Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Finding Flow in Hot Mix: Virgil Lee Marsmaker on Leadership in the Asphalt Industry | Construction Series

Transcript

Finding Flow in Hot Mix: Virgil Lee Marsmaker on Leadership in the Asphalt Industry | Construction Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
• 0:08
  where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
• 0:11
  their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
• 0:14
  adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
• 0:17
  today's guest is Virgil Lee, Marsmaker, Chief of Plant
• 0:20
  Operations at Builders Asphalt. They operate in the construction
• 0:25
  industry, offering various asphalt products for both
• 0:28
  commercial and residential projects.
• 0:30
  Founded in 2005, the company leverages over 120 years of
• 0:35
  collective experience in asphalt production, ensuring quality and
• 0:39
  reliability in every job. Their mission is to supply safe,
• 0:44
  high performing asphalt solutions that meet client needs
• 0:47
  every time. Virgil himself is a seasoned
• 0:50
  plant manager with extensive experience in asphalt
• 0:53
  operations. He began his journey as a shop
• 0:56
  hand right after college, gradually working his way up to
• 1:00
  General Manager and 2020. Now he overseas 7 asphalt plants
• 1:05
  and seven crushing operations, contributing to the smooth and
• 1:08
  efficient running of the business.
• 1:10
  As a third generation asphalt professional, Virgil has deep
• 1:14
  roots in the industry and a passion for innovation.
• 1:17
  Under his leadership, Builders Asphalt continues to deliver
• 1:20
  high quality services and expand its reach in various local
• 1:24
  markets. Now before we get into all that
• 1:26
  good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company,
• 1:30
  Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and
• 1:33
  unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and
• 1:37
  fiscally optimized for your bottom line.
• 1:39
  One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per
• 1:44
  year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our
• 1:47
  innovative programs. Results vary for each company
• 1:50
  and some organizations may not be eligible.
• 1:52
  To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
• 1:55
  Add Back benefitsagency.com. All right, back to our guest
• 1:59
  today, the plant manager of Builders Asphalt.
• 2:01
  Virgil, I appreciate you making the time to Share your story
• 2:03
  today. Anthony, the pleasure's all
• 2:05
  mine. Thank you.
• 2:06
  All right, so every inspiring story has a beginning.
• 2:11
  What sparked your journey? In this industry.
• 2:14
  So I graduated from the Scripps School of Communication at Ohio
• 2:19
  University in 2009, right into the height of the Lehman
• 2:24
  Brothers debacle, into a great economic situation, you know,
• 2:29
  And so with the hopes of going to Hollywood and doing sound
• 2:32
  design for Lucasfilm kind of came to a abrupt stop there.
• 2:36
  I had to move back home to Chicago, move back in with my
• 2:39
  parents. And then in the pursuit of
• 2:42
  trying to find a summer job to get some work, I asked my father
• 2:45
  if I could get in over at the company and do some asphalt
• 2:50
  work. So that's where I started as a a
• 2:52
  shop hand. And that was the beginning of
• 2:56
  this journey. And I went to college with the
• 2:58
  intention of getting away from this business and and then I
• 3:02
  found myself climbing the ladder rather rapidly.
• 3:06
  So it's been a heck of a ride for the last 15-16 years.
• 3:09
  So both your father and your grandfather were in this type of
• 3:13
  work. Yes, and my uncle as well.
• 3:15
  So there's about 125. I want to see total years of
• 3:21
  asphalting operator plant mining in my in my family.
• 3:26
  Wow. OK, so you grew up around this,
• 3:29
  but you wanted to get away from it.
• 3:30
  You wanted to do your own thing. Bad economy, bad timing.
• 3:34
  You needed a job, so you start entry level and what did you
• 3:39
  think about the work at the beginning?
• 3:41
  So I mean, growing up in it and knowing the hours and how long
• 3:46
  my, my dad would work during the week, I mean like an 80 to 100
• 3:49
  hour work week is pretty normal in the asphalt industry,
• 3:51
  especially during paving season. You know, so these guys, it was
• 3:57
  their entire identity. And, you know, so I, we never
• 4:01
  had really had family vacations with the old man except for in
• 4:05
  the winter time. So that's when we would really
• 4:07
  have our family time was kind of like during shutdown.
• 4:09
  So anytime between N20 late like Thanksgiving, you know, through
• 4:15
  April, you know, was kind of that time.
• 4:17
  So having that as a means to just say, you know, I'm, I'm
• 4:22
  going to abstain from, from doing this and pursue a
• 4:24
  different path. But you know, that was kind of
• 4:26
  my easy route when I got home to where I was like, Hey, you know,
• 4:29
  my dad can get me in, let's try it.
• 4:31
  And it was a wake up call for me, but you know, I had spent my
• 4:36
  weekends, you know, growing up to kind of learning how to Weld
• 4:39
  from my dad and everything like that too.
• 4:40
  So it wasn't like a total shock. But doing it day after day very
• 4:45
  physically. Oh yes, extremely.
• 4:49
  So you mentioned Thanksgiving to April shutdown season.
• 4:53
  So what? There's just nothing going on in
• 4:55
  the business for six months. Yeah.
• 4:58
  So plant maintenance, you know typically we will spend the
• 5:00
  season running aggregate through the system and then they will
• 5:04
  have to be rebuilt. So we take advantage of the
• 5:07
  winter time because asphalt being a a temperature based item
• 5:11
  in hot mix that it's not really cost effective or efficient to
• 5:16
  do anything in the winter time. There are instances where you
• 5:18
  may have to run late into the season in order to get a project
• 5:21
  finished, but we do not prioritize running during that
• 5:25
  that time. So what's the temperature cut
• 5:27
  off that you guys can work with them?
• 5:30
  We try to stay out of the single digits.
• 5:32
  You know, really it's, it's better to not do anything less
• 5:36
  than freezing because moisture is kind of the battle in
• 5:38
  asphalt. You know, you're, you're drying,
• 5:40
  heating and then spraying asphalt cement.
• 5:43
  So the more that you can just deal with water in its liquid
• 5:47
  form, the better. OK.
• 5:49
  So, seasonal business, I got to keep some folks on to rebuild
• 5:54
  the equipment, but what happens to most of the laborers?
• 5:58
  They go and they find other work during the downtime.
• 6:01
  Yeah, so on the paving arm, you'll see that where those guys
• 6:04
  will go into snow plowing or, you know, truck drivers will
• 6:07
  continue to do their thing. But a lot of these guys
• 6:10
  prioritize the seasonal work. I know I've got a bunch of dudes
• 6:12
  that'll go to Southeast Asia for six weeks.
• 6:15
  You know, they make all their money during the summer and then
• 6:17
  they just kind of learn to live that life on the asphalt side.
• 6:21
  We're fortunate that the same guys that operate the equipment
• 6:24
  are also the same guys that maintenance it.
• 6:26
  So we'll run it during the season and then these are the
• 6:29
  same guys that know what to fix and then we come back to fix it.
• 6:32
  So you really have this aspect of the entire operator where
• 6:36
  they have to not only work the equipment to the point of
• 6:40
  repair, but are responsible for that repair.
• 6:42
  So there's a ton of ownership that comes with it and you can
• 6:45
  really build a complete employee with that approach.
• 6:50
  OK. So there's asphalt operations
• 6:53
  and in the intro we mentioned there's also crushing
• 6:56
  operations. Do these, does one support the
• 6:59
  other? Are these two sort of serving
• 7:01
  different customers? Yeah.
• 7:03
  So the really cool part about asphalt is that it's infinitely
• 7:08
  recyclable. It is the most recycled item by
• 7:11
  weight in the world. And I think since there's no
• 7:17
  chemical reaction that happens to asphalt curing, it just has
• 7:20
  to be reheated. So what we do is we take all of
• 7:22
  the old roads in and we will refine them down to certain
• 7:27
  sieve sizes, certain screens and then we will bring that back in.
• 7:30
  So, you know, up to 40% of new roads can contain old roads and
• 7:36
  there are boutique mixes that we might have to do for Tollway,
• 7:38
  dot, airports, etcetera that might, you know, require some
• 7:42
  other things. But you know, the really
• 7:44
  interesting part of asphalt is that it becomes America's most
• 7:47
  creative landfill. I mean, we've put porcelain in,
• 7:50
  we put fiber additive in. You know, you can fill a lot of
• 7:54
  things in as long as it meets a spec on an engineering standard,
• 7:59
  you can get pretty clear like, so we use roofing shingles,
• 8:01
  asphalt roofing shingles. We'll apply that into a very
• 8:03
  small percentage into some of our mixes as an AC or asphalt
• 8:08
  cement replacement. And then so the incentive to
• 8:11
  just kind of make a a reusable product as well as making a
• 8:17
  quality one is the opportunity's there and we take it for sure.
• 8:21
  Interesting. So as a layperson is an
• 8:24
  outsider, I'm like, oh, asphalt's asphalt, it's just the
• 8:27
  same everywhere. But I'm hearing you say that
• 8:29
  there's all kinds of different formulations you can put in
• 8:33
  different elements that you're sort of recycling from, you
• 8:36
  know, their previous use. You're talking about different
• 8:38
  specs. Help us educate us a little bit
• 8:43
  more on, you know, what an airport might require versus
• 8:47
  what you know. I don't know, a local Rd. might.
• 8:51
  Yeah. So what really comes down to
• 8:54
  when you're designing asphalt is flexibility voids.
• 8:58
  You know, similar to like if you think about a pipe has more
• 9:01
  structure than a solid bar because of the space on the
• 9:03
  inside, it's harder to bend a pipe than it would to be
• 9:06
  something solid. So you have to find the balance
• 9:08
  of actually contributing amount of voids you make the asphalt,
• 9:11
  but at the base it's usually natural sands, limestone for us
• 9:15
  in our market depending on what our quarries can supply and then
• 9:20
  liquid AC, which is the the black tar format.
• 9:23
  And so if you think of the different crudes of oil, like
• 9:28
  high pressure crude found at the bottom of the ocean, we'll say
• 9:31
  are the things that we drill for.
• 9:33
  Those are where you get like diesel, kerosene, gasoline, and
• 9:37
  then low pressure crudes such as like La Brea tar pits and stuff
• 9:40
  that's more in the, the realm of like asphalt's.
• 9:42
  Now in the refinery process, we'll also use, you know, the
• 9:47
  byproducts of that process. So there's a ton of different
• 9:51
  libraries of of ACS that exist too, where you can have basic
• 9:55
  ACS that have a certain temperature range.
• 9:58
  And then we can also get ones with polymer additives.
• 10:01
  Those performance additives would be more likely to go into
• 10:05
  areas where there's high stress demand.
• 10:07
  Am I landing an airplane on it? Do I expect high truck traffic?
• 10:12
  You know, what you might put down in a driveway is very
• 10:14
  different than what you would put down in a parking terminal
• 10:16
  per SE, depending on what the action is.
• 10:18
  So everything is designed for its application.
• 10:22
  But it's really cool because asphalt is one of those things
• 10:24
  that everybody uses everyday and doesn't really know a lot that
• 10:27
  goes into it. But it's a very intricate
• 10:30
  process on the design end. But the actual means of making
• 10:33
  it is relatively simple, so. Yeah.
• 10:38
  It sounds like there's a fair bit of maybe science or
• 10:40
  chemistry that's gone into developing these formulas in the
• 10:43
  1st place. But then once you know this is
• 10:47
  the formula we need because it meets the specs that we have for
• 10:50
  this client job, and you're saying the actual production of
• 10:53
  it is not that complicated. Yeah, I think, you know, it's
• 10:56
  one of those things where I think people would be shocked to
• 10:58
  find out that it really only takes three guys to run asphalt.
• 11:03
  And so if I have my, my, if I have my, my asphalt plant crew,
• 11:06
  those three guys, an admin to pick up the phone to take the
• 11:09
  orders, and my three guys and the crushing crew in the back.
• 11:12
  You know, I can process 20,000,000 lbs of product on a
• 11:15
  daily basis with just seven guys or less possibly.
• 11:20
  You know, I think we're at a really cool point in automation
• 11:24
  and the ability to drive and, you know, make a harmony of like
• 11:28
  65 different motors and then the logistics of the trucking, the
• 11:32
  forward silo space and everything like that.
• 11:34
  You know, I think that's one of the biggest hills that we have
• 11:36
  to climb every day is the is the the logistical end of it.
• 11:40
  But preparation is everything like that Mizon Plus, if you
• 11:43
  will, of making sure that we're getting in early, making that
• 11:46
  preparation, making a plan, executing on it, but also
• 11:49
  allowing to have that plan be flexible for the unknown.
• 11:53
  Because if there's one thing you get really good at, it's
• 11:56
  handling the unknown in this business.
• 11:59
  So good operators will account for that.
• 12:02
  But yeah, it's very simple on that end.
• 12:04
  So basically you have virgin aggregates that come through
• 12:09
  cold feed bins that we feed in and we weigh and then we'll send
• 12:13
  them through a drum where it's veiled through a natural gas
• 12:16
  flame to where it's heated. We're dried heated.
• 12:21
  And then we add in the recycle that we have refined at the
• 12:25
  crusher back in. And then after that point, once
• 12:29
  everything's dried, we'll spray it and then we send it up to the
• 12:31
  the silos for dispatch and and storage.
• 12:34
  Is there like a time element involved here?
• 12:38
  Because I've, I've heard you talk about we only want to
• 12:40
  operate at certain temperatures. Moisture's a big component.
• 12:44
  So like, are you like you've got to get it to the job site within
• 12:48
  X number of minutes or hours or it sets or it becomes unpliable?
• 12:54
  Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, time is definitely of
• 12:56
  the essence when you're dealing with a sensitive commodity.
• 12:59
  I mean, not only is it expensive, it's also, you know,
• 13:02
  time is of the essence. So, you know, there's a constant
• 13:05
  ebb and flow. And then when you have it where,
• 13:07
  you know, stuff in the field breaks down or something at the
• 13:09
  plant breaks down, you know, you have to act quickly and you have
• 13:12
  to be decisive. And that's something that we're
• 13:15
  world class at is the moment a rainy day hits, like we have
• 13:19
  these protocols that we, you know, it makes it look like we
• 13:22
  do it every 5 minutes. And I think that's one of those
• 13:25
  things that does set us apart in the industry.
• 13:28
  But you know it, it's still, it's you do what you can to be
• 13:32
  customer first and people first. But you know, because we also
• 13:36
  have the builders paving arm which probably most of our mix
• 13:39
  goes to, we still have to do a lot of our private business as
• 13:44
  well and their people rely on us as material suppliers running
• 13:47
  their own paving outfits. But we do everything we can to
• 13:50
  kind of give them the priority. So if we do have difficulties
• 13:54
  with the plants or if there is a breakdown or anything or let's
• 13:58
  say the plant gets caught like you know the the amount of
• 14:01
  trucks and line exceeds the production, we will always
• 14:03
  prioritize our our private customers.
• 14:06
  So you do your own paving as well as providing the raw
• 14:09
  material to other folks. You mentioned a rainy day
• 14:13
  protocol. What is What do you guys do when
• 14:16
  when it rains? Oh yeah.
• 14:17
  So I mean, that's another one. There's that's when the phone
• 14:20
  calls start at midnight. And you know, the The thing is
• 14:23
  too is these hours can be egregious.
• 14:25
  And so when you're getting ready to make so let's say like for
• 14:29
  example, plant makes 500 tons an hour, maybe 400 tons an hour is
• 14:35
  probably our average size plant and you have 5000 tons for that
• 14:39
  day. So you have roughly 12 1/2 hours
• 14:41
  for production, but most of your people want to start going at 67
• 14:44
  AM. We may have to start the plant
• 14:46
  production around 2:00 or 3:00 AM.
• 14:48
  So, you know, at that point we have to start making the calls
• 14:51
  to customers and saying, you know, what are you guys thinking
• 14:53
  with the weather? You know, do you want to be on
• 14:55
  hold if you guys can't make your minds up?
• 14:57
  Now this is what possibly the snaffle we could be put in.
• 15:01
  So yes, weather is a huge thing. And for the most part, paving
• 15:05
  does not happen when it rains. I mean, if you've paved all day
• 15:08
  and then the last like 20 tons needs to go down and it starts
• 15:11
  raining, you know, they'll finish off the job.
• 15:12
  But for the most part, you know, DO TS are very particular on
• 15:17
  temperature, like it has to be like 30° and rising in the
• 15:19
  shade, you know, when you get in those later months.
• 15:22
  But if it, if there's rain in the forecast, it, it can
• 15:24
  compromise a, a temperature sensitive material.
• 15:27
  So you have to keep that in mind and you have to be ready for it.
• 15:31
  But a lot of times too is like when other customers start
• 15:33
  dropping. Let's say I have one customer
• 15:35
  for 1000 tons and now I know 20% of my workload's gone.
• 15:38
  That takes the pressure off of other customers too.
• 15:40
  So there's there's a balance, but it is it's a constant
• 15:44
  pursuit for balance. Wow.
• 15:46
  Yeah. And these are early morning
• 15:48
  hours that these decisions are being made because you've you've
• 15:50
  got to start, you got to ramp up the productions hours in advance
• 15:53
  of what, you know, most of us doing a white collar office job
• 15:57
  would already think is an early start of, you know, 6:00 or 7:00
• 16:00
  AM. So it's it's sort of working
• 16:02
  through the night almost in in these cases.
• 16:05
  So what, what would happen in an instance where the, the, the
• 16:09
  asphalt's being delivered and then, and then there's a delay.
• 16:12
  It can't be, I don't know what the right term is poured or set
• 16:15
  or laid down. And now it's it's starting to,
• 16:20
  to set, it's, it's starting to harden.
• 16:21
  What do you? What do you do?
• 16:23
  Yeah. So I mean, I, I think as much as
• 16:27
  we wanted it to be time sensitive, I mean it, it will
• 16:30
  still last a while, but sometimes jobs just get shut
• 16:32
  down and you have to, you know, we, we've definitely had
• 16:35
  instances where in RE, you know, an engineer on the job would
• 16:40
  say, Hey, you know, the, we're, we're shutting this job down due
• 16:42
  to weather, whatever. And maybe they won't allow you
• 16:45
  to pay, pay what's what's already on the road.
• 16:47
  But for the most part, everybody's usually workable
• 16:49
  where it's like, don't make any more, we'll pay what's what's
• 16:52
  left or you might have a paver breakdown or something like
• 16:54
  that. Maybe we can send the mix
• 16:56
  somewhere else to another job, which is pretty cool for being a
• 16:59
  company of our size. A lot of times we we have that
• 17:01
  flexibility that if it's a similar mix and you know, what's
• 17:05
  to say there's a catastrophic failure of some sort.
• 17:08
  We're we usually will have a lane.
• 17:10
  But also even though it is expensive, we still have the
• 17:15
  opportunity to recycle that product.
• 17:17
  So it's never really wasted, never at so loss.
• 17:20
  So I mean, if it's got to come back, yeah, it's going to make
• 17:22
  some really high quality wrap, which is recycled asphalt
• 17:25
  product. And you know, sometimes you have
• 17:28
  to just just deal with that. But it it's rare.
• 17:31
  But when it does happen you, it's one of those things you
• 17:34
  also have to be ready for. Talk to us about the geography
• 17:36
  that you serve. So yeah, there's about 100 mile
• 17:40
  radius that we serve in this area around Chicago.
• 17:43
  So we're kind of centrally located in the West suburbs
• 17:47
  about 20 minutes from downtown, good traffic.
• 17:50
  So basically to the north-south and West of us, the seven
• 17:54
  facilities are throughout there. I have got, you know, a couple
• 17:56
  additional crushing sites that we might serve as like dumps
• 18:00
  just as an availability to our customer.
• 18:04
  But for the most part, yeah, we just, we have 7 plants.
• 18:06
  We we were operating a few years ago, it was four.
• 18:11
  And then we had this rapid growth where we had an
• 18:13
  acquisition and merger with Arrow Road 23 going into 24.
• 18:18
  And then we recently bought out the rest of another company this
• 18:26
  last year. So now we've we're now we're up
• 18:28
  to seven. But at that time with the amount
• 18:30
  of growth, we've also had consolidation.
• 18:32
  So we actually shut down one of our facilities in the north,
• 18:36
  north suburbs, but it's just, you know, our market's just,
• 18:39
  it's just growing. So it, it was cool to actually
• 18:41
  be able to do a little bit of a consolidation as well.
• 18:44
  But yeah, anything within 100 mile radius of Chicago, we are,
• 18:49
  we are able to pave and that's what we actively try to pursue
• 18:52
  as far as bids and anything as far as public or private work
• 18:55
  goes. So is it, does it make
• 19:00
  logistical sense to continue to operate so many different
• 19:03
  facilities because it, it just it sort of helps with the
• 19:07
  logistics of delivery or could you see sort of consolidating
• 19:10
  down into even fewer setups? Yeah, it's possible.
• 19:14
  I mean, because like right now you have to kind of chase the
• 19:17
  work and where it's at. The north side of Chicago is an
• 19:20
  interesting market purely on the fact that there's not a lot of
• 19:23
  new construction and it's very inconvenient to get to once you
• 19:27
  get to the east of the main of 94 as it goes N it's very
• 19:32
  difficult, difficult to get back in there.
• 19:34
  So you know, the our Skokie facility was the only doing, you
• 19:37
  know, a certain amount of tonnage a year that what with
• 19:43
  the acquisition of the the aero plants that we we could honestly
• 19:46
  cover with those. So we had to make the tough
• 19:48
  decision. But at the same time it's just
• 19:51
  you, you can accomplish if you can accomplish it with that.
• 19:54
  But I think the West and the way that warehouses are going up,
• 19:58
  distribution centers are going up, I think that's where the
• 20:00
  market is really moving. I think that that expansion
• 20:05
  westward is, is kind of a manifest destiny at this point.
• 20:08
  It's just with the way the world seems to be working.
• 20:11
  So we're starting to put our our eyes on that in the next 5 to 10
• 20:15
  years. So you mentioned obviously there
• 20:18
  have been some acquisitions, but aside from that what has
• 20:22
  contributed to the significant growth, What is it that you guys
• 20:26
  are are doing so well? Yeah.
• 20:29
  So I think the the really cool part about this company in
• 20:34
  general is a prioritization on relationships.
• 20:40
  And so let's call it relationship capital and
• 20:43
  intellect capital and then the actual like capital equipment
• 20:47
  that we have, they do a really, really good job on reinvesting
• 20:50
  back into people and the equipment in order to kind of
• 20:53
  stay current and grow it. So like this being kind of an
• 20:55
  antiquated business, it was kind of routine for to set up an
• 21:00
  asphalt plant, run it for 30 years, run it into the ground.
• 21:03
  And you know, that was just kind of it.
• 21:05
  So like for us, we're we're constantly in pursuit of re
• 21:09
  updating tired equipment, making that generational shift.
• 21:12
  And we kind of see it that if you have a focus on relationship
• 21:19
  capital, you know, your people and empowering your people, and
• 21:24
  then if you can also stay abreast of the latest equipment,
• 21:28
  that financial capital becomes a by product of that.
• 21:32
  So we think that, you know, the more that we can hone in on
• 21:35
  building a really good team, would we the the rest is just
• 21:38
  going to kind of fall into place.
• 21:42
  And that's where we've seen a lot of our successes from that.
• 21:44
  Exactly. So we really prioritize on
• 21:46
  younger people. You know, we, we try to
• 21:49
  management, you know, has to kind of do a really good job at
• 21:52
  making sure that the younger people are the most taken care
• 21:54
  of in the company. So we try to drive that average
• 21:56
  age down, you know, because typically the construction
• 21:59
  industry, a lot of them are getting old into retirement age.
• 22:04
  So we had to come up with a really good succession plan on
• 22:07
  what we were going to do going forward.
• 22:08
  So you know, the cool part about us is that like my, our
• 22:14
  president and a lot of our other lead office guys are pretty
• 22:18
  young. We're in our 30s still.
• 22:20
  So we have a long way to go. And we, we've got the average
• 22:23
  age on the plant and down to 39, which is great because over the
• 22:27
  years it was creeping up that kind of in the 50s.
• 22:29
  So we've really worked on trying to bring good apprentices in,
• 22:34
  get them up to speed, put some responsibility on them and I
• 22:37
  think that's where the growth comes from.
• 22:39
  You take care of your people, they'll take care of your
• 22:40
  customers. And how is.
• 22:43
  That you're taking care of your people.
• 22:45
  Why did these younger folks want to get into this industry that
• 22:48
  maybe isn't considered super sexy but is super necessary?
• 22:53
  You know, I, I think there's an appeal to hard jobs and I think,
• 22:56
  you know, the, the interesting part about what's unique for our
• 23:00
  area too is we're kind of Uniontown, Illinois.
• 23:02
  So we we're a union shop basically.
• 23:06
  So the operators union here will has to has to provide
• 23:12
  apprentices to us if we so choose to utilize them.
• 23:15
  But there's an incentive to apprentices.
• 23:19
  You know, there's this old joke that like if you get an older
• 23:21
  operator, you know, you're going to have to kind of break them in
• 23:24
  his old habits, but a new operator, you can make them who
• 23:26
  you want to be. So I think, you know, we with us
• 23:30
  in our prioritization on taking care of our apprentices and thus
• 23:35
  taking care of the union and our business, the unions caught on
• 23:40
  to our development practices of these guys and they do a pretty
• 23:43
  good job at kind of sending us really good candidates, you
• 23:47
  know, and there's a lot of stuff.
• 23:48
  The unions send to employees. Yeah.
• 23:51
  So we we have to, we have to have, everybody has to be
• 23:53
  signatory in order to work on a plant here.
• 23:56
  So you know, that's kind of they they get to do a little bit of
• 23:59
  a, a pre pre qual, if you will. You know, it's like these guys
• 24:05
  have the interest of being an operator and then you kind of
• 24:07
  bring them out to see if they'll make it in the asphalt business,
• 24:09
  whether it's on a crusher or on a plant.
• 24:11
  We also use the crusher as kind of like our interview process
• 24:14
  too. It's like if you can start on a
• 24:15
  crusher, then we kind of Pikachu.
• 24:17
  We use that as our farm a little bit.
• 24:19
  And my crusher Superintendent will get mad at me because
• 24:21
  whenever he gets a good guy, I try to snatch him up.
• 24:24
  So, you know, it's just one of those things, but you know,
• 24:26
  there, there's certain, there are certain.
• 24:31
  I wouldn't want to say like core attributes that we look for in
• 24:36
  guys that we really want to have that we would look like like
• 24:43
  core characteristics. You know, there's one book, the
• 24:46
  talent War that we that I loved. I love the talent war.
• 24:51
  It came out, you know, several years ago, but it was about
• 24:55
  special operations selection for and, and then what they do in
• 25:00
  order to find the top candidates.
• 25:01
  So within that, there were 9 core characteristics of high
• 25:05
  potential. And if you, if you could find
• 25:08
  those or guys with those or most of them, they ended up being
• 25:13
  successful in that business. So like, you know, to find a
• 25:16
  coachable individual, you'd have to look for things like Dr.
• 25:19
  resiliency, adaptability, humility.
• 25:24
  I think team ability above all things when you're dealing in
• 25:28
  weights and measures, integrity is a huge thing for us.
• 25:32
  The effect of intelligence, curiosity, emotional strength is
• 25:37
  huge in this business. There's so many opportunities to
• 25:40
  make a guy angry. So like that moment between
• 25:44
  stimulus and response is kind of like where a person's defined.
• 25:47
  So we get a ton of practice in there.
• 25:49
  So we really encourage guys to be as stoic as possible on a lot
• 25:53
  of these things. And not so much, I'm not saying
• 25:55
  like we want guys to be robots, but we want guys to think
• 25:58
  critically about the next action they're about to take.
• 26:01
  What's that? What does that specific training
• 26:03
  actually look like? And I, and I ask selfishly
• 26:07
  because I want to teach this to my eight-year.
• 26:09
  Old yeah, for sure. I'm doing it with my 6 year olds
• 26:11
  right now too. So I think I get a lot of
• 26:14
  practice at work and at home. But you know I think emotional,
• 26:17
  emotional strength probably comes from a positive attitude.
• 26:20
  But knowing that you're anybody could like everybody has an
• 26:28
  opportunity. Every person that you deal with
• 26:30
  is an opportunity for leadership and an opportunity for kindness.
• 26:33
  So if people look to you as a leader, they wouldn't want
• 26:36
  somebody who's necessarily going off the rails.
• 26:37
  So a positive attitude, high empathy and then the ability to
• 26:43
  control in stressful situations. But like for us, this
• 26:46
  environment can be absolutely relentless.
• 26:49
  So you can get that practice. And I think US majority like
• 26:54
  it's we, we, we're kind of a Society of, of rough guys at
• 26:58
  these plants a little bit. And these guys are really good
• 27:00
  at keeping each other accountable.
• 27:03
  But you know, it's if somebody kind of goes off the rails a
• 27:05
  little bit, like they are getting made fun of
• 27:07
  instantaneously, you know, kind of thing.
• 27:09
  And it not a bad way of just more of being like, Hey, that's
• 27:11
  not how we're going to serve the team.
• 27:14
  You know, it really is more of like, you know, if you, if you
• 27:16
  truly are in control of your environment, your situation,
• 27:20
  you're also going to be in control of yourself.
• 27:23
  So I think it is just are you that like if you've been
• 27:26
  bestowed this job, like are you capable of doing it 100%'s the
• 27:31
  best ability to where like when people think about this space,
• 27:34
  do they think about you, you know, are you, do you eat, live,
• 27:39
  sleep, breathe, do that, You know, so I think that's a lot of
• 27:42
  it too. And it comes with the ability to
• 27:45
  have control over over everything in a positive way.
• 27:49
  And I think that's when when people can close their eyes and
• 27:51
  think about what a leader might be.
• 27:52
  I think that's one of those, one of those characteristics.
• 27:55
  Say more about what future growth looks like for builders
• 27:58
  Asphalt. So, you know, I don't think
• 28:02
  we're, we've got this like crazy momentum going on right now.
• 28:05
  So, you know, I, I think, you know, one of those things that
• 28:08
  we've dealt with over the last few years is, you know, as going
• 28:12
  from a shop hand on my level, you know, getting into the
• 28:15
  operators. So I shop hand welding school,
• 28:19
  got into the operators, finally got to work alongside my dad,
• 28:23
  went on a crusher kind of and then got selected for plants and
• 28:26
  then was ran a plant for four years.
• 28:29
  That was my my greatest, my favorite job.
• 28:32
  And then I think after I did that job enough, you know, the
• 28:36
  boss was like, hey, you know, we want you to kind of run these
• 28:38
  operations now. I think that they had seen, you
• 28:41
  know, the growth that was coming, but the way that Skokie
• 28:45
  had kind of become our, our university and that, that, that
• 28:48
  was the Skokie plant was the one that I was running that had
• 28:51
  become our university. So I, I think they kind of saw
• 28:52
  like the people we were producing out of there and then
• 28:55
  what we were doing, they wanted to apply everywhere else.
• 28:57
  So they've done a really good job of, of trying to put the
• 29:01
  right people in place in order to facilitate this growth.
• 29:05
  And I from the way that we are hiring now and the the type of
• 29:08
  talent that they pursue, I don't think anything really stops.
• 29:11
  I know that they probably want to think about getting into
• 29:14
  other arms of the business. You know, like now we're we run
• 29:16
  concrete paving in asphalt. That's kind of the three.
• 29:20
  So but you know, I think the goal is to try to become a one
• 29:23
  stop shop at anything Rd. building.
• 29:26
  You know what else would that? Include.
• 29:28
  Well, you can get into excavating, you know, not that
• 29:30
  you want to, but like, because some of these things get to be
• 29:33
  very esoteric, like the guys who are bridge builders.
• 29:35
  I'm not saying we're going to try to produce that, but you
• 29:37
  know, there's there's very specific things and specific
• 29:41
  trades within this business. And I think that's one thing
• 29:43
  that makes Chicago really cool is that, you know, the
• 29:46
  relentless winters and the environment and stuff like that,
• 29:49
  there's always an opportunity to keep up with this
• 29:51
  infrastructure. So, you know, there's some, some
• 29:53
  legendary outfits up here. And it's really cool to brush
• 29:56
  shoulders with the quality of people that we have because I
• 29:59
  it's strong union, strong workforce, you know, and then
• 30:03
  all, all of us having the same labor costs, you know, it makes
• 30:07
  us all super competitive against each other.
• 30:09
  So we all have this standard that we have to rise to and
• 30:11
  exceed in order to be successful.
• 30:14
  So you have to maintain that vision of what it's going to
• 30:16
  look like for the next 5 to 10, but you got to keep up with
• 30:19
  equipment. I mean, we beat the crap out of
• 30:21
  this stuff. And, you know, so it's just
• 30:23
  there's a lifespan to a lot of it too.
• 30:25
  So you kind of have to keep one eye on your own internal stuff.
• 30:28
  And then like, what does growth look like coming forward?
• 30:32
  So yeah, I, I, I think we're, you know, I don't want to, I
• 30:36
  want to try to stay humble during this whole thing, but I
• 30:38
  think we're, we're trying to poise ourselves for complete
• 30:41
  asphalt dominance. That's like that's something
• 30:43
  that we want to we want to do for sure.
• 30:45
  So why not? I mean, time's short, you know,
• 30:47
  let's. Go for it.
• 30:48
  So it's let's try to leave a legacy.
• 30:50
  Yeah, let's do it. You mentioned the book The
• 30:52
  Talent War, and then you talk about competition.
• 30:54
  You guys are all, you know, paying roughly the same for
• 30:57
  labor. Do you feel like you're in a
• 30:59
  talent war, you know, with your competitors to to get the good
• 31:02
  folks and hold on to them? Yeah, there are, there are no
• 31:05
  plant guys. I mean, you have to make them
• 31:07
  and it's it, you know, that's one thing with the union being a
• 31:10
  hiring hall and stuff like that. It's just like when good plant
• 31:12
  guys are are created, you know, it's a you, you have to keep
• 31:16
  them. So you have to do right by your
• 31:17
  people. You know, there are guys that
• 31:20
  will will look for a change and might want to go to a different
• 31:22
  company. I mean, we've taken some guys on
• 31:24
  from other places and it's, it's interesting to see that
• 31:26
  crossover of culture. But you know, there are
• 31:29
  similarities, but there are, there are massive differences
• 31:32
  too on how we on how we all do our thing, but at the same, but
• 31:35
  at the same rate like the action of making asphalt because
• 31:38
  there's, there's really only a handful of different plant
• 31:41
  manufacturers. So the process is essentially
• 31:44
  the same. But really how the services can
• 31:48
  is done is kind of what makes every company different.
• 31:52
  But that's what it really comes down to.
• 31:53
  If you prioritize taking care of your people, they're going to
• 31:56
  stay. You know, you cannot treat
• 31:57
  people like a number in this business.
• 31:59
  There has to be relationships. It's it's critical.
• 32:04
  You know, these these frontline guys need all the support they
• 32:07
  possibly can. And I think that's where we look
• 32:09
  at management as a service towards our men.
• 32:14
  And then, you know what, what can we do in order to facilitate
• 32:17
  them? I think our president Ryan does
• 32:18
  a really good job at this that he always asks how can he help?
• 32:22
  You know, he, I don't necessarily work for him if he
• 32:26
  has more than answer that he works for us.
• 32:28
  And I do that and I spend that down the chain of command as
• 32:30
  well where I, I, I try to make it known that I work for my
• 32:33
  guys. You know, they don't necessarily
• 32:35
  have to me. Like I'll give you the
• 32:36
  boundaries and we can understand the culture, but once we
• 32:39
  understand the culture, we understand the decision making.
• 32:41
  Like this is the box I can kind of put you in, but I want you to
• 32:44
  flourish within that. And if you need help, come and
• 32:46
  find me. Kind of sounds like servant
• 32:49
  leadership and some other guests on here talk about that.
• 32:54
  You know, Virgil, I obviously did a little bit of research on
• 32:58
  you and the company prior to the the interview, but I had a hard
• 33:01
  time finding anything about you specifically online.
• 33:05
  I couldn't find social media profiles.
• 33:07
  There's no LinkedIn. Is this intentional?
• 33:11
  Yeah, so I am, I am social media dark.
• 33:14
  I think after my kids were born and I took this job as the
• 33:18
  manager, I had to really hone in and focus and I really enjoy
• 33:23
  kind of the idea of the quiet professional.
• 33:25
  So I think I do appreciate the opportunity to discuss this.
• 33:29
  But yeah, we it's not that it's a anti center of attention
• 33:33
  thing. It just really is a more we knew
• 33:36
  what the what task was at hand and what it and what it
• 33:38
  required. So we were, I, I just made the
• 33:41
  active decision to just use my phone as a means to stay in
• 33:45
  contact with my guys. But I really, really, really try
• 33:48
  not to burn up too much of my free time, you know, getting
• 33:52
  caught doom scrolling or anything like that.
• 33:54
  So it is intentional. I think we'll probably get back
• 33:57
  on. But you know, I think builders
• 33:58
  does a good job. We have a great social media gal
• 34:01
  and she'll come around and we'll do, we'll do some walkthroughs
• 34:04
  on equipment maintenance and stuff like that.
• 34:05
  We do that during the winter. There's a recent one on there
• 34:07
  now where we talk about the drumliner.
• 34:09
  So I encourage people to check it out.
• 34:11
  You know, we try to give a little glimpse into how our
• 34:14
  company works, but that's about the extent of my existence on
• 34:18
  the Internet. When my youngest son was first
• 34:20
  born, I would post a lot of stories about him on Facebook
• 34:25
  and people enjoyed. They laughed, they were funny.
• 34:28
  They were, you know, heart warming.
• 34:30
  And then at some point I stopped for, for a multitude of reasons,
• 34:33
  but one of them was I'm like, at some point he's going to be old
• 34:36
  enough to go back and find these and read them.
• 34:39
  And it's one thing to be talking about, you know how he pooped in
• 34:42
  the bathtub when he's three months old.
• 34:44
  But if I continue telling stories about him when he's, I
• 34:47
  don't know, 581012 like at some point it kind of feels like an
• 34:51
  invasion of privacy. So like I, I sort of pulled back
• 34:54
  on that. I don't know if that was part of
• 34:55
  your thinking or if it was just strictly, hey, I'm just going to
• 34:58
  focus on work and my family and I just, I don't need any, any of
• 35:02
  that distraction. You know, that kind of was part
• 35:04
  of it too, because I mean, we're, we're interested in
• 35:06
  raising individuals. So it's like we didn't want to,
• 35:08
  you know, kind of put them in a in a corner initially too, where
• 35:11
  it's like if they want to have an Internet presence, it really
• 35:14
  comes up to them. So I mean, we did have a
• 35:16
  conversation with our our family members and stuff that we would
• 35:19
  try to have things sort of limited, not a negative way, but
• 35:22
  I mean, the moment that they want to make the choice as
• 35:25
  sovereign individuals to do it, it by all means, you know, we're
• 35:28
  just trying to raise thoughtful kids.
• 35:30
  So, but we're not trying to, you know, get in their way where
• 35:34
  they have like a whole lifetime to erase once they get on there,
• 35:37
  you know? So good foresight on your part
• 35:41
  I. Appreciate.
• 35:41
  It Virgil, what's a what's a serious challenge that you've
• 35:44
  had to overcome, whether it's personal or professional or
• 35:47
  both? How'd you get through that and
• 35:48
  what did you learn? Yeah.
• 35:50
  So this whole scaling item that comes with the growth, I mean,
• 35:56
  it has been absolutely relentless, you know, trying to
• 36:02
  learn. I mean, there was a lot of
• 36:03
  transitions that like the going from operator to manager.
• 36:08
  That one was really tough for me.
• 36:10
  I think having that pride from my grip, you know, that was the
• 36:16
  best job I ever had. But then the opportunity came
• 36:18
  knocking where the boss is like, Hey, we like what you do and we
• 36:21
  want to apply that across the company.
• 36:24
  And I had to think for a while. I think I gave, I gave Ryan like
• 36:27
  10 days before I actually came back with an answer that I would
• 36:30
  take the position that job running that plan Skokie was was
• 36:35
  amazing. You know, and I don't know if if
• 36:38
  you're like, you know, there's like athletes will get it, but
• 36:41
  operators will get it too. Like you get yourself into a
• 36:44
  flow state on a regular basis where that plant would become
• 36:49
  the extension of your body and you would just like time travel,
• 36:55
  you would just get locked in. It was like Kobe Bryant, Tiger
• 36:58
  Woods level focus and it would just unlock something like
• 37:02
  almost ancient in your mind. And that was a really cool
• 37:06
  thing. And you could do it day after
• 37:07
  day after day. And it's like, no matter how
• 37:09
  many trucks they're going to send me, I'm going to get them
• 37:11
  loaded faster than any plant in in in Northern Illinois.
• 37:15
  And you just, there was just so much pride in backing it.
• 37:17
  But it was just this crazy thing like you were the brain inside
• 37:21
  of this piece of machinery and you would achieve that every
• 37:24
  day. It was incredible.
• 37:25
  And so it was, it was hard to let that go because it was just,
• 37:28
  there was so much chaos and everything like that.
• 37:31
  So to, to have it go, but then I had to really change my
• 37:35
  perspective on now I need to enable my guys to look at it the
• 37:41
  same way. But the other problem was, is
• 37:44
  like, now I, I had one plant, I had my own headaches and now I
• 37:47
  have 65 other people's headaches, you know, And so it
• 37:51
  was like, how do I approach this in a positive manner to where I
• 37:55
  can empower these people to do the job of low on it?
• 37:57
  Because ultimately, if, like, if that's Ryan's vision on how he
• 38:01
  wanted to see this dog, then that's what we'll try to pursue.
• 38:05
  So it really was just like how to put your, how to put the team
• 38:08
  above yourself and that there was a learning curve to that of
• 38:11
  just kind of getting away from that.
• 38:13
  It's like, you know, it's kind of selfish.
• 38:15
  Oh, it's my favorite job. I had to give up, but it's in
• 38:17
  the in the term of the team, you know, and I think that was a
• 38:20
  real awakening for me at that point.
• 38:22
  More recently now, you know, dealing with the acquisition of
• 38:25
  Arrow Road and the other plant growth that we dealt with, you
• 38:30
  know, trying to have these other cultures come in and then
• 38:35
  creating a new culture or trying to find a way where, you know,
• 38:40
  how do we be successful with the growth?
• 38:41
  Because I think one of the things that really was great for
• 38:44
  me back when we were a little bit smaller was the one-on-one
• 38:46
  time. I loved operator development,
• 38:48
  you know, and as I got away from being an operator and then
• 38:51
  bringing these guys up because it was just like seeing it click
• 38:53
  in their mind that they understood what was happening.
• 38:58
  And finally getting it like that's super rewarding.
• 39:01
  And now that we've grown in size, I don't get that
• 39:03
  one-on-one time with my operators like I used to.
• 39:05
  So in a way to to challenge ourselves to do a little bit
• 39:11
  better as we set up another layer of management where we
• 39:13
  have like this mid level district manager.
• 39:16
  So I've taken some of my current operators and put them in a
• 39:20
  position to where now they can serve 2 plants.
• 39:24
  And now I'm basically a shepherd to these shepherds, you know,
• 39:27
  and then I can just kind of bestow my expectations onto them
• 39:32
  and now they can pass it down. So there's this compounding
• 39:35
  effect that happens, which is, which is really great.
• 39:37
  So that's another challenge that we're going through right now is
• 39:39
  we're trying to learn how to scale this business with our
• 39:41
  growth and we're really shooting from the hip at times.
• 39:45
  But again, it's just like you let these guys go out there, you
• 39:48
  know, they're going to have their trials just like I will.
• 39:50
  But again, they can call me at any time, but you know, the the
• 39:53
  goal is like they're now more the hands on manager, you know
• 39:58
  that I used to be. So you just try to make sure
• 40:01
  that they can provide that level of attention that all of those
• 40:04
  guys need and deserve, you know, in order to be successful
• 40:09
  because these are the guys taking care of the customers.
• 40:11
  So it's really cool to hear you talk about the flow state that
• 40:14
  you would get into. Do you think before you started
• 40:17
  providing training to some of the other guys that other people
• 40:21
  would find themselves in a similar state?
• 40:22
  Or was this, I don't know, kind of unique to your brain
• 40:25
  chemistry? Yeah, I, I think I, I, I've
• 40:27
  definitely had this conversation with other plant guys.
• 40:30
  You know, they're, it's, it's really amazing once it clicks
• 40:36
  because and you'll, you'll talk to guys about it too, where
• 40:39
  you'd be like, hey, do you ever get into flow or do you ever
• 40:41
  like, you know, have it to where you kind of just lock in and
• 40:45
  then all of a sudden it's 3:00 PM and they're like, I don't
• 40:48
  know what you're talking about. Or you'd be other guys be like,
• 40:50
  dude, I know all about that. And it's like it's, it's almost
• 40:53
  addictive. It's like, I don't know.
• 40:55
  It's a really, it's a really interesting part of the human
• 40:57
  brain. I try to dig into flow and and
• 41:00
  just understanding like what ancient?
• 41:02
  Maybe it was the hunt. Maybe it was like, you know,
• 41:05
  just like what allowed us to be successful at that, at that at
• 41:10
  that level where you could just lock in.
• 41:11
  It's like almost like a survival trait and it's but there's
• 41:15
  almost a romance to it. It's really crazy, you know,
• 41:18
  because it feels like you went somewhere, you know, it's just
• 41:20
  like it's, it's just it's wild. It's hard to explain and only
• 41:24
  people who have achieved it would know.
• 41:26
  But I think, you know, like the way the athletes, car drivers,
• 41:30
  you know, any of those, anything where you can kind of just lock
• 41:33
  in on that attention, you can get it.
• 41:36
  So have you found any way to be able to coach that to some of
• 41:39
  your guys? So it's, I think interestingly
• 41:43
  enough, I think the one thing that there's a couple things
• 41:46
  that do interrupt for and that is an inability to control your
• 41:50
  emotions and and a lack of preparation.
• 41:53
  So if you add any additional friction to a situation, you're
• 42:01
  likely to not achieve it. So if some sort of stimulus
• 42:06
  comes in the plant, let's say like truck moves on the scale
• 42:10
  and mix goes on the scale or something like that, that can
• 42:12
  break you out of it. You know, like this total
• 42:15
  interruption in the process, it can snap you right out of it.
• 42:18
  If you were poor with your planning, let's say that you did
• 42:20
  not prioritize getting to work on time and you did not have all
• 42:24
  your trucking information laid out in front of you and you
• 42:29
  didn't really kind of have your entire console kind of built
• 42:31
  out. You know, if you can imagine, it
• 42:33
  almost looks like the, the, the deck of a, like a battleship.
• 42:39
  You know, there's just screens that surround you.
• 42:40
  It almost looks like a trader's desk in a way when you come up
• 42:43
  into an asphalt plant. And so like, but there, there
• 42:45
  has to be a purpose for everything around you.
• 42:48
  And it's just there's these certain actions that we try to
• 42:50
  coach for everybody. Is that like when an alarm
• 42:53
  happens, you engage in certain places.
• 42:56
  I encourage my guys not to sit down while they're running an
• 42:58
  asphalt plant. And that's not like you may get
• 43:00
  it like 14 hour shift, it's going to happen.
• 43:02
  But like you wouldn't sit down for a fight.
• 43:04
  So you want to stay engaged with your equipment.
• 43:06
  This side is the plant, this side is the loadout, you know,
• 43:11
  and you're, you're just allowing this focus to happen.
• 43:13
  But yeah, those are the things that would would would prohibit
• 43:16
  you from getting it, as we've seen is that the men who are
• 43:20
  overly emotional tend not to get flow like the others who are
• 43:23
  just kind of bobbing and weaving with the situation.
• 43:27
  Virgil, you mentioned and this is really common, sort of that
• 43:31
  transition from operator to manager was challenging, right?
• 43:35
  You're very comfortable in this position night.
• 43:38
  You're moving away from that and you're having to take on new
• 43:40
  responsibilities, learn new skills.
• 43:43
  Were there folks that were helpful to you in that
• 43:46
  transition? Mentors, I don't know, maybe a
• 43:49
  book or a a course or something that kind of helped you level up
• 43:54
  like that. Yeah, You know, there's, yeah,
• 43:58
  there's a lot of stuff that went in there.
• 44:00
  I mean, my, my dad's always been amazing.
• 44:02
  You know, we're doing that generational thing there.
• 44:04
  There were some past managers too, that from the companies
• 44:08
  that were kind of my manager at the time.
• 44:10
  So everybody's this company's done a really good job of
• 44:13
  transitioning. Generationally everybody's super
• 44:16
  helpful. I think there's always that that
• 44:18
  culture of just trying to help, you know, the next guy out.
• 44:21
  I don't think like knocking anybody down is really
• 44:23
  advantageous to anybody. So everybody wants to make sure
• 44:26
  that, you know, you're in that, that level of success.
• 44:31
  You know, certain books that that help me out.
• 44:34
  I mean, extreme ownership by by Jocko Wellington, Leigh Fabian
• 44:37
  was absolutely crucial. I think for a lot of guys of of
• 44:41
  that of that era, you know, the late, the late 10s into the
• 44:45
  early like that whole it was kind of an uprise with the just
• 44:50
  leadership programming stuff. It was really crazy too, because
• 44:53
  it kind of just it it, it was like it perfectly swooped in at
• 44:56
  that time, like right when I needed it, it was there.
• 44:58
  And you know, I think there's a lot of stuff that I think about
• 45:01
  that like Jocko and the other Seals and everything too are
• 45:05
  just, you know, special operations guys talk about that
• 45:08
  is, is super interesting. But just the general
• 45:12
  selflessness on, you know, learning to listen, respecting
• 45:17
  people, the ownership on your mistakes, learning to work
• 45:22
  harder than anybody, you know, to like, how do you separate
• 45:25
  yourself from a means of like any of the noise, like, you
• 45:30
  know, just get out there, get to work, head down.
• 45:32
  But, you know, but learning how to make decisions.
• 45:36
  That was the other thing too, that was was interesting for me
• 45:38
  was just general decision making, you know, because you
• 45:40
  have to act quickly and when people turn to you to make a
• 45:43
  decision, you should make one, you know, just out of respect
• 45:45
  for your time and everybody else's.
• 45:48
  But that's what they look for in a leader.
• 45:50
  But you know, but also just that that relationship building is,
• 45:54
  is huge. And I think a lot of guys are
• 45:56
  really good at passing that down.
• 45:59
  But you know, I did the, the work ethic stuff that came from
• 46:01
  the old man and the, the, the generational thing, you know,
• 46:04
  steel sharp and steel, you know, we were just kind of equipped on
• 46:08
  having a total understanding of the plan aspect.
• 46:11
  Like I think it allowed me to be a great manager.
• 46:14
  Currently where I'm at is because I have an entire
• 46:17
  understanding of the process and I'm also willing to learn at any
• 46:21
  time. Like we, we really enjoy
• 46:23
  failures. They're the greatest way to
• 46:25
  learn and we look forward to it. Like, I've developed a group of
• 46:30
  guys that, yeah, sure, it's nice to run a plan all day, but when,
• 46:35
  when it hits the fan, these guys are ready, you know, like they,
• 46:39
  they're, they're just, they're ready to act, you know, they're
• 46:41
  ready for that drum to just walk down the street, you know, and
• 46:43
  then you'll really. Enjoy failures.
• 46:45
  I want to hone in on that for sure about this.
• 46:49
  So. We.
• 46:52
  A bad day on an asphalt plant can be pretty, pretty nasty, you
• 46:55
  know, especially when you're dealing with drag failures,
• 46:59
  which are, you know, drag conveyors are what we use to get
• 47:01
  things up to the top. Bag house failures.
• 47:03
  So like the process in combustion, obviously you need a
• 47:07
  ton of air. And in that air also is the
• 47:10
  Super fine aggregates. So we use bag houses that are
• 47:13
  basically just like massive vacuum cleaners, pull the air
• 47:17
  in, clean it on these bags, then we send clear, clean air out in
• 47:22
  the atmosphere, light hydrocarbon from the burn of of
• 47:24
  that. But you know, we, it's a it's a
• 47:26
  pretty tidy process, except for the areas.
• 47:30
  So if you have a bag house filler and you got to get in
• 47:32
  there and you know, there's opportunity, but you'll be like
• 47:34
  waist deep in baby powder dust and you're trying to mask up,
• 47:38
  but in glasses and everything like that.
• 47:41
  But it's just like that. The material just suck moisture
• 47:43
  out of your skin because it's dry And you know, there's some
• 47:47
  hard days. You really got to focus on that.
• 47:49
  But nothing brings men together quite like going through
• 47:54
  adversity together. Some of the best memories that I
• 47:57
  have on plants are breakdowns and being up there up top,
• 48:01
  shoveling with guys, laughing, you know, just doing the
• 48:05
  maintenance on the hard stuff, coming down all dirty.
• 48:08
  I mean, that's where the real pride is made.
• 48:10
  So I think that there's almost like a dopamine response that
• 48:14
  comes with a breakdown. There's nothing quite like
• 48:17
  getting that thing back up because that's why you're here.
• 48:19
  So those guys know that their money's made when those things
• 48:24
  are overcome. And I think that they know what
• 48:27
  the end game would feel like. So I think that's why we
• 48:30
  anticipate and look closer to failures.
• 48:32
  And I think it's just, it's something we like.
• 48:35
  I mean, it's just, and then there's like a whole debrief
• 48:37
  process and everything like that, too.
• 48:39
  It's just like, yeah, that was hard, you know, how do we avoid
• 48:41
  it next time? What can we do better?
• 48:43
  What did we miss? How did we get here?
• 48:44
  You know, what were the dominoes to fall to get to this point?
• 48:49
  But it's just it's just part of the process.
• 48:51
  If you don't welcome, if you if you come in here every day
• 48:53
  expecting something easy, I don't think that they would
• 48:55
  have, you know, there wouldn't be guys of this caliber doing
• 48:58
  these jobs. You know what?
• 48:59
  You. Describe sounds like kind of a
• 49:01
  good locker room environment, right?
• 49:04
  Guys come together, you know, team lost like hard stuff.
• 49:08
  Let's come together, let's rally.
• 49:10
  You talked earlier about how there's some ribbing if, you
• 49:12
  know, somebody makes a mistake, you know, and kind of in good
• 49:15
  nature. And it seems like that that
• 49:18
  builds a lot of that camaraderie and that teamwork that you're
• 49:21
  looking for. Oh, for sure.
• 49:22
  And then there's a lot of visibility that comes too with
• 49:25
  with the leadership end of things.
• 49:26
  Like so we had like this ice storm a few weeks ago and I
• 49:30
  pulled into our Wheeling plant, which is up north.
• 49:33
  And I usually pull into the interior of the plant when I go
• 49:36
  to leave. I hit a sheet of ice and I put
• 49:38
  the back of my brand new 250 right into the stairs.
• 49:42
  And all of those guys ran out of that building like it was
• 49:44
  Christmas morning. They were like, oh, the boss
• 49:46
  just blew it, you know, they were like cheering.
• 49:48
  They were waiting in the weeds for me to to totally blow it.
• 49:52
  But it's just like, that's it. I mean, that's just team
• 49:54
  cohesion. It was just like, it was great.
• 49:56
  But they all just came out all jolly.
• 50:00
  So. But you know, I'm also the first
• 50:01
  guy to call people out. I got to check everybody's work
• 50:03
  all the time and everything like that too.
• 50:05
  But, you know, it's, it definitely feels more like a
• 50:07
  brotherhood than just a place to work.
• 50:09
  So that's really cool. That's powerful.
• 50:11
  Yeah. How about some daily practices
• 50:13
  or habits? Let's just stick to Virgil.
• 50:16
  On a personal level, I mean, getting up early is important,
• 50:19
  you know, and that's part of it too.
• 50:20
  You know, I think asphalt plants don't like to sit even for a
• 50:23
  day. So Monday mornings I get up at
• 50:26
  midnight and I wait for the calls if necessary.
• 50:28
  They don't always come in, but you know, just to know that I'm
• 50:30
  there for my guys. But every morning I get up and
• 50:33
  try to move. So I'm, I'm an early morning
• 50:35
  workout guy. I try to, you know, get as many
• 50:39
  steps in, but sometimes just getting up and walking, you
• 50:41
  know, clear your mind kind of thing.
• 50:43
  Those things I definitely hold to.
• 50:46
  I do it not necessarily I want to, but just because I said I
• 50:50
  would, you know, it's just kind of an agreement with your future
• 50:52
  self a little bit. You've identified as being this
• 50:54
  type of person now, so you're going to do that thing.
• 50:57
  Yes, exactly. For sure.
• 50:59
  And it's just like whether I don't feel well or not or
• 51:01
  whatever I have to it's it's an agreement I made with myself and
• 51:05
  my wife is amazing at being accountable on that.
• 51:07
  You know, there's a lot of stuff that we do together, which is
• 51:11
  which is really cool. So I think I think health and
• 51:14
  fitness is just is super important to the the Wellness
• 51:17
  and and foundation of just the whole, the whole person.
• 51:20
  So I mean, as long as I can, getting up early allows you to
• 51:24
  also have like this moment in time where you have the world to
• 51:28
  yourself. And I don't know if a lot of
• 51:30
  people recognize that, but like the people who are in that, that
• 51:33
  33 to 4:00 wake up range and then that like 4 to six time
• 51:37
  where you are like the world is yours.
• 51:41
  It's cool, man. And I, I tried to relay it to
• 51:43
  people, but you know, a lot of times you're out and it says,
• 51:45
  Oh, I got to get up at 3:00 tomorrow.
• 51:46
  So then people like, feel bad for you.
• 51:48
  And I'm like, no like. That's my, that's my goal time.
• 51:51
  That is it, Yeah, that's it. You know, it's a bed by 8, up by
• 51:54
  three. And then just like, you know,
• 51:55
  now you have this you you can just knock out these initial WS
• 51:59
  I got. I got, you know, ten wins before
• 52:01
  I even go into work. It's really cool.
• 52:02
  So I think, you know, and you can really make the most of it.
• 52:05
  But just like that coffee by yourself.
• 52:08
  Nice cool morning. That's a beautiful thing.
• 52:10
  You get to see every sunrise. I've seen every sunrise in the
• 52:12
  last, you know, 20 years. It's a cool thing, yeah.
• 52:17
  Outside of work, what do you do for fun, Virgil?
• 52:21
  You know, asphalting is, is, is just a big part of my life, but
• 52:24
  I have, I have, I have twins. I have got boy and girl twins
• 52:27
  and they're six. So like they are sponges right
• 52:32
  now and I spent a lot of time with them.
• 52:34
  So I think that's, and then that and time with my wife, I think
• 52:39
  my, my family unit is, is very important to me.
• 52:42
  I spend a lot of time with those, with those guys at at
• 52:44
  home, just kind of watching them come up to speed.
• 52:47
  I think it's fantastic. The human mind just coming to,
• 52:53
  you know, it's, it's weird too. I mean, you, you know, I mean
• 52:55
  that, that switch that, that that flips when the, the
• 52:59
  fathering, you know, kind of comes in is, is really
• 53:02
  incredible and it goes fast. That's the other thing too.
• 53:04
  It's just like, you know, twins were pure pain in the beginning
• 53:08
  as far as like lack of sleep. And the crazy part was is we
• 53:11
  were building our new O'Hare facility at that time too.
• 53:13
  So in 2018, you know, it was a really special moment because
• 53:17
  that was kind of towards the end of the career for my dad.
• 53:20
  And then so I had this opportunity where it was like a
• 53:24
  hand off from him. He's at the end of his career.
• 53:26
  I'm at the beginning of mine. And then we also welcomed our
• 53:29
  twins in the world. I was getting like no sleep,
• 53:31
  like 2018 through 19 was just an insane time.
• 53:36
  But and I wish I got a little more sue so I could like really
• 53:38
  remember all the details and stuff like that.
• 53:41
  But I mean, that was a that was a really special time and that
• 53:43
  was a kind of the foundation of like all the next moves and
• 53:46
  everything like that too. But it was, I think, you know,
• 53:49
  that that act of just setting up a plant and that passing of the
• 53:53
  torch, super important time, Super, super important time.
• 53:57
  That's great. If we talked a year from now,
• 53:59
  Virgil, what's something that we might hope to be celebrating
• 54:02
  together? So I think, you know, I, I want,
• 54:07
  we want to continue on this ability to scale with these
• 54:13
  managers. I really want to hone in, you
• 54:16
  know, getting these guys in a place of empowerment for, for
• 54:19
  builders. I think it facilitates this
• 54:21
  growth because that'll get us ready for the next the next
• 54:25
  stage. So I, I really am trying to do
• 54:29
  as much as I can to develop these guys.
• 54:30
  So once the day-to-day is handled by them, I can really
• 54:34
  get back into one-on-one operator development with my
• 54:38
  guys. Because then I'm not like racing
• 54:40
  around to try to get to all these facilities.
• 54:41
  So like if they're covered on that end, I can really allow
• 54:46
  myself to spend a little bit more time where I might go to a
• 54:48
  plant and stay there for a day, you know.
• 54:50
  But like right now, if I had wanted to hit all plants on the
• 54:53
  same day, it would take me 5 hours to do, you know, that
• 54:56
  entire circuit. And it's just, it's incredible
• 54:59
  how spread thin you can be. So as long as these guys, that's
• 55:03
  so that'll be a victory. If we get to a point where these
• 55:06
  guys are kind of on their own and the day-to-day is handled
• 55:08
  and I can really focus on the things that make this job great,
• 55:13
  I will I'll call that a win. Do you feel like you're still
• 55:16
  trying to integrate cultures with the acquisitions that
• 55:19
  you've made, or has that part been overcome?
• 55:24
  That's a good question. There are there's a lot of
• 55:30
  questions to still be asked and I think we know one of the
• 55:32
  strategies that we had was it wasn't like we were going to
• 55:35
  come and bust down the door and be like, hey, this is the
• 55:37
  builder's way. This is how you're going to do
• 55:39
  it. Like we really wanted to kind of
• 55:40
  be hands off and just see who our self starters were.
• 55:44
  Like we didn't like send out a list or anything like that.
• 55:47
  Really what we did was like the name changed on their check and
• 55:50
  then we kind of went from there and we allowed any questions or
• 55:55
  anything to come into us, but it was just something that we would
• 55:59
  tackle at that time because the process is the same.
• 56:01
  We got to get mix on trucks. So we got to get it in a quality
• 56:04
  fashion. We got to get it down the
• 56:05
  street. So it's like all I basically
• 56:07
  told my guys, the new guys is the same thing I told the old
• 56:09
  guys is the basically you're on time, the mix is on time and the
• 56:14
  plant stays clean. And I believe that if you handle
• 56:17
  those three items, all the other dominoes that got you to that
• 56:20
  point have fallen right into place.
• 56:22
  And then just trying to encourage people to be
• 56:24
  professional on all levels, no matter what you're doing, if you
• 56:28
  can allow that to happen. I think that these guys,
• 56:31
  decision making has been there. So there's certain aspects.
• 56:33
  I'm like, yeah, we're one company now, but there are still
• 56:35
  some things that come in where they're like, hey, what's the
• 56:38
  builders take on this situation? But as far as being in control,
• 56:43
  being cohesive, we're there. But does everybody know
• 56:46
  everything? Not just yet.
• 56:48
  Right. What's something you wish more
• 56:50
  people understood about asphalt in the industry?
• 56:56
  We all use it every day and we just don't think about it.
• 56:58
  Yeah, on all for sure, absolutely.
• 57:01
  I mean, it's a really cool thing, you know, that you get to
• 57:02
  make this product that millions of people use all the time.
• 57:07
  It's super useful. I mean, everybody knows when
• 57:09
  they hit a freshly paved Rd., it's like, oh, this is a great
• 57:11
  thing, you know, and I think we've looked at studies too,
• 57:13
  where California did some stuff back in 2018 on the
• 57:18
  environmental impact of the difference between clean road or
• 57:21
  freshly paved smooth roads and worn out roads.
• 57:24
  And the amount of fuel savings is incredible, you know, So I
• 57:28
  think, you know, asphalt can get a terrible rap on being like
• 57:30
  this environmental sore. People don't want it in their
• 57:33
  neighborhood or anything like that.
• 57:34
  But you know, I really would encourage people to look into,
• 57:38
  you know, what a good facility should look like, what it should
• 57:41
  run like, you know, efficiency on burners.
• 57:43
  And when you have mindful companies like ours and we run
• 57:46
  these facilities. I mean, one of the one things
• 57:48
  that we, when we prioritize on cleanliness and presentation and
• 57:51
  being ready for guests at all times is anytime I have people
• 57:54
  come in, they're like, these places are crazy clean.
• 57:57
  Like I've never been to an asphalt plant that's clean.
• 57:59
  I. Would not imagine that I'm
• 58:00
  thinking an asphalt production. It's got to just be filthy all
• 58:03
  the time. And it can be, and that's the
• 58:05
  thing. But we, it's just, but my
• 58:07
  approach to it is, is if my guys are constantly cleaning, we're
• 58:10
  likely to catch problems before they manifest.
• 58:13
  So if these guys are constantly active in their plant, you know,
• 58:18
  there's a good result that comes with that.
• 58:20
  And it also comes with just pride in it too, you know, So
• 58:24
  it's like people show up, you're, you're like, they're
• 58:27
  like grand man, this is awesome. The guys who work here got their
• 58:29
  stuff together. This is really cool, you know,
• 58:31
  and this is not what I was expecting.
• 58:33
  And you know, you're kind of rewriting that and that's,
• 58:36
  that's a standard that we want to hold and promote, you know,
• 58:40
  and then how do you, how do you maintain that standard?
• 58:43
  So I think, I think it, it, it's, it's worth the, the, the
• 58:48
  research for anybody to, you know, don't let somebody just
• 58:51
  tell you that asphalt plants are bad.
• 58:53
  Like go out and take a look for yourself or anything like that.
• 58:55
  You know, So we're, we're always happy for guests.
• 58:57
  We're always happy to show it off.
• 58:59
  It's the. Next time Chicago, I'm going to
• 59:01
  come check this out. I.
• 59:02
  Want to? Absolutely.
• 59:03
  Always fascinated by manufacturing processes.
• 59:05
  It would be. It would be just exhilarating to
• 59:08
  see all the different steps it goes through.
• 59:10
  Absolutely, 100%. So I just had one more question
• 59:13
  for you, Virgil. But before I ask it, I want to
• 59:15
  do 2 things. First of all, for everyone
• 59:17
  listening today, who do you know that would really enjoy hearing
• 59:20
  this episode? Somebody that maybe is in a
• 59:23
  similar industry, Why don't you go ahead and forward and share
• 59:25
  this episode with them? Virgil, I also want to let
• 59:28
  people know the best way to get in touch with you.
• 59:30
  You don't have social media presence.
• 59:33
  Maybe you just want to point them to one of the company
• 59:36
  websites or you share your e-mail address.
• 59:38
  You let me know. Yeah, absolutely.
• 59:40
  I mean, I'm reachable all the time.
• 59:41
  I love connecting with people on a level that's a little bit more
• 59:45
  personal. So plants at
• 59:47
  builders-asphalt.com is kind of my general inbox, you know,
• 59:53
  whenever we're dealing with anybody who's who's interested
• 59:56
  in the in the business. And then, you know, I encourage,
• 59:59
  check out our IGI. Don't know if you'll leave that
• 1:00:02
  in the notes or not, but Lindsay, our social media girl
• 1:00:04
  does a really, really good job kind of showing everything off.
• 1:00:07
  I got a bunch of. Stuff that we're going to try to
• 1:00:10
  film next week as we kind of wrap up maintenance, getting
• 1:00:12
  ready for calibration. So you know, I'll, I'll be
• 1:00:15
  present on there, but you know, not personally my account.
• 1:00:18
  I'm just kind of a contributor. We'll look for your beautiful
• 1:00:21
  mug on Instagram. We'll be sure to share the the
• 1:00:23
  handle on the show notes. So last question for you,
• 1:00:26
  Virgil, as you look to the future, whether you think
• 1:00:29
  specifically about builders, asphalt or or the industry in
• 1:00:32
  general, what are some of the most exciting changes that are
• 1:00:36
  coming that you're looking forward to?
• 1:00:39
  Oh, man, I mean, I think we really have, we're in this
• 1:00:46
  really special time right now as far as manufacturing goes.
• 1:00:50
  I think where technology's AT and it moves at a breakneck
• 1:00:55
  speed and the, the vendors and other, you know, structure
• 1:01:00
  people that we've kind of used to support our business.
• 1:01:04
  There's a lot to look forward to, you know, especially when we
• 1:01:06
  get in that new age of, of automation and just
• 1:01:10
  manufacturing in general. There's a lot of cool stuff
• 1:01:13
  we're coming down the pipe with, you know, and then, you know,
• 1:01:16
  just trying to give as much. I don't want to go toward, more
• 1:01:21
  towards like the AI stuff, but you know, there's a whole,
• 1:01:23
  there's a whole safety aspect of things where the human error can
• 1:01:28
  kind of get removed without removing the human in our, in
• 1:01:31
  our industry, you know, 'cause there's 1000 different, there's
• 1:01:36
  1000 horrible ways to die in an asphalt plant.
• 1:01:39
  So as we get into the loadout aspect, so if you can imagine, I
• 1:01:45
  have a semi truck that pulls underneath and I am going to
• 1:01:48
  dispatch 20 tons of material into this truck and it happens
• 1:01:51
  in the course of about 10 seconds.
• 1:01:53
  It's a, it's, you know, they're designed to move quickly.
• 1:01:57
  And we, we really try to keep an eye on total time for truck in a
• 1:02:00
  yard and everything like that. So it's like, how do we speed up
• 1:02:03
  our load out process while also doing it safely?
• 1:02:08
  And we've, we've, we've partnered with a company local
• 1:02:12
  here, Digital Forces, who's done a really good job at tailoring
• 1:02:16
  their load out system for us. So we can start bringing in like
• 1:02:19
  plate recognition so we can remove ticketing errors.
• 1:02:23
  But we can also have these camera instances where when
• 1:02:26
  trucks pull underneath, are they under the right silo?
• 1:02:29
  Are the silos that shouldn't be dispatched?
• 1:02:31
  Are they locked out? And we not putting anybody
• 1:02:33
  necessarily at risk. Like you don't want to have like
• 1:02:34
  an on the cab drop or anything like that.
• 1:02:36
  Is the mix going to go on the right spot?
• 1:02:38
  They're building a lot of this automation into this too.
• 1:02:41
  So like when you're dealing with like potential operator fatigue
• 1:02:45
  or just the chaos of what's going around, like how do you
• 1:02:48
  not replace the operator, but how do you assist the operator
• 1:02:51
  to do better? They're doing a really, really,
• 1:02:53
  really good job. But that's we started
• 1:02:54
  implementing their their load out in over the last couple
• 1:02:58
  years. And I think we're going to try
• 1:03:01
  to get our yards to where they're state-of-the-art and
• 1:03:03
  really reduce that that truck and yard time and try to get
• 1:03:06
  that cycle time brought down while really making just better
• 1:03:11
  for our customers, you know, on a logistical end.
• 1:03:13
  But you get into electronic ticketing, truck tracking, you
• 1:03:16
  know, now you can see like, when was my truck loaded?
• 1:03:18
  How far away is it from the paver?
• 1:03:20
  You know, we're getting into these visibilities.
• 1:03:22
  That is just super, super, super exciting.
• 1:03:25
  So how many? Of your plants are sort of at
• 1:03:27
  that place right now. We're we're, we're all of.
• 1:03:31
  Them still in process. Yeah, we're in process.
• 1:03:33
  So the the loadout aspect is there.
• 1:03:35
  But as far as the automation things, we're going to start
• 1:03:37
  bringing them in now. We're going to start rolling
• 1:03:38
  those out to our bigger facilities first.
• 1:03:43
  And the cool part with them being local too is we can do a
• 1:03:45
  lot of R&D for them. So when they have anything new
• 1:03:47
  that they want to trial, we're happy to be their Guinea pigs.
• 1:03:50
  And I really, I'm really excited about it.
• 1:03:54
  I think that's, those are the things that we really, really
• 1:03:56
  look forward to. So and then whenever you come to
• 1:03:58
  town, man, we'll, we'll show you what we got.
• 1:04:01
  Looking forward to it. Well, Virgil, I want to be the
• 1:04:03
  first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your
• 1:04:05
  story with us today. I really appreciate it.
• 1:04:07
  Absolutely, Anthony. It's been a pleasure.
• 1:04:09
  This has been really cool. Thank you.
• 1:04:11
  Folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories
• 1:04:13
  podcast. Thanks for learning with us
• 1:04:15
  today.