week and couldn’t be closed down,” Love says.

So, Love altered the plan to section off 14,000-sq.-ft each day, turning a threeday process into a five-night process.

“At one point we had to split one day

The award-winning job required more than 1,100 linear ft. of crack repair, 428 linear ft. of striping, striping of five handicap parking spaces and 65,360-sq.-ft. of sealcoating.

because we had to make sure people could get in through the front of the restaurant,” he says.

Third Time is the Charm Kristofer Love started Love’s Asphalt Solutions, Lafayette, LA, in 2015 by himself after two unsuccessful business attempts.

“The first job I overinvested and under delivered,” he says. “I had the money, but I lost it because mentally I was too lazy to do the work I needed to do.” In his second business he under invested and over delivered. “I got gun shy and didn’t spend the money where I needed it,” he says.

February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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Aerial view of the finished award-winning job.

Love says that what he learned from his two prior business efforts that he applies to Love’s Asphalt Solutions is to learn the numbers related to your business, learn to be the best salesman you can be, learn the supply and demand in the market… “And I learned I just didn’t know much about running a business,” he says.

But he’s figured some things out.

When he started in this industry, he turned $600 into $1000 on the first job, paid his bills and reinvested the rest.

He took that $1,000 and turned it into $6,000 and each time he completed a job, he paid his bills and took the remaining money and reinvested it in the company, buying the equipment he needed to grow including three rollers, a paver, an 800gal. sealcoating trailer and a skid steer.

He says his business is entirely self-funded except for $80,000 in bank loans.

Today Love’s Asphalt Solutions employs seven people, working out of an 8,000-sq.-ft. warehouse with a 2,000-sq.ft. office. The contractor is a full-service pavement contractor, doing everything from demolition and paving to striping.

All work is done by the seven-person crew except for national accounts and the company has developed a network of contractors who enable the company to work in North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas and Illinois in addition to Louisiana. Almost all Love’s Asphalt Solutions’ work is done on parking lots,

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private roads and driveways, with some day-work for public agencies patching roads.

The Pizza Village South job used a six-person crew with three people cleaning the pavement and cracksealing and three people sealcoating.

5 Nights in Lafayette

from the back entrance,” Love says.

Each night a three-person crew cleaned the pavement using hydraulic brooms, power heads and blowers, then started cracksealing. The three-person sealcoating crew showed up a bit later to let the cracksealing crew get a head start. They then waited for the sealcoating to cure before going back to apply the second coat. They then waited again for the second coat to cure so they could go back and stripe it. Once they had the area striped, they were off the job until 10:00 the next night when they started the process all over again on another 14,000-sq.-ft. section.

All sealcoating of the drive-through was done by hand, but that wasn’t what made it a challenge. Love says the drivethrough lane was the most difficult part of the job because Pizza Village South insisted the drive-through not close.

So, the first night crews sealcoated the outside of the lane, enabling customers to drive near the building to place and pickup orders. The second night they sealcoated the inner portion of the drive-through next to the building, leaving unsealed a route to one of two pickup windows so patrons could drive on the outside of the lane and then pull up next to a window where it wasn’t sealcoated. On day three they sealcoated the center of the drive-through lane, leaving a delineated path so drivers could pick up their orders at the window above the pavement that had been sealcoated the night before.

The Pizza Village South job used a sixperson crew (seven when Love was on site) with three people handling cleaning the pavement and cracksealing and three people sealcoating. One person handled the striping. Each night a new 14,000-sq.-ft. work zone was marked off and traffic was redirected to alternate routes and entrances. Love’s Asphalt crews used barricades and more than 20 cones with tape and string to keep people out of the work zone.

Love’s first step was to clean out a drainage area and install a concrete French drain so the lot would drain like it should. After that crews started behind the building, closed off the back-parking lot entrance, half of the drive-through and three-quarters of the back parking lot. “There was still some parking in the back and people could still access the drive-through, but they couldn’t do it Love's Asphalt planned on doing the work over three days reconfigured the job to complete one 14,000-sq.-ft. section a day for five days — enabling Pizza Village South to remain open throughout the work.

RUNNERS-UP I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I Pavement Solutions, Palatine, IL Varsity Sealing, Rochester, NY

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Allan Heydorn, Editor

SEAL & STRIPE: Large Job Award Winner

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Annual Sealcoating at Six Flags Great America Asphalt Contractors Inc. tackles 700,000-sq.-ft. job in 5 days – and has since 1984 FORMED IN 1980 by Peter and Robert Kordus, Asphalt Contractors Inc. began by sealcoating and cracksealing driveways and small parking lots. In 1981 the contractor added striping, and in 1984 Asphalt Contractors took a giant step forward by bidding to apply two coats of sealer on 550,000-sq.-ft. of asphalt pavement on what was then known as Marriott’s Great America, a theme park in Gurnee, IL.

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Though ownership has changed over the years (the park is now known as Six Flags Great America), Asphalt Contractors Inc., Union Grove, WI, has remained the sealcoating contractor of choice, most recently completing 700,000-sq.-ft. of sealcoating in five days in 2019, for which Asphalt Contractors Inc. receives the Pavement Seal & Stripe: Large Job Award for 2020.

“We have a real good working relationship with the people at Six Flags,” says Bob Kordus. “It’s the best job you could ever have. They believe in us and we never let them down.”

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In 2019 the schedule was to divide the park into five sections and complete one section of the park a day.

Asphalt Contractors Grows Kordus says that 10 years ago Asphalt Contractors Inc. performed general pavement maintenance and paving with about 30 people in the company. The company stepped up gradually, doing work throughout the country until eventually landing a 50,000-ton paving job in Houston.

With the money from that job they decided to get into asphalt production

February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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and bought land and an asphalt plant and now produce their own mix. In addition, Asphalt Contractors Inc. runs three large milling machines and three crushing plants to recycle asphalt and concrete, which they often use themselves but also sell to other contractors “That decision to operate a plant opened a whole new dimension for us,” Kordus says.

Today their employee count nears 100 and contractor operates as a fullservice paving and pavement maintenance contractor.

“Our business has changed and evolved a lot. We’ve got a niche that’s pretty much in between the municipal pavers and the small private pavers and that keeps us busy all the time,” says Bob Kordus, president.

Before the Big Job Once Asphalt Contractors gets the call from Six Flags -- “we never have to bid it anymore” -- Kordus drives the park looking for changes to the park such as areas under construction, new rides that might have been added, or anything Asphalt Contractors needs to take into account when scheduling and working.

“Every year there’s something new going on. The place is in a constant state of change,” Kordus says.

He then meets with the maintenance supervisor to schedule the work. All work must be done before the park’s official opening each spring, but often private parties dictate which days they can work. In 2019 Asphalt Contractors divided the park into five sections, completing the work in five working days – one section a day – spread out over two weeks.

our best guys out on our highest-profile job,” Kordus says.

Six Flags pressure washes the pavement each night, but Asphalt Contractors crews still used blowers on the site to remove any debris or dust that might have accumulated during the night.

Today Asphalt Contractors Inc. cuts in all the edges and all the tight areas by hand. They even mask off the railroad tracks that run through the park rather than try to edge around them.

“It takes a while to mask the tracks off, but the end result just looks so much better. It makes for a much more uniform surface and the edges are clean,” Kordus says. “Nothing gets on the concrete or the stainless steel. We’re known for that and we’re known for always getting done the area we plan for that day.”

They then spray two coats of sealer using two 1,500-gal. spray trucks, and on path widths as narrow as 2 ft. wide crews use self-designed “sealer wheelies” to bring sealer to spread by hand.

Skid-resistance is Key Kordus says that when they first tackled the Six Flags job, the property manager required that two coats of refined coal tar sealer be applied by hand, partly because there are so many areas of concrete and steel and bollards they didn’t want any sealer where it didn’t belong.

Asphalt Contractors did the job and did it so well Six Flags called them to sealcoat the park the next year – and they’ve been sealcoating it ever since.

“They’re looking for a skid-resistant surface and once we showed them what we could do with spraying and by sizing the aggregate for skid resistance they allowed us to spray it,” Kordus says.

Kordus says that while Six Flags always wants the park to look great, emphasizing that the appearance is part of the customer experience, the greater concern is liability, they budget for sealcoating the park annually.

“The park is sealcoated every year because between the foot traffic and the nightly pressure washing, the sealer takes a beating,” Kordus says.

And every year since 1984, Asphalt Contractors Inc. has done the job.

RUNNERS-UP I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I Crane Sealcoating, Amsterdam, NY Maul Paving/Concrete/Sealcoating, Plainfield, IL In addition to scheduling around Six Flags’ preseason events, Asphalt Contractors Inc needs to schedule work around the park’s independent vendors who must set up their own stores and shops before the park officially opens.

Preparing the Pavement Asphalt Contractors used as many as eight people on the crew each day, depending on the amount of pavement being sealed. And Asphalt Contractors sends its best, most-experienced people to do the work. “We’ll send some people out there that we’re training to be foremen but for the most part we want www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement • PAVEMENT • February 2020 27

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Allan Heydorn, Editor

PAVING: Parking Lot Award Winner

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Extra Equipment A & A Paving keeps its promise to the customer on a complex job under tight schedule NORTHWEST COMMUNITY Hospital has been an A & A Paving client for more than four years, and A & A has done quite a bit of work at the hospital’s more than 20 satellite locations throughout northern Illinois. Last spring, A &A received the go-ahead to pave the hospital’s main campus in Arlington Heights, IL, and the resulting 100,000-sq.-ft. milling and paving job is the 2020 winner of Pavement’s Paving: Parking Lot Award.

“This job went as smoothly as we could possibly have imagined,” says Tom Swing A & A’s pavement consultant. “We knew our guys could do it, that was never a question. But you

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never know if there’s going to be an unexpected issue or not. We try to plan for everything, just in case.”

A & A Paving, Roselle, IL, employs 28 people and generates 75% of revenue from paving, 10% from sealcoating and 15% from a mix of a variety of services including striping and concrete. Work for A & A is split evenly between commercial and HOA clients, according to Todd Eichholz, CEO/owner.

Complexity Requires Communication Northwest Community Hospital serves a large patient population and traffic at the hospital campus surpasses 15,000 vehicles a day, transporting patients, visitors, vendors and staff. The campus also includes a wellness center and a health club – meaning there was constant activity throughout the job and the surface parking lot is often filled

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Despite a change of plans that made a three-day job a two-day job, A & A Paving, Roselle, IL, completed this 100,000-sq.-ft. mill-and pave job in two consecutive days without overtime and on budget.

Monday through Saturday. In addition, the emergency room entrance sits just across from the project site, with ambulances arriving several times an hour.

Tom Swing, who managed the job, was sensitive to this extra layer of complexity and planned a workflow with minimum disruption to the medical staff and patients moving through this area.

“At the beginning we met with the stakeholders and once they agreed with what we were going to do and how we were going to do it, we worked with them to spread the word to everyone else,” Swing says. “We knew we could do the paving. The biggest challenge was communicating everything, making

February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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sure everyone knew what was happening, when it was happening and where they needed to be redirected.

“That kind of traffic volume and the fact that this is a hospital campus requires a whole other level of communication. We knew the parking lots were usually full, so we had to let all those people know where to go and how to get where they needed to be.

This doesn’t include just the visitors and users of the facilities on the campus but the doctors and all the employees too.

We wanted to keep everyone happy, but we’ve done this before so we kind of knew the drill.”

A & A handled the exterior signage and barricades but left the communication to hospital staff and medical personal to the hospital. “They’re really great with all their internal communication so they handled all that and it went very well. They could do that better than we could.”

Planning… and a Change of Plans Swing says that originally the 100,000-sq.-ft. mill-and-pave job was planned for three phases of one day each.

“It seemed to be a ‘go’ at three phases but the more the hospital looked at it they realized we were going to be out there three times, disrupting operations and closing down lots and redirecting traffic differently on each of three days. They asked us if we could do it in two days if they closed the lot for us,” Swing says.

A & A reevaluated and determined they could complete the work in two days, so the hospital agreed to close the surface parking lots for two days.

Northwest Community Hospital has two parking garages, including a parking garage for doctors, and traffic was redirected to those facilities – after getting buy-in from the doctors. A & A offered to run a shuttle from the parking garages to all the facilities on the campus – something they often do for the HOA customers – but the hospital decided they wanted to provide that service themselves.

Prep Work & Two Days of Intense Work Prep work including repairing 17 catch basins and concrete collars and removing and replacing a substantial amount of concrete curb and gutter was completed weeks in advance during A & A Paving’s normal daily workflow. Once that was done A & A waited for a twoday window from the hospital, and they received it for a Friday and Saturday.

To complete the project in just two days, A & A needed to add both equipment and staff. In addition to an 8-ft. mill and asphalt paver, A & A had two CAT 272D3 XE skid steers with grinder attachments, three skid steers with buckets for picking up milled material, and a dozen dump trucks. A & A had a large street sweeper on site throughout the day and three skid steers with sweeping attachments for tighter areas.

The contractor also brought and parked a backup paver in the staging area.

“We were so tight on a schedule that we couldn’t have anything break down,” Swing says. “We had a lot of extra equipment on the site, most of which we put to work, but we brought the backup paver because we couldn’t afford to shut down to repair it or to bring in another paver from another site. We needed to keep going. It was a big promise for us to do this in two days and we just couldn’t afford to have any delays if we were going to keep our promise and meet the schedule.”

Milling crews started early Friday morning and worked from one end to the other.

“There was a lot of tight work with the milling because there were a lot of islands that required us to use our CAT grinders and some hand work in addition to our 8-ft. mill,” Swing says.

By 10:30 that morning A & A had one-quarter of the lot milled. The paving crew primed that area and was able to start paving at 1:00 p.m. Each piece of equipment had to be choreographed to be at the right place at the right time for maximum efficiency.

“Since we were paving the same day we were milling, the biggest challenge with the actual process was managing which trucks were doing what,” Swing says. “At the start it was easy because they were just hauling grindings away, but by later in the morning we had to determine which trucks were hauling grindings away, which trucks were bringing asphalt in and which trucks were doing both.”

By the end of the first day they had milled 2 in. of pavement throughout the entire parking lot, swept it, and paved one-third of it. Before leaving Friday, crews tack-coated the remaining twothirds of the lot so they could start paving immediately Saturday morning. Paving of 1,300 total tons of hot mix asphalt was completed Saturday, despite a light late-afternoon rain, and the lot was striped and open on Sunday.

“It went as well as we could have planned,” Swing says. “It was a big promise we made, and we wanted to make sure we kept our promise. The client was happy, and we really solidified our relationship with them…and we’re bidding additional work for them for 2020.”

A brief video of the job can be found at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Iboze9EFTP4.

On the first day, A & A had both its milling crew and paving crew on the site because to meet the schedule they needed to get as much work done that first day to make sure to complete it on time.

RUNNERS-UP I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I Finley Asphalt & Concrete, Bristow, VA Paving Associates, Aberdeen, NJ

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Allan Heydorn, Editor

PAVING: Non-Parking Lot Award Winner

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Racetrack Construction a “Flat Out” Winner

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Sunland Asphalt & Construction relies on stellar subgrade and echelon paving to meet tight specifications for racetrack project DESPITE ITS 40-year tenure in business and growing list of maintenance and construction services, Sunland Asphalt & Construction has only begun pursuing what Michael Baer, Sunland’s national accounts division manager, terms “specialty” work.

If the job constructing a racetrack at Apex Motor Club is any indication, the move into specialty work is paying off because construction of the racetrack – Sunland’s first effort at building a track from the ground up – has won Pavement’s Paving: Non-Parking Lot Award for 2020.

The Apex Track The Apex Motor Club in Maricopa, AZ is a unique social environment for auto enthusiasts where members have exclusive access to the private race track to drive at their leisure. Created for drivers of all experience levels and vehicle types, this project was designed by award winning race track designers from Motorsports Service International and was built to world-class racing standards, otherwise known as the FIA standards.

The project scope included a 2.3-mile circuit with a 3,400-ft. straightaway, as well as a helicopter landing pad. Solterra Materials, Sunland’s sister materials company, designed and supplied over 16,000 tons of specially formulated asphalt, specifically for the Apex track.

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Eventually the Maricopa site will have condo garages, a shooting range and plans are already underway to build a two additional tracks on site.

“Our team did an amazing job. It was an all-hands-on-deck project approach and we had crews from various disciplines in our Phoenix, Public Works, Civil Tucson, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico divisions come together to make this successful,” Baer says. “We pride ourselves on partnering with our customers and our partnership with Apex was no exception. We were involved from the beginning to provide feedback of the design, what the crosssections were going to be and the materials for construction.”

Good Subgrade & Echelon Paving Construction of the base, fine grading, and placement of 45,000 tons of recycled concrete base course was meticulously groomed by Sunland’s Civil Division. “We really made sure the subgrade for this project was solid and graded properly. We spend a lot of time perfecting the subgrade because whatever

To complete this project, Sunland utilized three pavers, three material transfer vehicles, 20 rollers, 50 dump trucks and a crew of 47 Sunland employee owners running continuously.

material you lay on top of it will follow the subgrade. So, for good paving in general, the better the subgrade, the better the paving,” Baer says.

Once the subgrade was in place, Sunland utilized a technique called echelon paving, which is the practice of paving multiple lanes of an asphalt roadway, side by side with the adjacent paving machines offset. Baer says the echelon paving technique ensures the smoothest possible surface used for race tracks and is not often used for typical roadway, street or highway projects. The track was paved in two lifts: a 2-in. base and a 1-in. surface lift.

Surface tolerance for the project was 1/8 in. on a 16-ft. straightedge.

“Due to the track specifications, we used three pavers to cover the 40-ft. width of the track to maintain tolerance to meet the specifications,” Baer says.

In order to achieve the seamless

February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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RUNNERS-UP I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I surface that Apex desired, production had to be executed without stopping, or pausing.

“On the final day of paving, the pavers never stopped. Sunland executed a continuous circuit of paving all day long from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. We just kept moving around the track without stopping,” Baer says. “This had to be a continuous pave. If at any point the paving stopped, we would have had to mill the entire top layer of asphalt off of the track and start all over.”

To complete this project, Sunland utilized three pavers, three material transfer vehicles, 20 rollers, 50 dump trucks and a crew of 47 Sunland employee owners running continuously.

Sunland’s Safety Focus Baer says the Apex project was challenging from a safety standpoint due to the complexity of echelon paving, the utilization of equipment and the number of employees and bystanders onsite. During production, tours of the project site were being given to potential members of the Apex Motor Club, which added a level of safety awareness for the crews. Baer says that to ensure crew safety, pre-task planning was completed and revisited multiple times a day to forecast potential safety concerns and to plan safe operations.

Sunland provided additional spotters and radios to ensure communication.

“Safety is the foundation of Sunland’s core values. We begin every project with safety in mind,” Baer says.

Baer says it’s Sunland’s employee owners that enable the contractor to work in the specialty market doing work on airports, bridges and racetracks.

“The quality, the workmanship of what our guys are doing has enabled

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us to move into the specialty paving market where not a lot of people can participate.”

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Pursuing Specialty Work Sunland has grown over the last 40 years from a private asphalt maintenance contractor to a full-service national contractor with disciplines in public works maintenance and highway and bridge construction.

“We like the racetrack world,” Baer says. “In the past, Sunland has completed quite a bit of maintenance, repairs and even overlays on other racetracks (including GM, Ford and Nissan proving grounds), but Apex is the first track we have constructed from the ground up.”

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Allan Heydorn, Editor

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Website Redesign Aims at Commercial Customers ADC Paving’s website support rebranding, takes advantage of social media marketing, and targets new market NOT ONLY HAS ADC Paving’s website (www.adcpaving.com) been a crucial contributor to the company’s growth over the past year, but it’s receiving Pavement’s “Best of the Web” Award for 2020.

Redesigned and relaunched in mid-2018, the website was updated to provide support for the company’s new branding effort, to enable the company to move away from “old school” marketing, and to more easily reach the commercial customers the Louisville, KY, contractor wants to reach.

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They also wanted to highlight their core values, and the first topic on a dropdown menu beneath Services is titled “Quality above all else” and describes in detail how ADC views its work. “We did that to separate ourselves from our competition locally and regionally,” says Kevin Gray, co-owner with wife, Angela. “We also wanted to make it easier for people to navigate and more visibly appealing.”

ADC Paving is a third-generation, family owned-and-operated company.

Started in 1959 as Asphalt Driveway Co., the company began transitioning to ADC Paving for the 2014 season when they decided to expand into commercial work. Today ADC Paving is a 20-person, full-service paving and pavement maintenance company, generating 70% of work from paving, 20% from sealcoating, 5% from concrete flatwork and 5% from striping.

ADC is transitioning from residential to commercial work, so they wanted to make sure to create a site for the customers they wanted.

Fo Gray says the website was overhauled in 2011 but hadn’t been refreshed since then. “We thought it was about time,” he says.

Support for Branding Gray says that when the company began to pursue the commercial market, they rebranded their vehicles from white to black. Lettering is orange and white.

“We wanted a website that would support the new brand,” Gray says. “We wanted to increase brand awareness and we really needed a website to promote that and capture our culture.”

A visit to the website lands you on the all-black home page, with orange

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ADC Paving promotes its "no bad jobs" mentality on a web page devoted to their approach.

headings and white logos representing the years the contractor has qualified for Pavement’s Top Contractor list. “We wanted to highlight that we made that list so often and we really like the way the white letters pop against the black background,” Gray says.

A slight scroll leads to an introduction to the company with an orange “Get in Touch” call-to-action button.

Another slight scroll leads to the “Pride in Services” page, which outlines for customers how ADC Paving views its responsibilities. Another call-to-action button suggests “See Our Services.”

“When you’re on our home page you see the pride we have in our service,” Gray says. “We’ve adopted a ‘no bad jobs’ mentality and we make that clear.

We want to give people the job they deserve. We’re trying to give people the value they are paying for – as it says on the site. And ‘no bad jobs’ doesn’t just mean no bad paving or sealcoating jobs.

It means from the receptionist answering the phone to our customer service department to our crews all providing the work we’ve promised. And that’s all right there up front.”

Focus on Social Media Gray says that when they decided to overhaul the site, they wanted to make sure to incorporate social media.

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“We really wanted to focus on social media marketing. We thought we had a pretty good story to tell, and we wanted to tell it where people are shopping today, which is online,” he says. “We’ve removed ourselves from the Yellow Pages and other ‘old school’ kind of marketing and we instead focus on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. The site is designed to utilize social media and all those outlets are promoted pretty heavily on the website.”

He says the company regularly develops special content for their social media campaign, including marketing videos (one of which they placed locally during last year’s Citrus Bowl) and the marketing videos are also accessible from the website.

Target the Customer Gray says ADC is still transitioning from residential to commercial work, so they wanted to make sure to create a site for the customers they wanted.

“The biggest thing we did is make sure we were promoting to the customers we were pursuing – property managers, property owners and business owners. We added some text to focus on those people,” he says.

To make sure they would reach those buyers, they researched keywords that would help them climb Google’s search engine to make sure they landed on Google’s page one. They then included text on the site that used those words and addressed specific topics in which commercial buyers would be interested.

“We built into the site what we thought would help us reach out to those people,” he says.

Gray says they continually add to the site to keep it current, and the new site seems to be working for them.

“More than any other resource, the site has helped us reach and maintain conversions from Google and consistently placed us as one of the mostclicked paving and pavement maintenance contractors in our local area,” Gray says. “It is the backbone and, in a lot of cases, the first impression for many commercial customers looking for a reputable paving contractor.

“We ask everybody that calls how they heard about us and our Google ranking has gone way up,” he says. “A lot of people are finding us through the website, more than ever before.”

The all-black home page features orange headings and white logos representing the years the contractor has qualified for Pavement’s Top Contractor list.

www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement • PAVEMENT • February 2020

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Allan Heydorn, Editor

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“Best Marketing Video” Award Winner

High-profile Project Perfect for Showcasing

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U.S. Pavement honored for “Thank You, Staples” video WHEN A 30-YEAR client asks you to bid a 300,000-sq.-ft. mill-and-pave job at their corporate headquarters, that might be the ideal time to produce a high-quality video – both to thank the customer and to showcase your work to other high-profile clients That’s exactly what U.S. Pavement Services, Woburn, MA, thought when Staples, Framingham, MA, approached them last year. The resulting marketing video was voted Pavement’s “Best Marketing Video” for 2020 by 39% of online voters.

While U.S. Pavement regularly shoots and posts videos of jobs and the

46

services it provides, the Staples video was the brainchild of Katty Swarup, marketing coordinator, who had only been on the job a week or so before the Staples project started.

“The idea was to show the entire process from start to finish and to highlight one of our longest-term customers,” Swarup says. “Staples is a retailer we’ve worked with for a long time and one of the goals was to highlight our relationship with this retailer.”

Titled “Thank You, Staples,” the 2:31 video picks up after the milling has been completed, kicking off with beauty shots of the Staples location before moving quickly to show the rugged U.S. Pavement trucks, uniformed

workers and teamwork on the job. Hot mix is dumped from the truck into the hopper, flows easily from the hopper to the screed and even beneath the screed onto the milled surface. Roller and plate compaction are covered as are use of skid steers to move and place mix, handwork and even an operator turning one of the screws before the camera pans the striped parking lot for the “after” view.

“It’s a story piece,” says Jamie Hunt, director of administration at U.S. Pavement. “We wanted to tell the story of the entire project and how lots of things happen to get to that final place where everyone gets to come to work and park in a beautiful new parking lot.

The video tells how that happens.”

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Katty Swarup, marketing coordinator, says the idea behind the video was to show the entire process from start to finish and to highlight one of U.S. Pavement's longest-term customers.

U.S. Pavement employs 150 at its two locations – Woburn, MA, headquarters and its national office in Sarasota, FL. The company self-performs work throughout New England as U.S. Pavement and works throughout the country for the 800 Pavement Network.

David Musto, executive vice president, says U.S. Pavement is a full-service contractor offering everything from drainage upgrades and milling to striping, sealcoating, paving and cracksealing. Musto says the contractor generates 75% of its revenue from paving and 25% from sealcoating (other work is folded into those categories). He says the company performs an almost equal number of paving and sealcoating jobs for commercial, multifamily and public agency customers.

The Staples job, which was divided into three phases, was nothing unusual for U.S. Pavement. It required milling 1½ in., tacking the surface, then placing and compacting 4,000 tons of 1½ in.-thick hot mix, then striping the finished pavement. The video was of a 162,000-sq.-ft. section that included speed bumps, stamped asphalt and striping crosswalks.

Robert Pappalardo, U.S. Pavement vice president of business development, says the contractor works with Staples locations nationwide, so there’s a strong relationship between the two companies. He says that being able to work on such a high-profile job only a half-hour from U.S. Pavement’s headquarters was something they felt they should take advantage of for marketing.

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“It was a large property and a branded property that people can relate to,” Pappalardo says. “People know Staples here, so it really hits home in New England.”

“Staples is a recognized household name, and with their headquarters 23 miles from our headquarters, it was a perfect opportunity for a large-scale project and to be able to highlight a local job,” Hunt says.

Swarup did the filming using a handheld camera that was sometimes mounted on a tripod. He took still shots as well, spending almost five hours at the jobsite getting all the shots and angles he wanted, then returning to the property once the job was completed for the finished views. Once back in the office, he edited and added music to the video, completing it in less than four hours.

“We’re always trying to stay ahead of the game with our material and footage,” Pappalardo says. “We started a few years ago creating scope videos for all the services we perform to highlight what we do so our customers can really visualize what it is we do and how we do it.”

Swarup says, Staples was aware that U.S. Pavement was nominated for the award. “We reached out to the official Staples Instagram to show them the video and they not only approved it but also supported us by voting for the video,” Swarup says.

In addition to posting the video to the Project Profile section of their website, U.S. Pavement made sure the video was on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and they sent it out (and will continue to send it out) to prospective customers.

“It’s hard to figure what the actual return on investment is, but we can tell you that it’s being viewed, and customers have mentioned it to us,” Pappalardo says.

And this isn’t the only video the contractor will make.

“For the long-term, you have to constantly refresh yourself and come up with new ideas. You can’t have a static environment; you have to refresh the script."

View the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lsKcaaiNqI The video was filmed using a hand-held camera that was sometimes mounted on a tripod.

Still photos were combined with the edited video and music was added to complete the marketing piece.

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ADC Paving, Louisville, KY

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Emerald Coast Striping, Tallahassee, FL

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Allan Heydorn, Editor

GOOD NEIGHBOR AWARD

$100,000 of Work to Wisconsin School Asphalt Contractors Inc. donates broad variety of work to Kansasville Grade School Asphalt Contractors Inc.'s donation to Kansasville Grade School, Kansasville, WI, included placing a 4-in. asphalt surface in two lifts, and excavating and placing the stone base for an additional 60-ft. x 207-ft. parking lot.

EVEN A QUICK look at just some of the work Asphalt Contractors Inc. did in 2019 for Kansasville Grade School, Kansasville, WI, will make it easy to understand why Asphalt Contractors, Union Grove, WI, receives the Pavement Good Neighbor Award for 2020.

Consider: • Remove asphalt to make room for an addition, then dig footings • Supply stone and backfill the foundation walls • Adjust the grades from the new addition to meet the existing asphalt parking lot by adding stone and grading • Mill off the existing asphalt surface • Regrade the drainage swale along the playground, the additional new parking area and the entrance • Place a 4-in. asphalt surface in two lifts, approximately 450 tons • Stripe the asphalt surface for parking and playground games • Excavate an area for an additional 60-ft. x 207-ft. parking lot, supply and place stone base And that’s not everything.

The total in-kind donation was more than $100,000, according to Bob Kordus, owner of Asphalt Contractors Inc. “It wasn’t planned to get involved to the extent we did, but the more we got

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involved, the more we saw a real need and realized we could really make an impact,” Kordus says. “By the end of the year we realized what we did and wow, we were surprised.”

A School with Financial Needs Kansasville Grade School is the only school in its school district, and at 104 students it’s the second-smallest school in Wisconsin. As such, the school doesn’t have the financial resources to do everything it needs to do to meet state and federal guidelines, including bringing the building up to ADA code. It also doesn’t always have the resources to make changes or improvements they would like to make for students.

So early in 2019 Kansasville Grade School reached out to its across-the-street neighbor, Asphalt Contractors Inc., a 100-person firm that runs its own asphalt plant, operates three concrete and asphalt crushers, and is a full-service paving and pavement maintenance contractor.

“Our shop is in Dover where the school is located so we’re part of their community and we just felt it was the right thing to do,” Kordus says. “It’s fun to see all the big schools with their nice buildings and everything they’ve got, but this school can’t have that. I like helping the little guy, helping the disadvantaged guy. It‘s fun to do and they really appreciate it.”

Kordus says that initially Asphalt

Contractors Inc. agreed to donate removal of the asphalt from the existing playground area so the school could build an addition. “We did that, then dug the footings and backfilled them with the recycled material from our crushing operation,” Kordus says.

But work then escalated.

“It’s kind of like the little train that could…chug, chug, chug. I like helping the underdog, and the fact is that this school provides a great quality education,” Kordus says. “And while they don’t win sports awards because they can’t field a team, they get all sorts of recognition for citizenship, they have a higher computer skills than most other bigger districts, every kid knows every other kid, and when they leave the school and go on to high school they look out for each other.

“It started off that we were going to help them out, but we weren’t going to be involved as much as we were,” Kordus says. “But then things just kept going. We didn’t necessarily plan on doing everything we did but we’re glad we did.”

Kordus says the company received many “thank-you” cards from students and from people in the community.

“That was priceless, but we didn’t need a ‘thank you’,” Kordus says. “If we hadn't participated in this project to the extent we did, the project wouldn't have happened. Knowing that we made it happen was enough!”

RUNNERS-UP I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I Finley Asphalt & Concrete, Bristow, VA Maul Paving/Concrete/Sealcoating, Plainfield, IL

February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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Allan Heydorn, Editor

Alan Curtis Industry Service Award, Michael Nawa IF FOR NO other reason, Michael Nawa receives Pavement’s 2020 Alan Curtis Industry Service Award as possibly the originator – and certainly one of the originators — of the National Pavement Expo conference program, which has driven the event and helped thousands of contractors succeed in the paving and pavement maintenance industry.

“I wanted to get what I needed out of the show, so I made my opinions known to people in charge,” he says. “I tried to make sure there were things there for everyone — whether they were new to the business or whether they had been in the business for years.”

And that’s outside of everything he’s done advocating for the sweeping industry. In addition to being involved in National Contract Sweepers Institute and Contract Sweepers Institute — both early incarnations of North American Power Sweeping Association (NAPSA) — he has served on the NAPSA board and was a founding member and serves on the board of World Sweeping Association. In 1993 Nawa was named to the Pavement Advisory Board, where he began a 27-year run of offering insights into the direction of the magazine and the direction and content of the NPE conference. He steps down from the board this year.

An NPE Education Advocate Nawa’s influence in the industry began shortly after he started in the sweeping business in 1978 when he acquired a Schwarze Mini-American round-tank, no-dump, hand-crank sweeper. He’d started his original company, Industrial Grounds Maintenance (IGM), in 1976 as a landscaping business in Reading, PA. Sweeping was “a natural add-on”

to pick up mowed grass from parking lots and to offer an additional service to properties he visited regularly.

By the mid-1980s sweeping had outpaced landscaping, but he still wasn’t making much money – or any money as he tells it. He learned about National Pavement Expo in Nashville and decided to attend what was the second show.

“I was broke,” Nawa says. “I didn’t have any money to go but it was something I felt was important, so I went and I slept two nights in my car across the street from the convention.”

He met NPE founder Bob Woltering (who also founded Pavement Maintenance & Reconstruction) and told him how impressed he was with the show. “I also told him I was underwhelmed by what it wasn’t — there was no educational function and as much as I needed to learn about the equipment, I needed education on just about everything else more,” Nawa says. “I made my wishes known to Bob about the need for a conference. He said, ‘Okay, well you’re in charge’,” which was pretty typical Bob.” At that point Woltering had already had some contact with Jeff Stokes and Brad Humphrey and their consulting company, Eagle Flight. He put Nawa in touch with Eagle Flight and paid for Nawa to fly to Maryland to witness Humphrey and Stokes in person and make a recommendation.

“I told him they were great.” The next year, Stokes and Humphrey organized and formed the core of NPE’s first conference program.

Sweeping is the Foundation “I’m a sweeper at heart. It’s what I’ve done for 44 years,” Nawa says, and sweeping was the core of IGM. But Nawa

Michael Nawa

saw the need to diversify — a Nawa mantra — which created conflict in the family business. In 2000, Nawa parted ways with IGM and, with wife Judy, started Custom Maintenance Services (CMS) — essentially a one-stop business for any exterior work needed on a property.

“It took me a long time to come to the realization that sweeping wasn’t a stand-alone business. I had the opinion that I needed two or three more sweeping jobs to make the money I wanted.

But I eventually realized that I had the sweeping jobs and didn’t need any more sweeping jobs. I just needed more jobs from my sweeping customers.”

When he and Judy started CMS, they did whatever work they could find.

"I offered to do it all," he told Pavement in 2005. “We started out by saying 'Whatever you need done, we'll do it. Of all the pavement maintenance services, sweeping provides a very strong foundation for what comes next. If you're sweeping a property three, five, or seven times a week, which is fairly common for a sweeping contractor, you're the company that sees that property every day or almost every day. Your sweeper driver is in the position to say, 'There's a light out' or 'A stop sign has been knocked down.'

And if you see it first there's no reason you shouldn't be first in line to fix it.”

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Cli Nawa said that when he called a property manager to tell him about a problem, “His first question is going to be 'Can you take care of it for me or do I have to hang up and call someone else to take care of it?' We say, 'We'll handle it for you,' and then it's off his mind — and we have a little extra work."

And it’s almost always higher-margin work. “Sweeping is the basis for when you get the higher-margin work. I’ve always viewed it from the standpoint of sweeping is not a stand-alone business.”

But sweeping always came first.

As Nawa told Pavement in 2005, CMS was first and foremost a sweeping contractor – and all work flows from that. "If you're not a sweeping customer, you're not a customer at all," he said.

Nawa says CMS turned down pavement maintenance jobs from properties that were not its sweeping customers

because those companies cherry-picked the lowest-priced service. "They want us to come in and repair their pavement or restripe their parking lot but then they'll give their sweeping work to someone else who is cheaper," he said. "We just don't do business that way. If you want our service, if you want our help on all your property, then you have to hire us to sweep."

By the time they sold CMS in 2017, their fleet of 20 sweepers swept more than 250 properties, and they provided a broad variety of exterior maintenance services to sweeping customers.

Mentoring to Provide Value “What we do has value, and there’s nothing wrong with providing a valuable service and charging for it. That’s how sweepers need to approach the market.”

And that’s what Nawa has been preaching for decades.

Today Nawa, who consults with contractors, still encourages them to diversify — and he’s discovered that his message has gotten through. “They’re often doing something else, and often they want to be the guy customers call for everything. It wasn’t that way years ago, but it’s the way to become a very successful sweeping business.

“Property owners and managers are managing more properties and are working with tighter budgets and they don’t want to have to call several people every time something needs to be done.

“Our goal at CMS was to be the one call they could make to get whatever problem they had fixed. If you can be that one call to that customer you’ve reinforced your relationship, you’ve probably extended your contract and you’ve probably put yourself in line for some higher-margin work.”

Pavement Hall of Fame Cliff Cameron, KM International FOR NEARLY 40 years Cliff Cameron has been a driving force in advocating and educating contractors on the benefits of infrared equipment and how valuable the infrared repair process can be to their business. His belief in the process and his dedication to demonstrating and training contractors in how best to use the equipment has been essential in the acceptance of the process by the industry and in the industry’s recognition that the equipment can be a profit-generator for contractors. It’s what has earned him entry into Pavement’s Hall of Fame.

Along the way Cameron has had one philosophy, “surround yourself with winners,” and KM International’s team dedicated themselves to sharing years of industry knowledge obtained

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through countless field demonstrations with contractors throughout the country and the world. Cameron’s dedication to the end user has been at the forefront of his focus, and his desire to empower the KM team was, and is, a key factor in the success of the company. “I am not worried about a single sale, but rather I am here to perpetuate the industry,” he says.

In 1981 Cameron joined the U.S. Air Force. While in the military he maintained his kinship childhood friends Greg Keizer and Carl Morris, helping at any opportunity as they sought to start a small asphalt repair business. Keizer and Morris developed “The Road Doctor,” an infrared and hotbox combination and their contracting business was operating and beginning to see success. A local municipality asked for their own Road Doctor so, with the help of a loan

from Cameron in 1984, Keizer-Morris incorporated and from a pole barn in Leonard, MI, produced and sold a model KM 4-40 infrared unit.

Fast forward to 2003 left the military, came back to Michigan and moved seamlessly back into the picture at Keizer Morris Inc. “When I came back in 2003 sales were about $750,000 a year, around 100 units out the door,” he says. “I felt it was a relatively young industry, which meant there was an opportunity for the company to grow into a huge company. We just had so much opportunity in front of us. And, still to this day I believe there is room for growth.”

Keizer Morris Inc. went through management and ownership changes, landing with a minority ownership stake for Cameron in 2014. “When that happened that really clicked a light on.

I finally earned a seat at the table and

February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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Cliff Cameron continued from that point on I really made it my mission to sit in this seat I am in today,” Cameron says. “Nothing was going to stop me from being in this seat and from that time on I pursued this job and this company. I absolutely pursued it.”

In 2016 Cameron and partner Bryan Burke became full owners of KM International. Today Cameron is president and co-owner of KM International, which sells a broad line of pavement maintenance equipment, including KM-manufactured infrared repair equipment, asphalt hot boxes, rubber melting kettles and crack repair equipment. Cameron has been instrumental in making KM International, which recently surpassed $10 million in annual sales, a major contributor to the pavement maintenance industry.

Selling, Teaching – and Reclaiming – Infrared As the top salesman at Keizer-Morris, Cameron says his sales efforts focused primarily on creating a distribution network and demonstrating the infrared process. He also knew that to sustain continuous growth he needed help and hired Kurt Schwartz, another salesman.

“I did a lot of demonstrating and a lot of training. I’d say 75% to 80% of my time I spent demonstrating the equipment and explaining how and why it works,” he says, adding that eventually those percentages rose to 90% of the time when he spent between 150 and 180 days a year on the road.

“Infrared was not as widely accepted in the early days, as it is now. It was a tough sale because everybody thought it was a gimmick. People couldn’t believe it would heat asphalt to a working temperature, which is why it took demonstrations to sell equipment. We were 99.5% effective in selling when we did demonstrations,” he says. “I’d just tell them, ‘if it does what I say it’s going to do, we’re going to leave it here’ and they just said ‘yes’ because they didn’t think it would do what we said it was going to do. It was almost like a dare. But at the

end of the day, selling for me became a very easy process. My close rate was huge because I believed in my product and I believed in my process.

“I try to make it clear that there are things infrared can do and there are things it can’t do, and people need to understand that. The machine does one thing: it heats asphalt and does a great job at that. Anything that happens after that is based on the craftsmanship and skill of the operator.”

He says that around 2005 the infrared manufacturers began to realize the process was sometimes being oversold and that the industry was selling units but providing little to no training.

“Many of us in the industry emphasized training for the end-user about quality of asphalt repairs versus just selling and letting them go off to figure it out on their own. That made a huge difference in how the process is viewed today.

“It’s become an essential piece of equipment for pavement maintenance crews. It’s not just a pothole repair unit. If there’s a blemish of any kind or if there’s a cold seam, it’s an eraser for any paver. If you need to put down thermoplastic, you can use it for that. If you’re a sealcoater who needs to repair some pavement before sealcoating, you can sub it out or you can do it yourself with your KM Infrared and KM hotbox reclaimer.”

Becoming a One-stop Shop In 2007 Keizer-Morris hired yet another full-time salesman, Mike McGuckin and the company began to change its growth strategy from inside sales to distribution. Cameron headed the project of establishing the distribution network, managed the distributors and managed the internal sales staff.

“Setting up the distribution network was absolutely a critical move for us, and it was the right call. At the time we were in all 50 states and several countries with sporadic sales. While developing a distributor network there was definitely a learning curve but as we

Cliff Cameron

progressed, we aligned ourselves with a lot of well-established, like-minded companies that shared our visions for growth. Today we have 15 individual distributors in the U.S. that collectively cover 35 states, as well as distributors in seven countries around the world.”

Around the same time, 2007, KMI built a new facility in North Branch, MI, enabling them to move from a small, dark and cold early 1900’s former sawmill into a new 27,500-sq.ft. manufacturing facility and offices.

“It only took us seven years to fill the place up to a point of adding another 12,000 sq. ft. of space for equipment production. On our current growth rate, it won’t be long until we will need to expand again.”

As KMI grew they added products and modified current models based on the industry’s needs and our customers’ suggestions. “That forced us to grow in the direction they wanted. In hindsight it was a pretty darn good plan.”

One example is KMI’s development of smaller infrared units LB2-16 4X4 and 2-18X. “We introduced the smaller infrared units in 2005 because we listened to our customers. They were the ones who actually wanted the smaller units,” Cameron says.

A Good Living for Contractors “No longer is infrared just a means to fix a pothole. Infrared has come a long way

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as a stand-alone process,” he says. “It’s accepted around the world as a process and as a permanent, preferred means of repair. It’s become a much easier sell to the end-user, and it’s become much easier for contractors to make a living providing infrared repair services. With an infrared and hot box, you can make a very good living if you’re willing to do the work and if you’re any kind of a salesman at all.”

“It’s all tied together for us at KMI,

Jeff Lax

hotboxes, infrareds, asphalt recyclers, crack maintenance, and occasional sealcoat equipment, and I’m proud of it! It’s been an awesome career and I still have a lot of things I want to accomplish,” Cameron says.

Included among those are creation of an infrared manufacturers association, which he says is “in the works” and construction of an 80-ft. x 200-ft. expansion of their manufacturing facility.

Today, Lax is president of Let’s Pave, the Oak Brook, IL-based aggregator of paving work nationwide, but it’s for his efforts in and on behalf of the sealcoating industry that Jeff Lax is inducted into the Pavement Hall of Fame.

Finding a Leadership Position

Jeff Lax, Let’s Pave JEFF LAX NEVER planned on becoming involved in the sealcoating industry. But once he was involved, through a series of conscious decisions, a desire to lead, and a skill set that enabled him to thrive, he was all in.

He not only helped to rescue a sealer producing operation buried in a larger concrete manufacturing company, but also directed its growth organically and through acquisitions. He then stepped up as one of the sealcoating industry’s most-effective defenders against the movement to ban refined coal tar sealers.

52

In 2003, after a stint in the military and at aerospace manufacturing company Goodrich Corp., he was hired

by Oldcastle. Oldcastle had acquired W.R. Bonsal and American Stone Mix, which were combined to form Bonsal American. Lax says Oldcastle bought American Stone Mix for its Sakrete line of concrete products, but the company also operated four sealer plants and Lax was tasked with deciding whether the company should get out of the sealer market or try to grow the business.

“When I recommended we stick with it, the company agreed, and I was tagged to run it. Welcome to general management!”

Growing Bonsal American With Lax spearheading the drive, Bonsal American began efforts to grow the sealer-producing side of the company.

From 2006-2008 Lax managed the salespeople at the four sealer plants. In 2008 they acquired GemSeal, which had five sealer plants, giving Bonsal American nine locations – and Lax managed the

“But it’s not about me anymore. My responsibility is to our people and our customers so we can get them to the next level and to think about what the future of the company is. I’m trying now to do everything I can so they can accomplish their dreams and desires so they can take KM International to the next generation.

I want to develop new players to keep the industry young and fresh and take it to the next level.”

entire sealcoating operation.

“The sealer business in Oldcastle had been tucked away within the concrete mix business,” he says. “It never got a lot of emphasis, and it never really had a leader. We had some experienced guys selling but there really was never a real strategic plan. So my team and I developed the plan that included buying at better costs, implementing a standard quality control program, training better, improving the condition and appearance of our plants and tanker fleet, increasing focus on R&D, and improving the marketing and website to better compete,” he says.

In 2012 GemSeal acquired sealer producer Surface Coatings Company, Auburn Hills, MI. “We immediately saw that Surface Coatings sold a lot more items than just sealer and related products and acquiring Surface Coatings gave us the opportunity to sell a more complete array of products to contractors. We decided to leverage the Surface Coatings’ way of business and develop our own company store strategy.”

In 2015 Oldcastle’s parent company, CRH, plc in Ireland conducted a study to evaluate the company’s operations so the company could focus on and invest in what they considered to be core companies. Lax says the sealer business was deemed a non-core operation.

February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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“Not that we were under performing, because we had a very good track record of organic and acquisition growth, but it was simply a company that the CRH leadership didn’t consider part of their long-term strategy.”

So Lax, David Maske, then president of Bonsal American, and Barry Hirsch, former vice president of finance for Bonsal, who had left the company, approached Oldcastle to acquire the sealcoating business. Once the sale to them was complete in early 2016, they rebranded the entire company GemSeal.

“When we looked at the industry, we thought there were opportunities to grow our business by continuing to execute our business plan and growing the GemSeal operation. We looked around and saw lots of asphalt and a lot of need for the product. We thought this is a mature industry, but it will be around for a long time,” he says.

In 2018 GemSeal acquired the six company stores of Professional Pavement Products, a longtime distributor of GemSeal sealers. “We wanted to become a true one-stop-shop for customers so they could see us as their go-to partner to buy everything they would need for sealer projects.”

Defending Coal Tar Sealer Lax says the issue with refined coal tar sealer surfaced in early 2006 while Bonsal American was in discussions to acquire GemSeal, so those discussions were put on hold while the industry determined the status of refined coal tar sealer. Bonsal American and Lax began working more closely with Pavement Coatings Technology Council (PCTC) to fight the coal tar bans.

“Our belief then was refined coal tar sealer is safe and effective, and I still feel that way today,” Lax says.

But at the time no one knew to what extent the material would be banned, so Lax and his team decided Bonsal American had to change their sealer production process. “We decided to retool the sealer plants to convert asphalt emulsion sealer production from batch to

colloid mill,” he says. “It was a good backup plan in case refined tar sealer was completely banned.”

But it hasn’t been.

“That initial ban in Austin (TX) was based on flawed science and the selective use of data, and that data has been used to support every ban put in place since 2006. The result of that study still hasn’t been replicated,” Lax says. “PCTC became heavily focused on research – and we have seen numerous results which validated our claim that coal tar sealer is safe.

“When we realized the bans weren’t likely to become national in scope, we knew we would have to meet with and educate many groups around the country.” The bans that were happening were based on misconceptions and on the flawed USGS Austin study, so PCTC started sending members including Lax to talk with local officials and to try to educate them on the realities of coal tar.

“As a PCTC member, we were doing our part fighting for the industry,” Lax says. “We felt that we had a responsibility to the industry – to the people whose livelihoods depended on applying our sealers – to present our study results and to state our case.”

Lax says that while he was often the face of the industry and GemSeal at various hearings, he credits PCTC and GemSeal’s Geoff Crenson, Paul Raymond, and Chris Mariani, among many others, who he says were heavily involved in the science of the research and hearings.

“As a PCTC board member and as someone who had been in the industry 10-plus years, I knew a lot about the performance characteristics of the product. I’m also conversant in the some of the technical merits of refined coal tar sealer and able to talk at a high level about the technical aspects of the Austin USGS study,” Lax says. “I understood raw materials used in production and the PCTC research, and I understood the Austin research. As a manufacturer, I think I was able to offer a pretty unique perspective to the people in the

hearing rooms who were used to hearing from scientists.

“PCTC’s involvement has been very effective,” Lax says. “If PCTC had not been involved, the pace of bans and spread of bans would have been much faster and wider. PCTC educates people and being present at the hearings helped – otherwise bans would have been much more widespread.”

PCTC, he says, continues to be a strong advocate for the sealer industry.

Before he left GemSeal, Lax and others in PCTC had worked hard to expand the focus of the organization from solely battling bans to creating education and awareness of the sealer industry for property owners and managers. The goal of the broader mission, said Lax, “was to complement the fight to keep safe and effective sealer products legal with a greater awareness of the benefits of sealcoating to help grow the entire industry.”

Joining Let’s Pave When Lax joined Let’s Pave as president and a partner last July, it was a move from the manufacturing side of the industry to the contractor side.

As Let’s Pave president, Lax joined founder C.B. Kuzlik, who used to work for Lax at GemSeal, and partners Mike Rosen and Mike Zator.

“In my role, I’m in a position to help eliminate obstacles in front of the team and to keep everyone focused on our priorities. A big part of my job is to hold the team accountable for delivering on our promises to our clients, to our subcontractors who perform the work, and to each other.

“I’m learning a different side of the business,” he says. “It’s very fast-paced.

Executing thousands of projects a year is pretty amazing. From the outside looking in, it looks easy, or at least it did to me, which is a testament to the talented team at Let’s Pave. But from the inside, it really is challenging.

It takes a motivated team of people working efficiently together to get the job done and exceed our customers’ expectations.”

www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement • PAVEMENT • February 2020 53

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Right Pointe & Maxwell Products Dealer for Crack Sealing Material for the 5 State Area Minnesota • Wisconsin • Iowa • North Dakota • South Dakota

9 www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement • PAVEMENT • February 2020

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s

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Classifieds

Features & Benefits: • EXTREME-DUTY Heavy Gauge Steel • Powder Coated Finish

Finally, Lock your LineLazer™ for transport INSTANTLY! No Straps, Use Padlock for Anti-Theft!

• Mount on Wood/ Steel/Masonry • Can Be Welded or Bolted • Security for Open Pickups or Trailers

View video and purchase online @ www.autoloc.biz

                       

No More Ratchet Straps!

Lock Up Your Striper in Under 10 Sec. Use Your Own Padlock mounts Anywhere!





   

       

     



 



                                  

Attention LineLazer™ Owners

        



      

®

Qualified, Experienced Paint Truck Operator SAVE WITH PALLET PRICING ON CRACK FILLER, TACK COAT, COLD PATCH & ADDITIVES

You’ll love working here!

CALL TOLL FREE

Salt Lake City, Utah

877-767-4NAC (4622) SHOP ONLINE

WWW CSUPPLY WWW.NA CSUPPLY.COM Y.COM ut our Ask abo bber ru recycled Parking s for solution Traffic Safety & l Contro

Find us on Twitter and Facebook

Mountain West Striping Growing family owned business to offer the right person a chance to step in and make a difference.

• Competitive wages • Great benefits • Aggressive career growth • Possible relocation assistance • Sign on bonus • Full time, permanent position

Please call Todd for more information.

801-977-0841 or 801-300-1603 www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement • PAVEMENT • February 2020

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Classifieds

Call us for any Used Striping Equipment needs:

770-331-2550

Check out our website at www.usedstripingequipment.com

1995 Mack MRL Epoxy Striper Ready to Stripe

1990 Mitsubishi MB Paint Truck

Excellent Condition, only 21,300 miles.

$137,500

$48,750

2001 Volvo MRL 3-4000LB Melter Thermo Longline Striper, Ready to Stripe.

2002 GMC T7500 MRL 6 Box Grinder Truck

$158,750

Energy Absorption Attenuator Trailers $15,750 EA with Arrow Board $12,250 EA without Arrow Board

2006 Freightliner Arrow 4 Melter Thermo Longliner, Ready to Stripe

$174,750

$198,750

2004 Volvo Line Tech Design Paint Truck 2-200 gallon tanks. Only 9,700 miles and 1,500 hours. Like New!

REDUCED $89,750

Mini Mac 1500 w/Trailer, Excellent Condition

$48,750

2013 International 4300 -- DT466

Auto, under CDL, 150,000 miles with new Wanco Arrow Board and the latest and highest speed tested Blade attenuator.

$69,500

2007 Condor with 2008 JCL Waterblast Unit

2009 International 4300 with Scorpion Attenuator

DT466, Auto, under CDL, 168,000 miles

$44,750.00

2005 Mack EZLiner Airless Paint Truck 73,000 miles, Excellent Condition.

$124,750

Caterpillar C11 ACERT, engine brake, Allison A/T, dbl differential lock, dual steering, Hendrickson Haulmaxx suspension, 20,000 lb front, 46,000 lb rears, 222 inch wheelbase, 24 ft flatbed, Caterpillar C9 ACERT, 275 hp, Husky 55K PSI pump, 93,000 miles. Very Nice Condition.

$257,500 Reduced to $227,500

We buy used equipment and will take trade-ins.

Please call for used parts for most striping equipment and save!

58

February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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Classifieds $25,000

$39,000

2005 CAT AP-1055B, 10’ to 20’ screed

$24,000

1995 CAT AP-1050B, 19’ to 20’ screed, 2863 HMR $10,500

$11,500

BLAW-KNOX PF180H, 10’ to 20’ screed $27,000

CAT CB-534C, 67” Vib Double Drum Roller, 469 Hrs $7,900

FERGUSON 5B-B, 50” Double Drum Roller, 1994 HMR $65,000

WIRTGEN 2000DC Profiler, 80” Head, 25’ Conveyor $12,000

HYSTER A53C Grid Roller $89,000

2002 CAT 14H, Cab, Ripper $29,000

CAT D6C 10K10802 Angle Dozer, Ripper

$23,000

2000 CAT AP-1000B, 10’ to 18’ screed $9,000

BLAW-KNOX BK171 $12,000

$12,000

CAT CB-214C, 39” Vib Double Drum Roller

INGRAM 8-10 Ton Double Drum Roller $45,000

BOMAG BW 100AD-3, 39” Vib Double Drum Roller

$26,000

WALK N ROLL WR75, Pneu 10 whl, Ripper Mounted Roller, NEW

$109,000

CAT PR750B Profiler, 10’ Head w/ Conveyor CAT V12

$42,500

CAT 130G Scarifier, 1416 HMR, Ex-US Army

CAT 140G, 72V2663, Aux Hyd $22,000

CAT 120, 89G912, Cab, Scarifier $19,000

CAT D5M XL 2005 6 Way Dozer, Ripper, Slope Board

GALION RP42 Profiler, 42” to 60” Head, 811 HMR $39,000

$16,000

2006 CAT 140H, VHP, Cab, Ripper, 11498 HR

1991 ETNYRE K5135, Adj. Head, 4x4, Cum. Diesel, Chip Spreader, 1891 Hr. $24,000

$45,000

DEERE 570A, #8089, Cab, 2240 HMR

REX SP848, 84” Vib Single Drum Roller $55,000

$49,000

WIRTGEN 1000C Profiler, 40” Head, 22” Conveyor

INGERSOLL RAND 660W, 8’ to 13’ screed $19,000

$14,500

$5,900

1999 BLAW-KNOX PF3200, 10’ to 18’ screed $15,000

BARBER-GREENE, SA125, 8’ to 12’ screed

CAT 613C, 92X1149, Scraper $29,000

TCI 747 Mini Articulated Grader, Transmission Issue

$9,750

CAT 936E 4N1 Bucket, Ripper

BLAW-KNOX PF500, 10’ to 16’ screed $15,000

CEDARRAPIDS CR331, 8’ to 13’ screed $19,000

CAT CP-553 84” Vibratory Padfoot Compactor $17,000

ETNYRE K4090, 12’ Chip Spreader, Diesel $14,000

ATHEY 711-D Force Feeder w/ Conveyor, Diesel $45,000

CAT 14G, 96U2823 Cab, Ripper $39,000

CAT D60, 4X3966, Cab, Twin Tilt Angle Dozer, Ripper $12,000

FORD 8000, Asphalt Distributor Engine, 6’ to 10’ spread

Most Equipment from Municipalities, Low HRS, Well Maintained, Non Compliant per Calif AIR Board (CARB)

12201 Hwy 99 — Madera, California | Gagliardi Family Co. for Over 60 Years www.buydozers.com | (559) 674-8781 | Email: Buydozers@gmail.com www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement • PAVEMENT • February 2020

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2020 Top 25 Products Displayed over the next three pages are the paving and pavement maintenance industry products that received the most contractor interest last year via Pavement magazine and the Buyer’s Guide at www.forconstructionpros.com. Some are new to the industry, some are veteran products that have been upgraded, and some are long-term warhorses that still provide the efficiency, productivity and durability contractors need.

Mini-Track Paver

Precision Solar Controls The SMC 1000 ST Solar Message Center is a MUTCD-compliant variable message sign that displays text messages on a 70-in. x 127-in. panel.

• On-board dedicated NTCIP-compliant controller provides programming with secure password protection • 5 high-intensity, solid-state LEDs per pixel to create uniform light input for increased message definition • Distance legibility of 1,000 ft.

• Powered by a battery bank

Salsco Inc The Mini-Track Paver can pave widths from 3 to 6 ft., making it suitable for sidewalks, utility trenches, patching and more.

• Paving speed of 50 fpm • Paving thickness of 1/4 to 5 in.

• Hydraulic tracks move in and out • Hydraulic cut-off plate and hydraulic dump box • 10-hp Yanmar diesel engine • 6-ft. turning radius • Easily accessible controls

ForConstructionPros.com/10082860

ForConstructionPros.com/10087559

S650 and T650 M-Series Loaders

Apollo Handliner Thermoplastic Melter

2020

TOP 25

PRODUCTS

SMC 1000 ST Solar Message Center

Crack Jet II KM International The Crack Jet II is an all-in-one crack prep machine.

• 2,800° of heat at 90 cfm • Clean the crack, dry the crack, and etch the walls all in one motion ForConstructionPros.com/20978620

Shouldering and Side Paver Attachment Road Widener LLC The Shouldering and Side Paver Attachment is available in two models (FH and FH-R) and is applicable for skids steers as well as larger machines.

• Capable of laying down any material including hot mix • Disperses 20-ton load of aggregate in minutes • Both models available as single discharge or dual discharge • Include a heat-treated belt, 360° steerable front end and adjustable rollers to accommodate various truck axles • Connect via quick-connect coupler

Bobcat Co. The S650 skid-steer loader has a 2,690-lb. rated operating capacity and an 8,327-lb. operating weight, while the T650 compact track loader has a 2,570-lb. ROC and an operating weight of 9,440 lbs.

• Vertical-lift path design • 74-hp Tier 4 Interim engine • 23-gpm standard hydraulic flow • 10-ft. 4-in. height to hinge pin • Optional selectable joystick controls and high-flow hydraulics • Roller suspension system available on the T650 ForConstructionPros.com/10083098

Fuse FX Boot

OJK-V Asphalt Crack Sealer

Red Wing Shoe Company Fuse FX boot is ideally suited to the construction industry, with slow-recovery memory foam padding for all day comfort.

• Lightweight, breathable nylon mesh upper to keep feet cool • New Omnitrax rubber outsole to help prevent slips and falls • Non-metallic toe • Heat-resistant outsole

Stepp Manufacturing The OJK-V (Vertical) Kettle is capable of heating, melting, and applying all grades of rubberized asphalt, crack sealer, joint sealants, and waterproofing compounds.

• Trailer-mounted, self-contained • 75- and 125gal. models • Heats material from ambient temperature to application temperature in 60 minutes or less

ForConstructionPros.com/20995162

ForConstructionPros.com/20979927

M-B Companies Inc. The Apollo Handliner Thermoplastic Applicator can melt and apply over 700 sq. ft. of pavement markings in a normal work day in stand-alone operations. The unit comes standard with double-ring highefficiency burners, a thermostat control system and a metered glass beader.

• Oneperson transport and simple application system for hot thermoplastic • Heavy-duty, light weight, rustfree aluminum construction • Thermostat-controlled burners • Accurate, high-efficiency melting • Rear swivel wheel • Automatic Temperature Control System keeps material temperature constant throughout application and helps prevent scorching.

ForConstructionPros.com/10083948

February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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MINI Asphalt Recycler and Hot Box

MG7 Mini Paver

Falcon Asphalt Repair Equipment, LLC The propane-fired MINI asphalt recycler can be used to recycle virgin uncompressed asphalt left over after a paving/patching job or asphalt chunks and millings torn up from the road.

•• Haul and keep hot mix asphalt heated or heat cold patch/cold mix asphalt •• 1/2- and 1-ton capacity as either a slip-in (truck mountable) or trailer model; 1/2-ton slip-in weighs 500 lbs. empty and 1,500 lbs. fully loaded, allowing for easy transport •• Triple-walled and insulated, removable material unloading door

Hitek Equipment, Inc. The Pavijet Mini Pavers fill a niche between stand-behind paving machines and the use of spreaders, drag boxes or handspread asphalt.

•• Place hot and cold asphalt or spread sand, gravel and stones •• Connect to a skid-steer loader or compact excavator •• Retractable, vibrating, heated screed, 3.5-ton hopper capacity and a paving speed of up to 82 fpm

ForConstructionPros.com/10911483

Gold Series Six Shooter Manhole Cutter Mr. Manhole The Gold Series Six Shooter offers improved cutting surfaces, a heavier frame, a Quick Adjust variable cutting diameter and custom heavy-duty auger drive for easier manhole removal.

•• Attaches to any skid steer capable of a 30-gpm minimum flow and 2,500-lb. minimum lift capacity •• Adjustable cutting diameter from 28 to 72 in. and cutting depth up to 20 in. (14 in. with standard blades) •• Carbide teeth can be replaced in seconds even on the job ForConstructionPros.com/12129498

COMBI 1515 Chipsealer Sprayer Spreader

LCV6 and LCV8 Portable Light Towers

Secmair Fayat The Combi 1515 combines two machines, a chipsealer and spreader, into one making it ideal for small jobsites, residential areas, turning, narrow or loping roads and precision work.

•• Can apply tack coats before hot mix asphalt •• Patch repair, localized treatments

Doosan Portable Power The LCV6 and LCV8 light towers feature a small-body design and vertical mast for greater maneuverability, ease of transport, low operating cost.

•• Standard vertical mast manually extends to 23 ft. and features four 1,050-watt metal halide lamps •• High-efficiency LED, 290-watt fixtures also available for glare-free lighting and a runtime of 210 (LCV6) and 180 hours (LCV8)

ForConstructionPros.com/21021218

ForConstructionPros. com/21007940

ForConstructionPros.com/11195550

W150 CFi Compact Milling Machine Wirtgen America The 46,000-lb. W150 CFi compact milling machine equipped with the optional 1,800-mm milling drum (1,500 mm standard) can take on surface course rehabilitation for medium to large jobsites to a maximum milling depth of 330 mm.

•• Center-mounted milling drum has a 980-mm diameter •• Powered by a 380-hp Cummins QSL9 diesel engine •• Level Pro Plus leveling system •• Flexible Cutter System ForConstructionPros.com/21040111

CoolSeal Pavement Sealer GuardTop CoolSeal is an ultra high-performance asphalt-based sealcoat that achieves lower surface temperatures with its lighter colored surface and higher reflectivity.

•• Produces measurable reduction in surface temperatures •• Tested and certified to meet the industry standard 33% solar reflectance design goal •• Seal and beautify pavements for up to seven years •• Perfect for school districts, parking lots and LEED eligible building projects ForConstructionPros.com/20862401

P265 Asphalt Paver Weiler The P265 commercial paver provides heavy-duty components in a compact paver.

•• Mechanical controls provide simple and reliable operation •• Cable-operated ground drive controls allow operation from either side •• 3,000-lb. screed features a paving range of 7 ft. 8 in. to 14 ft. 4 in. with electric heat •• Screed-mounted upper and lower augers, flow gate-style cut-off doors and independent control of each side of the delivery system provide precise material control •• Highway-class chains, conveyor and auger bearings provide long-term reliability and extended wear life ForConstructionPros.com/21018774

CP75 II Commercial Paver Carlson Paving Products - Astec Industries The CP75 II asphalt paver provides higher material transfer with its 36-in.-wide independent conveyors •• Ergonomic controls and low visibility provide an operator-focused platform for residential and commercial paving •• Electrically heated EZC815 screed features a standard paving width of 8 to 15 ft., coupled with highway class features for leading mat quality in a commercial package •• Operator-focused platform includes screed-mounted controls, intuitive electric switch functions, direct connect lever steering ForConstructionPros.com/21041395

www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement • PAVEMENT • February 2020

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2020

TOP 25

PRODUCTS

Portable Melting System Titan Tool Combine the Fastmelt 650 with the ThermoMark 250 handliner and get an all-in-one portable melting system built for productivity with the best ROI in the industry.

• Fastmelt 650 is a self-contained thermoplastic system that holds 650 lbs. of material • Place in the back of any standard pickup, flatbed truck or work trailer for easy transport and faster refills • ThermoMark 250 thermoplastic applicator features a 250-lb. reservoir constructed with extremely durable aluminum.

• ThermoMark 250 exclusive features include an insulated reservoir and a modular bolt-together design ForConstructionPros.com/20979346

AutoTrim Sealcoating Attachment Neal Manufacturing, Division of Blastcrete Equipment LLC The hydraulic Auto Trim sealcoating baffle attachment automatically cuts-in sealcoat materials on the go while keeping curbs and edges free of material.

• Attaches to front of Neal Mfg. DA 350 Dual Applicator • Can be retrofitted to any truckpowered sealcoating unit • Features a spray nozzle, hose and baffle that bolts on to the front of the machine and connects directly to the applicator’s sealcoat reservoir ForConstructionPros.com/20980185

C1 Mastic Machine Cimline Pavement Maintenance Group The C1 Mastic Machine combines a crack seal and mastic patch machine to heat 24,000-lb of mastic material in an 8-hour shift.

•Heats on demand in 40-minutes and keeps the material in working condition all day • Pivoting and heated trough designed for ease of material placement; side chute allows for easy centerline repairs • Material Capacity: 150-Gal ForConstructionPros.com/20982084

BF 200 Cart Path Paver Bomag Americas Inc. The BF 200 cart path and small construction site paver weighs just 13,228 lbs. and has a transport width of 51 in. allowing this compact and nimble paver to be transported to jobsites on a trailer.

• Narrow 44-in. track width fits in the cut of a 4-ft.cold planer to boost efficiency of mill-and-fill applications • Hydraulically extendible electric screed offers base paving widths ranging from 3.6 ft. to 6.6 ft.

• Manual screed extensions feature Quick Coupling technology with a locking wedge-and-socket design to quickly extend paving widths to 11.2 ft.

• Available reduction skids allow contractors to pave as narrow as 1.3ft. wide, significantly increasing the paver’s flexibility • Equipped with an automatic steering radius system, the paver easily matches and holds cart path radius, while conveniently allowing the operator to focus on other paving functions ForConstructionPros.com/21094593

62

RoadLazer RoadPak TowBehind System

SP 300 Dual Spray/ Squeegee SealMaster The workhorse of squeegee machines with a 320-gal. capacity designed to mix and apply pavement sealers with or without sand.

• Round tank design with true full-sweep agitation and rubber wiper blades • Quick change floating squeegee assembly with rearangling squeegee (windrow feature) and front box squeegee • Rear wheel drive for added traction and easier trailer loading

Graco Inc. The RoadLazer RoadPak TowBehind System provides more room for hauling paint and beads in the truck bed during the striping season and truck independence throughout the off-season.

• 4 Readyto-stripe RoadLazer RoadPak Tow-Behind Systems • 1 or 2 pump RoadPak for superior performance and crisp, clean stripes • Optional RoadView Camera ForConstructionPros.com/20992898

ForConstructionPros.com/20980161

120 Motor Grader Caterpillar - Cat The 120 grader includes a choice of traditional steering wheel and levers or joystick controls, tandem or allwheel drive and a range of scalable grade control technologies.

• Cat C7.1 engine with ECO mode • Stable blade option adds an accelerometer that senses bounce and slows the machine automatically • Auto-Articulation automatically articulates the frame when the operator steers with joystick control option • View machine information and control Cat GRADE technology on a 10-in. color monitor or touchscreen monitor • Optional Cat Grade with Cross Slope ForConstructionPros.com/21036540

Earthworks GO! Grade Control Platform Trimble Navigation Ltd. • The Earthworks GO! Grade Control Platform is a 2D grade control solution for compact machine grading attachments that enables high-accuracy grading in an easy-to-use, portable platform.

• iOS and Android compatibility allows operators to use their smartphone as the primary machine interface • Leverages laser technology to provide dynamic, real-time position info • Software guides the user through installation, setup and operating modes • GO! Box enables full sensing technology with no mounting hardware needed • Machine profiles can be saved to the GO! Box to ensure the grading attachment only needs to be set up once for quick, easy movement between machines ForConstructionPros.com/21031480

February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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NAPSA

WSA

New Certification Programs!

“Young businesses often fail because their owners rely upon trial and error to figure out the best way forward,” says Scott Duscher, NAPSA president.

“Through the creation of the NAPSA Power Sweeping Standard and its certification programs, NAPSA provides more benefits to its members than most industry associations could even dream of offering.”

NAPSA continues to cement its status as the industry’s leading creator of educational resources when it rolls out its new Fleet Fundamentals course at the 2020 National Pavement Expo, which takes place Jan. 29 through Feb. 2 in Nashville, Tennessee.

“We’ve been working for years on the creation and improvement of our in-depth training programs, but those programs focused heavily on sweeper operation,” said Duscher. “Fleet Fundamentals is a great course for anyone who works for a sweeping company, from the front office to the shop.

The program itself is inexpensive, but the lessons it teaches are invaluable.”

In addition, NAPSA will unveil revised, simplified requirements for becoming a Certified Sweeping Company. The new requirements will add value to companies that seek certification, as they will incorporate NAPSA’s Certified Sweeper Operator (CSO) and Certified Sweeper Manager (CSM) certification programs.

“At first glance, it may seem that we’ve made it easier for companies to get certified,” said Duscher. “While we’ve simplified the process, the in-depth nature

of the CSO and CSC programs ensures that member companies are providing industry standard training and implementing best practices. The Certified Sweeping Company designation is arguably more valuable than ever.”

NAPSA is recognized as a standards writer by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and created and gained ANSI approval for the first-ever Power Sweeping Standard. The CSM program, which is written for owners and managers of power sweeping companies, teaches the fundamentals of the Standard and provides the road map for incorporating it into one’s business.

“The Power Sweeping Standard is the product of countless hours of collaboration among our industry’s most experienced business owners and managers,” says Duscher.

“Following the Standard may help companies minimize the harm caused to their business by unfavorable contract terms and frivolous lawsuits — two things that can put a company out of business in a hurry.”

The North American Power Sweeping Association (NAPSA) is a nonprofit association made up of 200+ contract sweepers, service providers and sweeping equipment dealers, manufacturers and suppliers. NAPSA is dedicated to providing beneficial support to the membership and enhancing services to the sweeping industry. NAPSA is committed to promoting and educating the power sweeping community while enhancing the environment. For more information on NAPSA membership, please visit www.powersweeping.org or call (888) 757-0130.

Florida Study Validates Street Sweeping

By Ranger Kidwell-Ross Over 30 years ago I was a business consultant in Huntsville, AL, where my wife was a genuine NASA rocket scientist. In 1987 I started a newsletter called “The Supervac Quarterly” for one of my only low tech clients, the Schwarze family and their company, Schwarze Industries, Inc. Over the next several years, during the process of producing these publications, I learned much about the power sweeping industry. In the early 1990s we moved back to my home state of Washington. By that time, I had learned enough about sweeping to realize that the majority of public works directors still swept as though they were picking up horse poop, rather than the remnants of clutch plates, brake linings and the chemicals and other nasty stuff we don’t want in our water supply.

So, I founded the first magazine for the industry, “American Sweeper,” with the intent of educating the public works sector about the need to sweep more, and more efficiently, in order to get these pollutants out of the stormwater stream.

Unfortunately, mechanical broom sweepers had been found to be not all that effective in the 1980’s National Urban Runoff Protocol (NURP) testing, the only large scale sweeper testing that had happened before or, unfortunately, since... until now.

I recently learned about a University of Florida sweeper study finalized in 2019 – and which built upon data developed in 2011 – that involved sweepers, catch basins and other pollutant runoff BMPs in 14 municipalities. The astounding results make it clear there is no question street sweeping is the ‘first line of defense’ for pollutant runoff.

Street sweeping was shown to be less than 2/3 the cost of catch basins in removing a pound of nitrogen and over 11 times more cost effective than any other BMP; and, over six times cheaper than catch basins – and up to 41 times less than other BMPs – when it comes to removing phosphorus.

And there’s more, much more.

Everyone in the sweeping industry needs to know about this groundbreaking study. The ‘short URL’ to read the info is: https://bit.ly/2TrCxv1

WSA contributor Ranger Kidwell-Ross has been providing information to the power sweeping industry since 1988. He is editor of WorldSweeper.com, an information resource for power sweeping, as well as founder and executive director of the World Sweeping Association. For more information about WSA visit www.

WorldSweepingPros.org or contact Kidwell-Ross at director@ worldsweepingpros.org.

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PCTC

Off-season Tips for Growth While wintertime is usually considered the off-season in pavement maintenance as temperatures drop too low to safely complete sealcoating projects, it can also be the best time to focus on business strategy and proactively lay the groundwork for a strong year to come. The Pavement Coatings Technology Council (PCTC) recommends several tips for investing in growth planning during colder months to increase overall profitability once the warmer weather returns.

REFLECT AND ADJUST FOR THE FUTURE Take advantage of the slower period to reflect on the work you completed the prior year. Sort customer records by size, type and profitability and consider what worked well for your business and what wasn’t as successful, so you can adjust moving forward.

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Suppliers and manufactures can also be a great resource for building future plans.

Consider setting up meetings with these partners to aid in your business assessment and identify new opportunities. By consulting with a trusted supplier, contractors are likely to receive ideas and support for growth based on the business’s current resources.

Next consider new types of work that fit your business model. Identify offerings – infrared patching, thermoplastic marking, patch paving and tennis court refinishing – that can be introduced into the company with minimal investment in equipment and without increasing fixed costs.

CONNECT WITH CUSTOMERS Start by asking your best clients for honest and constructive feedback. Doing so will provide insight into company strengths and weaknesses as they relate to customer service

For more about PCTC visit www.pavementcouncil.org.

and project satisfaction. If the discussion goes well, don’t be afraid to ask for a referral.

Testimonials add value by creating wordof-mouth momentum behind a growing company. Contractors can expand their digital footprints as well by encouraging reviews on directory services like Yelp or social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. REVISIT CONTENT STRATEGY Social media, e-mail marketing, direct mail and other sales resources play an important role in increasing brand visibility. During the busy months, it’s often challenging to make improvements to consumer-facing content. Avoid sharing outdated resources by mapping out a content strategy and revising marketing collateral before the start of the spring sealcoating season.

February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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PAVEMENT Published by AC Business Media.

201 N. Main Street | Fort Atkinson, WI 53538 800.538-5544 • www.ACBusinessMedia.com www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement Editorial Office: Allan Heydorn, 2339 Stratford, Westchester, IL 60154 (920)-542-1302 | Fax: (920) 542-1133 | aheydorn@ACBusinessMedia.com PUBLICATION STAFF: Publisher: Amy Schwandt Associate Publisher: Cathy Somers Editor/Conference Manager: Allan Heydorn Art Director: April Van Etten Ad Production Manager: Patti Brown Sr. Audience Development Manager: Wendy Chady Audience Development Manager: Angela Franks ADVERTISING SALES: (800) 538-5544 Tom Lutzke, Eric Servais, Sean Dunphy, Amy Schwandt, Erica Finger, Denise Singsime, Kris Flitcroft FORCONSTRUCTIONPROS.COM WEBSITE: Digital Operations Manager: Nick Raether Director of Digital Strategy: Joel Franke Editor: Larry Stewart Managing Editor: Kimberly Hegeman CHANGE OF ADDRESS & SUBSCRIPTIONS PO Box 3257, Northbrook, IL 60065-3257, Phone: (877) 201-3915 Fax: 847-291-4816 • circ.pavement@omeda.com REPRINTS Denise Singsime at (800) 538-5544 ext. 1245 dsingsime@ACBusinessMedia.com.

LIST RENTAL Jeff Moriarty, SVP, Business & Media Solutions, Infogroup Phone: (518) 339-4511 • Email: jeff.moriarty@infogroup.com AC BUSINESS MEDIA INC.: Chief Executive Officer: Barry Lovette Chief Financial Officer: JoAnn Breuchel Chief Digital Officer: Kris Heineman Chief Revenue Officer: Amy Schwandt Group Content Director: Jon Minnick Director of Digital Operations & IT: Nick Raether Director of Digital Strategy: Joel Franke 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 Pacific Sweeping, San Marcos, CA: Lee Miller Parking Lot Maintenance, Lake St. Louis, MO: Todd Bruening Petra Paving, Hampstead, NH: Chris Tammany Pioneer Paving, Albuquerque, NM: Don Rooney Robert Liles Parking Lot Service, Tyler, TX: Robert Liles Roberts Traffic, Hollywood, FL: Lisa Birchfield Roccie’s Asphalt Paving, Stamford, CT: Vincent Engongoro Show Striping Inc. (SSI), Wisconsin Dells, WI: Amber Showalter T&N Asphalt Services, Salt Lake City, UT: Nick Howell The Rabine Group, Schaumburg, IL: Gary Rabine Young Sealcoating Inc, Lynchburg, VA: Steve Young ASSOCIATION REPRESENTATIVES: Pavement Coatings Technology Council: Anne LeHuray, Executive Director

Index Advertiser Index

PAGE

Arrow Striping & Manufacturing Inc.

42

B & E Seal Coat Products Inc.

32

Buffalo Turbine

36

Carlson an Astec Industries Co.

67

Cimline

64

Crafco Inc.

11

Cretex Pro-Ring

38

Doosan

31

DTC

38

EZ-Liner

34

Go I Pave

10

Greens Broom

34

HOG Technologies

33

Keystone

36

Keystone Engineering

41

K-M International

9

Laser Point Lasers

40

LeeBoy

7

Limntech Scientific Inc.

41

Mesabi Asphalt Tools

41

MRL Equipment Company Inc.

37

NEYRA

39

N. I. Wilson Mfg. Co.. Inc.

36

Old Dominion Brush Company

32

Paynes Lines & Designs

42

RAE

40

SealMaster

68

Spaulding Mfg. Inc.

32

Star

4

Unique Paving Materials Corp.

35

Vance Brothers

22

Weiler

43

Wirtgen America Inc.

5

Get fast, relevant product information in the Buyers Guide at

ForConstructionPros.com

www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement • PAVEMENT • February 2020

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Tailgate Talk | Brad Humphrey

My New Year's Resolutions: 2020 Version FOR MANY OF the younger contractors and leaders, they might not remember people setting their New Year's resolution” for the new year. For me, it was often setting a promise to lose weight or to run 20 a week to get ready for some half-marathon. I had friends who might have made a resolution to quit smoking or to cut back on the amount of alcohol they consumed.

All the efforts were sadly, completely given up within two to three weeks. While the failure rate was probably high for most of us, the intent of setting New Year's resolutions was sincerely important.

So, in the hopes that perhaps we all can renew our commitment to being the best contractor or leader possible in 2020, let me share a few of my own New Year's resolutions. Perhaps it will influence you to rethink and reset your own.

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BRAD’S NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS FOR 2020 1. Recommit to read two to three business-themed books a quarter. The benefit is that I will continue my learning and might actually pick up some insights on how to better address issues and solve problems.

2. Review and lead the principles of “lean construction.” If I can help the field leaders whom I

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support to assess before acting, plan before producing, and clean-up before leaving their job site, the company may just be more effective and efficient.

Train and coach one field leader a quarter with additional time and investment. If I can put more of my knowledge and experience in just one field leader, for 90 days, then the company will have four more solid field leaders than we had at the beginning of the year.

Work hard to listen twice as much as I talk when engaging others. Just think about how much more I’ll know if I just shut up and take in what others may tell me. Might find out things I didn’t even know was an issue, or a better way to complete a task, or solve a problem.

Take my wife on a date at least two or three times a month…and pay for it! She’ll feel loved and appreciated and I’ll feel better about myself when I realize again and again why I married her and love her!

Extra Credit: Spend more time with my grand kids.

Enough said!

TIPS TO KEEP YOUR BUSINESS RESOLUTIONS Now, those are my New Year’s resolutions. Setting

them is never the problem… it’s the holding ourselves accountable to practice the same. Here’s a few tips that might help you and your growth this year.

A. Always make your New Year’s resolutions personal; that is, make them applicable to what you will be able to see in action.

B. Set some follow-up times once a month or quarter to ensure that you are doing what you set out to do.

C. Ask a peer to hold you accountable by sharing your resolutions with them first, then give them permission to ask you, “What’s proof that you’re executing your resolution?

If you’re not, why are you not executing?”

D. Celebrate every month or quarter that you have completed another time span of successful execution. This will reinforce your efforts to continue.

For some, the New Year's resolutions might be customer related or making a more consistent number of cold calls. For others it might be committing to walking a completed job “one more time” to confirm quality issues, pick up any left behind tools, and make any last-minute cleanup adjustments.

The nature of your New Year's resolutions isn’t as important as your commitment to execute the needed

effort. If you fall down, pick yourself up and get after it again. There’s no shame in falling…it’s the not getting back up that separates the “good from great” efforts and success.

New Year's resolutions are goals for sure, but they’re your goals, personal goals to be the best contractor or leader possible. Don’t short change yourself in 2020.

The economy is booming in many areas of our country.

Building is up and so too is the need for pavement maintenance services that cut across the span of concrete, asphalt, seal coating, striping, etc.

Set no more than three to five New Year's resolutions but remember, be sure that they are going to impact you personally. Have some fun and remember, if you fall down, dust yourself off, assess why you fell, and restart your efforts.

Here’s to having a great 2020!

Brad Humphrey is President of Pinnacle Development Group, consulting firm that specializes in the construction industry. See more of Brad’s advice for contractors by reading The Contractor’s Best Friend, also an AC Business Media service to the construction industry. For more information about Brad’s company, go to www.pinnacledg. com.

February 2020 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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1/28/20 8:56 AM