Finding Flow in Hot Mix: Virgil Lee Marsmaker on Leadership in the Asphalt Industry | Construction Series

Anthony Codispoti  : Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codispoti and today’s guest is Virgil Lee Marsmaker, Chief of Plant Operations at Builders Asphalt. They operate in the construction industry, offering various asphalt products for both commercial and residential projects. Founded in 2005, the company leverages over 120 years of collective experience in asphalt production, ensuring quality and reliability in every job. Their mission is to supply safe, high-performing asphalt solutions that meet client needs every time. Virgil himself is a seasoned plant manager with extensive experience in asphalt operations.

He began his journey as a shop hand right after college, gradually working his way up to general manager in 2020. Now he oversees seven asphalt plants and seven crushing operations, contributing to the smooth and efficient running of the business. As a third-generation asphalt professional, Virgil has deep roots in the industry and a passion for innovation. Under his leadership, Builders Asphalt continues to deliver high-quality services and expand its reach in various local markets. Now before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our innovative programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefitsagency.com. Alright, back to our guest today, the plant manager of Builders Asphalt, Virgil. I appreciate you making the time to share your story today. Anthony, the pleasure is all mine. Thank you. Alright, so every inspiring story has a beginning. What sparked your journey in this industry?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : So I graduated from the Scripps School of Communication at Ohio University in 2009, right into the height of the Lehman Brothers Debacle into a great economic situation. And so with the hopes of going to Hollywood and doing sound design for Lucasfilm, kind of came to a abrupt stop there. Had to move back home to Chicago, move back in with my parents, and then in the pursuit of trying to find a summer job to get some work, I asked my father if I could get in over at the company and do some asphalt work. So that’s where I started as a shop hand, and that was the beginning of this journey. And I went to college with the intention of getting away from this business, and then I found myself climbing the ladder rather rapidly. So it’s been a heck of a ride for the last 15, 16 years.

Anthony Codispoti  : So both your father and your grandfather were in this type of work?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Yes, and my uncle as well. So there’s about 125, I want to say, total years of asphalting operator plant mining in my family. Wow.

Anthony Codispoti  : Okay. So you grew up around this, but you wanted to get away from it. You wanted to do your own thing. Bad economy, bad timing. You needed a job. So you start entry level, and what did you think about the work at the beginning?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : So growing up in it and knowing the hours and how long my dad would work during the week, I mean like an 80 to 100 hour work week is pretty normal in the asphalt industry, especially during paving season.

So these guys, it was their entire identity. And so we never really had family vacations with the old man, except for in the wintertime. So that’s when we would really have our family time was kind of like during shutdown.

So anytime between November 20, Thanksgiving through April, was kind of that time. So having that as a means to just say, I’m going to abstain from doing this and pursue a different path. But that was kind of my easy route when I got home to where I was like, Hey, you know, my dad can get me in, let’s try it. And it was a wake up call for me. But you know, I had spent my weekends, you know, growing up to kind of learning how to weld from my dad and everything like that too. So it wasn’t like a total shock, but doing it day after day, very physical awakening. Oh yes, extremely.

Anthony Codispoti  : So you mentioned Thanksgiving to April shutdown season. So what there’s just nothing going on in the business for six months?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Yeah, so plant maintenance, you know, typically we will spend the season running aggregate through the system, and then they will have to be rebuilt. So we take advantage of the wintertime because asphalt being a temperature based item in hot mix that it’s not really cost effective or efficient to do anything in the wintertime. There are instances where you may have to run late into the season in order to get a project finished, but we do not prioritize running during that time.

Anthony Codispoti  : So what’s the temperature cut off that you guys can work with them?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Now we try to stay out of the single digits, you know, really it’s better to not do anything less than freezing because moisture is kind of the battle in asphalt. You know, you’re drying, heating and then spraying asphalt cement. So the more that you can just deal with water in its liquid form, the better.

Anthony Codispoti  : Okay, so seasonal business, I gotta keep some folks on to rebuild the equipment, but what happens to most of the laborers? They go and they find other work during the downtime?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Yeah, so on the paving arm, you’ll see that where those guys will go into snow plowing or, you know, truck drivers will continue to do their thing. But a lot of these guys prioritize the seasonal work.

I know I’ve got a bunch of dudes that will go to southeast Asia for six weeks, you know, they make all their money during the summer and then they just kind of learned to live that life. On the asphalt side, we’re fortunate that the same guys that operate the equipment are also the same guys that maintenance it. So we’ll run it during the season and then these are the same guys that know what to fix and then we come back to fix it. So you really have this aspect of the entire operator where they have to not only work the equipment to the point of repair, but are responsible for the repair. So there’s a ton of ownership that comes with it and you can really build a complete employee with that approach.

Anthony Codispoti  : Okay, so there’s asphalt operations and in the intro we mentioned there’s also crushing operations. Does one support the other? Are these two sort of serving different customers?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Yeah, so the really cool part about asphalt is that it’s infinitely recyclable. It is the most recycled item by weight in the world and I think since there’s no chemical reaction that happens to asphalt curing, it just has to be reheated. So what we do is we take all of the old roads in and we will refine them down to certain sieve sizes, certain screens, and then we will bring that back in. So, you know, up to 40% of new roads can contain old roads and there are boutique mixes that we might have to do for tollway, DOT, airports, etc. that might require some other things, but the really interesting part of asphalt is that it becomes America’s most creative landfill. I mean, we’ve put porcelain in, we put fiber additive in. You can fill a lot of things in as long as it meets a spec on an engineering standard. You can get pretty quick, like so we use roofing shingles, asphalt roofing shingles. We’ll apply that into a very small percentage into some of our mixes as an AC or asphalt cement replacement.

And then so the incentive to just kind of make a reusable product as well as making a quality one is the opportunities there and we take it for sure. Interesting.

Anthony Codispoti  : So as a lay person who’s an outsider, I’m like, oh, asphalt is asphalt, it’s just the same everywhere. But I’m hearing you say that there’s all kinds of different formulations. You can put in different elements that you’re sort of recycling from, you know, their previous use.

You’re talking about different specs. Help us educate us a little bit more on, you know, what an airport might require versus what, you know, I don’t know, a local road might.

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Yeah, so what really comes down to when you’re designing asphalt is flexibility, voids, you know, similar to like if you think about a pipe has more structure than a solid bar because of the space on the inside.

It’s harder to bend a pipe than it would to be something solid. So you have to find the balance of actually contributing amount of voids you make the asphalt. But at the base, it’s usually natural sands, limestone for us in our market, depending on what our quarries can supply and then liquid AC, which is the black tar format. And so if you think of the different crudes of oil, like high pressure crude found at the bottom of the ocean, we’ll say are the things that we drill for, those are where you get like diesel, kerosene, gasoline, and then low pressure crudes such as like La Brea tar pits and stuff, that’s more in the realm of like asphalt. Now in the refinery process, we’ll also use, you know, the byproducts of that process.

So there’s a ton of different libraries of ACs that exist to where you can have basic ACs that have a certain temperature range. And then we can also get once a polymer additives, those performance additives will be more likely to go into areas where there’s high stress demand, am I landing an airplane on it? Do I expect high truck traffic? You know, what you might put down in a driveway is very different than what you would put down in a parking terminal, per se, depending on what the action is. So everything is designed for its application. But it’s really cool because asphalt is one of those things that everybody uses every day and doesn’t really know a lot that goes into it. But it’s a very intricate process on the design end, but the actual means of making it is relatively simple.

Anthony Codispoti  : So yeah, it sounds like there’s a fair bit of maybe science or chemistry that’s gone into developing these formulas in the first place. But then once you know, this is the formula we need, because it meets the specs that we have for this client job, and you’re saying the actual production of it is not that complicated.

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Yeah, I think, you know, it’s one of those things where I think people would be shocked to find out that it really only takes three guys to run asphalt. And so if I have my, if I have my asphalt plant crew, those three guys and admin to pick up the phone to take the orders and my three guys and the crushing crew in the back, you know, I can process 20 million pounds of product on a daily basis with just seven guys, or less possibly, you know, I think we’re at a really cool point in automation, and the ability to drive and, you know, make a harmony of like 65 different motors, and then the logistics of the trucking, the forward silo space and everything like that, you know, I think that’s one of the biggest hills that we have to climb every day is the is the the logistical end of it, but preparation is everything like that miz on plus, if you will, of making sure that we’re getting in early making that preparation, making a plan, executing on it, but also allowing to have that plan be flexible for the unknown, because if there’s one thing you get really good at, it’s handling the unknown in this business. So good operators will account for that.

But yeah, it’s very simple on that end. So basically you have virgin aggregates that come through cold feed bins that we feed in and we weigh, and then we’ll send them through a drum where it’s veiled through a natural gas flame to where it’s heated, we’re dried, heated, and then we add in the recycle that we have refined at the crusher back in. And then after that point, once everything’s dried, we’ll spray it and then we send it up to the silos for dispatch and storage.

Anthony Codispoti  : Is there like a time element involved here? Because I’ve heard you talk about we only want to operate at certain temperatures, moisture is a big component. So like, are you like, you’ve got to get it to the job site within X number of minutes or hours, or it sets or it becomes unplayable?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, time is definitely the essence when you’re dealing with a sensitive commodity. I mean, not only is it expensive, it’s also, you know, time is of the essence. So, you know, there’s a constant ebb and flow. And then when you have it, where, you know, stuff in the field breaks down or something in the plant breaks down, you know, you have to act quickly, and you have to be decisive. And that’s something that we’re world class at is the moment a rainy day hits, like we have these protocols that we, you know, it makes it look like we do it every five minutes. And I think that’s one of those things that does set us apart in the industry.

But you know, it’s still it’s, you do what you can to be customer first, and people first. But, you know, because we also have the builder’s paving arm, which probably most of our mix goes to. We still have to do a lot of our private business as well. And their people rely on us as material suppliers running their own paving outfits. But we do everything we can to kind of give them the priority. So if we do have difficulties with the plants, or if there is a breakdown or anything, or let’s say the plant gets caught, like, you know, the amount of trucks and line exceeds the production, we will always prioritize our, our private customers.

Anthony Codispoti  : So you do your own paving as well as providing the raw material to other folks. You mentioned a rainy day protocol. What is what do you guys do when it rains?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Oh, yeah. So I mean, that’s another one. There’s that’s when the phone calls start at midnight. And, you know, the thing is, too, is these hours can be egregious. And so when you’re getting ready to make, so let’s say it like, for example, a plant makes 500 tons an hour, maybe 400 tons an hour is probably our average size plant. And you have 5000 tons for that day.

So you have roughly 12 and a half hours of production. But most of your people want to start going at 6, 7am. We may have to start the plant production around 2 or 3am. So, you know, at that point, we have to start making the calls to customers and saying, you know, what are you guys thinking with the weather? You know, do you want to be on hold? If you guys can make your minds up now?

This is what possibly the staff will be put in. So yes, weather is a huge thing. And for the most part, paving does not happen when it rains.

I mean, if you’ve paved all day, and then the last like 20 tons needs to go down and it starts raining, you know, they’ll finish off the job. But for the most part, you know, DOTs are very particular on temperature. Like it has to be like 30 degrees and rising in the shade, you know, when you get in those later months.

But if there’s rain in the forecast, it can compromise a temperature sensitive material. So you have to keep that in mind. And you have to be ready for it. But a lot of times, too, is like when other customers start dropping, let’s say I have one customer for 1000 tons, and now I know 20% of my workload is gone. That takes the pressure off of other customers, too. So there’s there’s a balance. But it is it’s a constant pursuit for balance. Wow.

Anthony Codispoti  : Yeah. And these are early morning hours that these decisions are being made because you’ve you’ve got to start you got to ramp up the production hours in advance of what, you know, most of us doing a white collar office job would already think is an early start of, you know, six or seven a.m. So it’s sort of working through the night almost in these cases. Yeah. So what would happen in an instance where the the asphalt’s being delivered and then and then there’s a delay, it can’t be I don’t know what the right term is poured or set or laid down. And now it’s it’s starting to to set it’s starting to harden. What do you do?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Yeah, so I mean, I think as much as we want to be time sensitive, I mean, it will still last a while. But sometimes jobs just get shut down. And you have to, you know, we’ve definitely had instances where in RE, you know, an engineer on the job would say, hey, you know, the we’re shutting this job down due to weather or whatever.

And maybe they won’t allow you to pay, pay what’s what’s already on the road. But for the most part, everybody’s usually workable, where it’s like, don’t make any more will pay what’s what’s left, or you might have a paver breakdown or something like that. Maybe we can send the mix somewhere else to another job, which is pretty cool for being a company of our size.

A lot of times we have that flexibility, that if it’s a similar mix, and you know, what’s to say, there’s a catastrophic failure of some sort, we’re we usually will have a lane. But also, even though it is expensive, we still have the opportunity to recycle that product. So it’s never really wasted. Never a total loss.

So I mean, if it’s got to come back, yeah, it’s going to make some really high quality wrap, which is recycled asphalt product. And, you know, sometimes you have to just just deal with that. But it’s rare. But when it does happen, it’s one of those things you also have to be ready for.

Anthony Codispoti  : Talk to us about the geography that you serve.

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : So yeah, there’s about 100 mile radius that we serve in this area around Chicago. So we’re kind of centrally located in the West suburbs, about 20 minutes from downtown, good traffic. So basically, to the north, south and west of us, the seven facilities are throughout there, I have got, you know, a couple additional crushing sites that we might serve as like dumps, just as an availability to our customer.

But for the most part, yeah, we just we have seven plants, we were operating a few years ago was four. And then we had this rapid growth where we had an acquisition and merger with Arrow Road, 23 going into 24. And then we recently bought out the rest of another company this last year.

So now we’ve we’re now we’re up to seven. But at that time, with the amount of growth, we’ve also had consolidation. So we actually shut down one of our facilities in the north, north suburbs. But it’s just in our markets, just it’s just growing.

So it was cool to actually be able to do a little bit of a consolidation as well. But yeah, anything within 100 mile radius of Chicago, we are, we are able to pave. And that’s what we actively try to pursue as far as bids and anything as far as public or private work goes.

Anthony Codispoti  : So is it does it make logistical sense to continue to operate so many different facilities? Because it it just it sort of helps with the logistics of delivery? Or could you see sort of consolidating down into even fewer setups?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Yeah, it’s possible. I mean, because like right now, you have to kind of chase the work and where it’s at the north side of Chicago is an interesting market purely in the fact that there’s not a lot of new construction. And it’s very inconvenient to get to once you get to the east of the main of 94 as it goes north, it’s very difficult, difficult to get back in there. So, you know, the our Skokie facility was doing only doing, you know, a certain amount of tonnage a year that what with the acquisition of the the aeroplanes that we we could honestly cover with those. So we had to make the tough decision.

But at the same time, it’s just you can accomplish if you can’t accomplish it with that. But I think the west and the way that warehouses are going up, distribution centers are going up. I think that’s where the market is really moving. I think that that expansion westward is kind of a manifest destiny at this point is just with the way the world seems to be working. So we’re starting to put our eyes on that in the next five to 10 years.

Anthony Codispoti  : So you mentioned, obviously, there have been some acquisitions. But aside from that, what has contributed to the significant growth? What is it that you guys are doing so well?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Oh, yeah. So I think the the really cool part about this company in general is a prioritization on relationships. And so what’s called it relationship capital and intellect capital, and then the actual like capital equipment that we have, they do a really, really good job on reinvesting back into people and the equipment in order to kind of stay current and grow it. So like this being kind of an antiquated business, it was kind of routine for to set up an asphalt plant, run it for 30 years, run it into the ground.

And you know, that was just kind of it. So like for us, we’re constantly in pursuit of re updating tired equipment, making that generational shift. And we kind of see it that if you have a focus on relationship capital, you know, your people, and empowering your people, and then if you can also stay abreast the latest equipment, that financial capital becomes a byproduct of that. So we think that, you know, the more that we can hone in on building a really good team, the rest is just going to kind of fall into place.

And that’s where we’ve seen a lot of our successes from that exactly. So we really prioritize on younger people. You know, we try to, management, you know, has to kind of do a really good job at making sure that the younger people are the most taken care of in the company. So we try to drive that average age down, you know, because typically the construction industry, a lot of our getting old and into retirement age. So we had to come up with a really good succession plan on what we were going to do going forward. So, you know, the cool part about us is that like my, our president and a lot of our other lead office guys are pretty young, we’re in our 30s still. So we have a long way to go. And we’ve got the average age on the plant and down to 39, which is great because over the years, it was creeping up that kind of in the 50s. So we’ve really worked on trying to bring good apprentices in get them up to speed, put some responsibility on them. And I think that’s where the growth comes from. You take care of your people, they’ll take care of your customers.

Anthony Codispoti  : And how is it that you’re taking care of your people? Why did these younger folks want to get into this industry that maybe isn’t considered super sexy, but is necessary?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : You know, I think there’s an appeal to hard jobs. And I think, you know, the interesting part about what’s unique for our area too is we’re kind of Union Town, Illinois. So we were a union shop, basically. So the operators union here will has to has to provide apprentices to us if we so choose to utilize them. But there’s an incentive to apprentices.

You know, there’s this old joke that like if you get an older operator, you know, you’re going to have to kind of break them into his old habits, but a new operator, you can make him who you want to be. So I think, you know, we with us in our prioritization on taking care of our apprentices, and thus taking care of the union and our business, the unions caught on to our development practices of these guys. And they do a pretty good job at kind of sending us really good candidates, you know, and there’s a lot of stuff that Union sent you employees. Yeah, so we have to we have to have everybody has to be signatory in order to work on a plant here. So, you know, that’s kind of they get to do a little bit of a pre pre qual, if you will, you know, like these guys have the interest of being an operator, and then you kind of bring them out to see if they’ll make it in the asphalt business, whether it’s on a crusher or on a plant, we also use the crushers is kind of like our interview process to it’s like if you can start on a crusher, then we kind of pick a chew we use that as our farm a little bit. And my crusher superintendent will get mad at me because whenever he gets a good guy, I try to snatch him up. So, you know, it’s just one of those things. But you know, there’s certain, there are certain, I would want to say like core attributes that we look for in guys that we really want to have that we look like like core characteristics.

You know, there’s one book, The Talent War, that we that I loved, I love The Talent War, it came out, you know, several years ago, but it was about special operations selection for and then what they do in order to find the top candidates. So, within that there were nine core characteristics of high potential. And if you if you could find those or guys with those or most of them, they ended up being successful in that business. So, like, you know, to find a coachable individual, you’d have to look for things like drive, resiliency, adaptability, humility, I think team ability above all things. When you’re doing a weight to measures integrity is a huge thing for us. The effect of intelligence, curiosity, emotional strength is huge in this business.

There’s so many opportunities to make a guy angry. So, like that moment between stimulus and response is kind of like where a person’s defined. So, we get a ton of practice in there. So, we really encourage guys to be as stoic as possible on a lot of these things. And not so much I’m not saying like we want guys to be robots, but we want guys to think critically about the next action they’re about to take.

Anthony Codispoti  : What’s that specific training actually look like? And I ask selfishly because I want to teach this to my eight-year-old. Yeah, for sure.

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : I’m doing it with my six-year-olds right now too. So, I think I get a lot of practice at work and at home. But, you know, I think emotional strength probably comes from a positive attitude.

But knowing that you’re… Anybody could… Like, everybody has an opportunity… Every person that you deal with is an opportunity for leadership and an opportunity for kindness. So, if people look to you as a leader, they wouldn’t want somebody who’s necessarily going off the rails. So, a positive attitude, high empathy, and then the ability to control in stressful situations. But like for us, this environment can be absolutely relentless.

So, you can get that practice. And I think us majority… Like, we’re kind of a society of rough guys at these plants a little bit. And these guys are really good at keeping each other accountable. But, you know, if somebody kind of goes off the rails a little bit, like they are getting made fun of instantaneously, you know, kind of thing.

And not in a bad way of just more of being like, hey, that’s not how we’re going to serve the team. You know, it really is more of like, you know, if you truly are in control of your environment, your situation, you’re also going to be in control of yourself. So, I think it is just… Are you that? Like, if you’ve been bestowed this job, like, are you capable of doing it 100% to the best ability to where, like, when people think about this space, do they think about you? You know, are you… Do you eat, live, sleep, breathe, do that?

You know? So, I think that’s a lot of it too. And it comes with the ability to have control over everything in a positive way. And I think that’s when people can close their eyes and think about what a leader might be. I think that’s one of those characteristics.

Anthony Codispoti  : Say more about what future growth looks like for builders asphalt.

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : So, you know, I don’t think we’ve got this like crazy momentum going on right now. So, you know, I think, you know, one of those things that we’ve dealt with over the last few years is, you know, as going from a shop hand on my level, you know, getting into the operators. So, I shop hand welding school, got into the operators finally, got to work alongside my dad, went on a crusher kind of and then got selected for plants and then was a ran a plant for four years. That was my greatest, my favorite job. And then I think after I did that job enough, you know, the boss was like, hey, you know, we want you to kind of run these operations now.

I think that they had seen, you know, the growth that was coming. But the way that Skokie had kind of become our university and that was the Skokie plant was the one that I was running. That had become our university. So, I think they kind of saw like the people we were producing out of there and then what we were doing, they wanted to apply everywhere else. So, they’ve done a really good job of trying to put the right people in place in order to facilitate this growth. And I, from the way that we are hiring now in the type of talent that they pursue, I don’t think anything really stops. I know that they probably want to think about getting into other arms of the business, you know, right now we run concrete paving and asphalt.

That’s kind of the three. So, but you know, I think the goal is to try to become a one-stop shop at anything road building. What else would that include?

Well, you can get to excavating, you know, not that you want to, but like, because some of these things get to be very esoteric, like the guys who are bridge builders, I’m not saying we’re going to try to produce that, but you know, there’s very specific things and specific trades within this business. And I think that’s one thing that makes Chicago really cool is that, you know, the relentless winters and the environment stuff like that, there’s always an opportunity to keep up with this infrastructure. So, you know, there’s some, some legendary outfits up here and it’s really cool to brush shoulders with the quality of people that we have because it’s strong union, strong workforce, you know, and then all of us having the same labor costs, you know, it makes us all super competitive against each other. So we all have this standard that we have to rise to and exceed in order to be successful. So you have to maintain that vision of what it’s going to look like for the next five to 10. But you got to keep up with equipment.

I mean, we beat the crap out of this stuff. And, you know, so it’s just, there’s a lifespan to a lot of it too. So you kind of have to keep one eye on your own internal stuff.

And then like, what does growth look like coming forward? So, yeah, I think we’re, you know, I don’t want to, I want to try to stay humble during this whole thing. But I think we’re trying to poison ourselves for complete asphalt dominance.

Anthony Codispoti  : That’s like, it’s something that we want to, we want to do for sure. So why not? I mean, time’s short, you know, what’s, go for it. So it’s trying to leave a legacy. Yeah, let’s do it. You mentioned the book, The Talent War. And then you talk about competition, you guys are all, you know, paying roughly the same for labor. Do you feel like you’re in a talent war, you know, with your competitors to get the good folks and hold on to them?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Yeah, there are no plant guys. I mean, you have to make them. And it’s, you know, that’s one thing with the union being a hiring hall and stuff like that. It’s just like, when good plant guys are created, you know, it’s a, you have to keep them.

So you have to do right by your people. You know, there are guys that will look for a change and might want to go to a different company. I mean, we’ve taken some guys on from other places and it’s interesting to see that crossover of culture. But, you know, there are similarities, but there are massive differences too on how we, on how we all do our thing. But at the same, but at the same rate, like the action of making asphalt, because there’s really only a handful of different plant manufacturers.

So the process is essentially the same. But really how the service is done is kind of what makes every company different. But that’s what really comes down to if you prioritize taking care of your people, they’re going to stay, you know, you cannot treat people like a number in this business. There has to be relationships.

It’s critical. You know, these front line guys need all the support they possibly can. And I think that’s where we look at management as a service towards our men. And then, you know, what can we do in order to facilitate them? I think our president, Ryan, does a really good job at this, that he always asks, how can he help? You know, he, I don’t necessarily work for him.

He has more of the answer than he works for us. And I do that. I send that down the chain of command as well, right? I try to make it known that I work for my guys, you know, they don’t necessarily have to me. Like, I’ll give you the boundaries and we can understand the culture. But once we understand the culture, we understand the decision making. Like, this is the box I can kind of put you in, but I want you to flourish within that. And if you need help, come and find me.

Anthony Codispoti  : Kind of sounds like servant leadership. That’s another guest on here talk about that. You know, Virgil, I obviously did a little bit of research on you and the company prior to the interview, but I had a hard time finding anything about you specifically online. I couldn’t find social media profiles. There’s no LinkedIn. Is this intentional?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Yeah, so I am social media dark. I think after my kids were born and I took this job as the manager, I had to really hone in and focus and I really enjoy kind of the idea of the quiet professional. So I think I do appreciate the opportunity to discuss this, but yeah, we, it’s not that it’s a anti center of attention thing. It just really is a more, we knew what that would pass was at hand and what it and what it required. So we were, I just made the active decision to just use my phone as a means to stay in contact with my guys, but I really, really, really try not to burn up too much of my free time, you know, getting caught doom scrolling or anything like that.

So it is intentional. I think it will probably get back on, but you know, I think builders does a good job. We have a great social media gal and she’ll come around and we’ll do, we’ll do some walkthroughs on equipment, maintenance and stuff like that.

We do that during the winter. There’s a recent one on there now where we talk about the drumliner. So I encourage people to check it out. You know, we try to give a little glimpse into how our company works, but that’s about the extent of my existence on the internet.

Anthony Codispoti  : When my youngest son was first born, I would post a lot of stories about him on Facebook and people enjoyed the laugh. They were funny. They were, you know, heartwarming. And then at some point I stopped for, for a multitude of reasons, but one of them was, like at some point, he’s going to be old enough to go back and find these and read them. And it’s one thing to be talking about, you know, how we pooped in the bathtub when he’s three months old.

But if I continue telling stories about him when he’s, I don’t know, five, eight, 10, 12, like at some point it kind of feels like an invasion of privacy. So like I sort of pulled back on that. I don’t know if that was part of your thinking or if it was just strictly, hey, I’m just going to focus on work and my family. And I just, I don’t need any, any of that distraction.

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : You know, that kind of was part of it too, because I mean, we’re interested in raising individuals. So it’s like we didn’t want to, you know, kind of put them in a corner initially too.

Whereas like if they want to have an internet presence, it really comes up to them. So I mean, we did have a conversation with our, our family members and stuff that we would try to have things sort of limited, not in a negative way. But I mean, the moment that they want to make the choice as sovereign individuals to do it, by all means, you know, we’re just trying to raise thoughtful kids.

So, but we’re not trying to, you know, get in their way where they have like a whole lifetime to erase once they get on there, you know, so good foresight on your part.

Anthony Codispoti  : Appreciate it. Virgil, what’s a, what’s a serious challenge that you’ve had to overcome, whether it’s personal or professional or both? How did you get through that? And what did you learn? Yeah.

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : So this whole scaling item that comes with the growth, I mean, it has been absolutely. Relentless, you know, trying to learn. I mean, there was a lot of transitions that like the going from operator to manager. That one was really tough for me. I think having that pride from my grip. You know, that was the best job I ever had. But then the opportunity came knocking where the boss is like, Hey, we like what you do.

And we want to apply that across the company. And I had to think for a while. I think I gave, I gave Ryan like 10 days before I actually came back with an answer that I would take the position.

That job running that plan Skokie was, was amazing. You know, and I don’t know if, if you’re like, you know, there’s like athletes will get it, but operators will get it too. But you get yourself into a flow state on a regular basis where that plant would become the extension of your body. And you would just like time travel, you would just get locked in.

It was like Kobe Bryant Tiger Woods level focus. And it would just unlock something like almost ancient in your mind. And that was a really cool thing. And you could do it day after day after day. And it’s like, no matter how many trucks they’re going to send me, I’m going to get them loaded faster than any plant in northern Illinois. And you just, there was just so much pride and backing it, but it was just this crazy thing. Like you were the brain inside of this piece of machinery.

And you would achieve that every day. It was incredible. And so it was, it was hard to let that go because it was just, there was so much chaos and everything like that. So to, to have it go, but then I had to really change my perspective on now I need to enable my guys to look at it the same way.

But the other problem was, is like now I had one plant, I had my own headaches and now I have 65 other people’s headaches. You know, and so it was like, how do I approach this in a positive manner to where I can empower these people to do the job of low on it? Because ultimately, if like, if that’s Ryan’s vision on how he wanted to see this done, then that’s what we’ll try to pursue. So it really was like how to put your, how to put the team above yourself. And that there was a learning curve to that of just kind of getting away from that.

It’s like, you know, it’s kind of selfish to be, oh, that’s my favorite job I’d give up. But it’s in the, in the term of the team, you know, I think that was a real awakening for me at that point. More recently now, you know, dealing with the acquisition of Arrow Road and the other plant growth that we dealt with, you know, trying to have these other cultures come in and then creating a new culture or trying to find a way where, you know, how do we be successful with the growth? Because I think one of the things that really was great for me back when we were a little bit smaller was the one on one time. I loved operator development, you know, and as I got away from being an operator and then bringing these guys up because it was just like seeing it click in their mind that they understood what was happening.

And finally getting it like that’s super rewarding. And now that we’ve grown in size, I don’t get that one on one time with my operators like I used to. So in a way to, to challenge ourselves to do a little bit better as we set up another layer of management where we have like this mid level district manager. So I’ve taken some of my current operators and put them in a position to where now they can serve two plants. And now I’m basically a shepherd to these shepherds, you know, and then I can just kind of bestow my expectations onto them and now they can pass it down.

So there’s this compounding effect that happens, which is, which is really great. So that’s another challenge that we’re going through right now is we’re trying to learn how to scale this business with our growth. And we’re really shooting from the hip at times. But again, it’s just like you let these guys go out there. You know, they’re going to have their trials just like I will. But again, they can call me at any time. But you know, the goal is like they’re now more the hands on manager, you know, that I used to be.

So you just try to make sure that they can provide that level of attention that all of those guys need and deserve, you know, in order to be successful because these are the guys taking care of the customers.

Anthony Codispoti  : So it’s really cool to hear you talk about the flow state that you would get into. Do you think before you started providing training to some of the other guys that other people would find themselves in a similar state or was this, I don’t know, kind of unique to your brain chemistry?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Yeah, I think I’ve definitely had this conversation with other plant guys, you know, they’re it’s it’s really amazing. I think it’s really interesting once it clicks because you’ll talk to guys about it to where you’d be like, Hey, do you ever get in a flow or do you ever like, you know, I have it to where you kind of just lock in and then all of a sudden it’s 3pm.

And they’re like, I don’t know you’re talking about or you’d be other guys like dude, I know all about that. And it’s like it’s it’s almost addictive. It’s like, I don’t know, it’s a really it’s a really interesting part of the human brain.

I try to dig into flow and just understanding like what ancient amount maybe it was the hunt. Maybe it was like, you know, just like what allowed us to be successful at that at that level where you could just lock in. It’s like almost like a survival trait.

And it’s but there’s almost a romance to it. It’s really crazy, you know, because it feels like you went somewhere, you know, it’s just like, it’s it’s it’s wild. It’s hard to explain and only people who have achieved it would know. But I think, you know, like a way that athletes, car drivers, you know, any of those anything where you can kind of just lock in on that attention, you can get it.

Anthony Codispoti  : Have you found any way to be able to coach that to some of your guys?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : So it’s, I think, interestingly enough, I think the one thing that there’s a couple things that do interrupt flow, and that is an inability to control your emotions. And a lack of preparation. So if you add any additional friction to a situation, you’re likely to not achieve it. So if some sort of stimulus comes in the plant, let’s say like truck moves on the scale and mix goes on the scale or something like that, that can break you out of it.

You know, like this total interruption in the process, it can snap you right out of it. If you were poor with your planning, let’s say that you did not prioritize getting to work on time. And you did not have all your trucking information laid out in front of you. And you didn’t really kind of have your entire console kind of built out. You know, if you can imagine, it almost looks like the the deck of a like a battleship, you know, there’s just screens that surround you.

It almost looks like a trader’s desk in a way when you come up into an asphalt plant. And so like, but there has to be a purpose for everything around you. And it just there’s these certain actions that we try to coach for everybody is that like, when an alarm happens, you engage in certain places. I encourage my guys not to sit down while they’re running an asphalt plant. And that’s not like, oh, you may get it like 14 hour shift, it’s going to happen. But like, you wouldn’t sit down for a fight.

So you want to stay engaged with your equipment. This side is the plant. This side is the loadout. You know, and you’re just allowing this focus to happen. But yeah, those are the things that would would would prohibit you from getting it as we see it is that the men who are overly emotional tend not to get flow like the others who are just kind of bobbing and weaving with the situation.

Anthony Codispoti  : Virgil, you mentioned, and this is really common sort of that transition from operator to manager was challenging, right? You’re very comfortable in this position night. You’re moving away from that and you’re having to take on new responsibilities, learn new skills. Were there folks that were helpful to you in that transition mentors? I don’t know, maybe a book or a course or something that kind of helped you level up like that? Yeah.

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : You know, there’s, yeah, there’s a lot of stuff that went in there. I mean, my dad’s always been amazing, you know, we’re doing that generational thing. There were some past managers to that from the companies that were kind of my manager at the time. So everybody’s this company’s are really good job of transitioning generationally. Everybody’s super helpful. I think there’s always that that culture of just trying to help, you know, the next guy out.

I don’t think like knocking anybody down is really advantageous to anybody. So everybody wants to make sure that, you know, you’re in that level of success. You know, certain books that that helped me out. I mean, Extreme Ownership by by Jaco Wellington, Leif Ebb, and was absolutely crucial. I think for a lot of guys of that of that era, you know, the late, the late tens and early like that whole, it was kind of an uprise with just leadership programming stuff. It was really crazy too, because it kind of just it was like it perfectly swooped in at that time, like right when I needed it, it was there.

And, you know, I think there’s a lot of stuff that I think about that like Jaco and the other seals and everything too, or just, you know, special operations guys talk about that is super interesting. But just the general selflessness on, you know, learning to listen, respecting people, the ownership on your mistakes, learning to work harder than anybody, you know, to like, how do you separate yourself? From a means of like any of the noise, like, you know, just get out there, get to work, head down. But, you know, but learning how to make decisions. That was the other thing too, that was was interesting for me was just general decision making, you know, because you have to act quickly.

And when people turn to you to make a decision, you should make one, you know, just out of respect for your time and everybody else’s. But that’s what they look for in a leader. But, you know, but also just that that relationship building is is huge.

And I think a lot of guys are really good at passing that down. But, you know, the work ethic stuff that came from the old man and the generational thing, you know, steel sharpen steel, you know, we were just kind of equipped on having a total understanding of the plan aspect. Like I think it allowed me to be a great manager.

Currently where I’m at is because I have an entire understanding of the process and I’m also willing to learn at any time. Like we we really enjoy failures. They’re the greatest way to learn. And we look forward to it. Like I’ve developed a group of guys that, yeah, sure, it’s nice to run a plan all day. But when when it hits a fan, these guys are ready, you know, like they they’re just they’re ready to act, you know, they’re ready for that drum to just walk down the street, you know, and then you really enjoy failures.

Anthony Codispoti  : I want to hone in on that. Yeah, for sure about this.

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : So we a bad day on a asphalt plant can be pretty, pretty nasty, you know, especially when you’re dealing with drag failures, which are, you know, drag conveyors and what we use to get things up to the top bag house failures. So like the process in combustion, obviously you need a ton of air. And in that air also is a super fine aggregates. So we use bag houses that are basically just like massive vacuum cleaners. Pull the air in, clean it on these bags, then we send clear clean air out in the atmosphere, like hydrocarbon from the burn of that. But you know, which it’s a pretty tidy process, except for the area. So if you have a bag house failure and you got to get in there, you know, there’s opportunity where you’ll be like waste deep in baby powder dust and you’re trying to mask up but in glasses and everything like that.

But it’s just like that. The material just suck moisture out of your skin because it’s dry and you know, there’s some hard days you really got to focus on that. But nothing brings men together quite like going through adversity together. Some of the best memories that I have on plants are breakdowns and being up the up top shoveling with guys laughing, you know, just doing the maintenance on the hard stuff coming down all dirty.

I mean, that’s where the real pride is made. So I think that there’s almost like a dopamine response that comes with a breakdown. There’s nothing quite like getting that thing back up because that’s why you’re here. So those guys know that their money’s made when those things are overcome. And I think that they know what the end game would feel like. So I think that’s why we anticipate and look closer to failures. And I think it’s just, it’s something we like. I mean, it just and then there’s like a whole debrief process and everything like that too.

It’s just like, yeah, that was hard. You know, how do we avoid it next time? What can we do better? What did we miss? How did we get here?

You know, what were the dominoes to fall to get to this point? But it’s just, it’s just part of the process. If you don’t welcome, if you, if you come in here every day expecting something easy, I don’t think that they would have, you know, there wouldn’t be guys of this caliber doing these jobs.

Anthony Codispoti  : What you described sounds like kind of a good locker room environment. Right. Guys come together, you know, team lost like hard stuff. Let’s come together. Let’s rally. You talked earlier about how there’s some ribbing. If, you know, somebody makes a mistake, you know, and kind of in good nature. And it seems like that, that builds a lot of that camaraderie and that teamwork that you’re looking for.

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Oh, for sure. And then there’s a lot of visibility that comes to with, with the leadership and the things like, so we had like this ice storm a few weeks ago and I pulled into our wheeling plant, which is up north. And I usually pull into the interior of the plant when I go to leave, I hit a sheet of ice and I put the back of my brand new 250 right into the stairs. And all of those guys ran out of that building like it was Christmas morning. They were like, Oh, the boss just blew it. You know, they were like cheering.

They were waiting in the weeds for me to, to totally blow it. But it’s just like, that’s it. I mean, that’s just team cohesion.

It was just like, it was great, but they all just came out all jolly. So, but I’m also the first guy to call people out. I got to check everybody’s work all the time and everything like that too. But you know, it’s, it definitely feels more like a brotherhood than just a place to work.

Anthony Codispoti  : So that’s really cool. That’s powerful. Yeah. How about some daily practices or habits? Let’s just stick to her, Jill.

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : On a personal level, I mean, getting up early is important, you know, and that’s part of it too. You know, I think as well, plants don’t like to sit even for a day. So Monday mornings, I get up at midnight and I wait for the calls if necessary.

They don’t always come in, but you know, just to know that I’m there for my guys. But every morning I get up and try to move. So I’m an early morning workout guy. I try to, you know, get as many steps in, but sometimes just getting up and walking, you know, clear your mind kind of thing.

Those things I definitely hold to. I do it, not necessarily I want to, but just because I said I would, you know, it’s just kind of an agreement with your future self a little bit.

Anthony Codispoti  : You’ve identified as being this type of person now. So you’re going to do that thing.

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Yes, exactly for sure. And it’s just like, whether I don’t feel well or not or whatever I have to, it’s an agreement I made with myself and my wife is amazing at being accountable on that. You know, there’s a lot of stuff that we do together, which is, which is really cool. So I think, I think health and fitness is just super important to the wellness and foundation of just the whole, the whole person. So I mean, as long as I can, getting up early allows you to also have like this moment in time where you have the world to yourself. And I don’t know if a lot of people recognize that, but like the people who are in that three, three to four o’clock wake up range and then that like four to six time where you are like the world is yours. It’s cool. And I try to relay it to people, but you know, a lot of times you’re out and it’s like, I get a bit three tomorrow. So then people like feel bad for you.

Anthony Codispoti  : And I’m like, no, like that is, that’s my gold time.

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : That is it. Yeah, that’s it. You know, it’s a bed by eight up by three. And then it’s just like, you know, now you have this, you can just knock out these initial W’s. I got, I got, you know, 10 wins before I even go into work. It’s really cool. So I think, you know, and you can really make the most of it, but just like that coffee by yourself, nice, cool morning. That’s a beautiful thing. You get to see every sunrise. I’ve seen every sunrise in the last, you know, 20 years.

Anthony Codispoti  : It’s a cool thing. Yeah. Outside of work. What do you do for fun, Virgil?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : You know, asphalting is, is just a big part of my life, but I have, I have, I have twins. I have got boy and girl twins and they’re six. So like they are sponges right now and I spent a lot of time with them. So I think that’s, and then that and time with my wife, I think my, my family unit is, is very important to me. I spent a lot of time with those, with those guys at home.

Just kind of watching them come up to speed. I think it’s fantastic. The human mind just coming to, you know, it’s, it’s weird too. I mean, you, you know, I mean that, that switch that, that flips when the fathering, you know, kind of comes in is, is really incredible. And it goes fast. That’s the other thing too.

It’s just like, you know, twins were pure pain in the beginning as far as like lack of sleep. And the crazy part was, is we were building our new old hair facility at that time too. So in 2018, you know, it was a really special moment because that was kind of towards the end of the career for my dad. And then so I had this opportunity where it was like a handoff from him. He’s at the end of his career. I’m at the beginning of mine.

And then we also welcome their twins in the world. I was getting like no sleep like 2018 through 19 was just an insane time. But I wish I got a little more suit so I could like really remember all the details and stuff like that. But I mean, that was a, that was a really special time. And that was the kind of the foundation of like all the next moves and everything like that too. But it was, I think, you know, that, that act of just setting up a plant and that passing of the torch, super important time, super, super important time.

Anthony Codispoti  : That’s great. If we talk to you’re from now, Virgil, what’s something that we might hope to be celebrating together?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : So I think, you know, we want to continue on this ability to scale with these managers. I really want to hone in, you know, getting these guys in a place of empowerment for, for builders. I think it facilitates this growth because that’ll get us ready for the next, the next stage. So I really am trying to do as much as I can to develop these guys. So once the day to day is handled by them, I can really get back into one-on-one operator development with my guys. Because then I’m not like racing around and trying to get to all these facilities. So like if they’re covered on that end, I can really allow myself to spend a little bit more time where I might go to a plant and stay there for a day, you know. But like right now, if I had wanted to hit all plants on the same day, it would take me five hours to do, you know, that entire circuit.

And it’s just, it’s incredible how spread then you can be. So as long as these guys, that’s, so that’ll be a victory. If we get to a point where these guys are kind of on their own and the day to day is handled and I can really focus on the things that make this job great. I will call that a win.

Anthony Codispoti  : Do you feel like you’re still trying to integrate cultures with the acquisitions that you’ve made or has that part been overcome?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : That’s a good question. There are, there’s a lot of questions to still be asked. And I think we know one of the strategies that we had was it wasn’t like we were going to come and bust down the door and be like, Hey, this is the builders way.

This is how you’re going to do it. Like we really wanted to kind of be hands off and just see who our self starters were. Like we didn’t like send out a list or anything like that.

Really what we did was like the name changed on their check. And then we kind of went from there. And then we allowed any questions or anything to come into us.

But it was just something that we would tackle at that time because the process is the same. We got to get mixed on trucks. We got to get it in a quality fashion.

We got to get it down the street. So it’s like all I basically told my guys, the new guys is the same thing. I told the old guys is the basically you’re on time.

The mix is on time and the plant stays clean. And I believe that if you handle those three items, all the other dominoes that got you to that point of fall right into place. And then just trying to encourage people to be professional on all levels no matter what you’re doing. If you can allow that to happen. I think that these guys decision making has been there. So there’s certain aspects from like, yeah, we’re one company now, but there are still some things that come in where they’re like, hey, what’s the builders take on this situation. But as far as being in control, being cohesive, we’re there. But does everybody know everything? Not just yet. Right.

Anthony Codispoti  : What’s something you wish more people understood about asphalt in the industry? We all use it every day and we just don’t think about it.

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Yeah, on all for sure. Absolutely. I mean, it’s a really cool thing, you know, that you get to make this product that millions of people use all the time. It’s super useful. I mean, everybody knows when they hit a freshly paved road, it’s like, oh, this is a great thing, you know, and I think we’ve looked at studies to where California did some stuff back in 2018. I mean, on the environmental impact of the difference between clean road or freshly paved smooth roads and worn out roads and the amount of fuel savings is incredible.

You know, so I think, you know, as well can get a terrible rap on being like this environmental sore people don’t want it in their neighborhood or anything like that. But, you know, I really would encourage people to look into, you know, what a good facility should look like what it should run like, you know, efficiency on burners. And when you have mindful companies like ours, and we run these facilities, I mean, I’m one of the one things that we, when we prioritize on cleanliness and presentation and being ready for guests at all times is anytime I have people come in there like these places are crazy clean. Like I’ve never been to an asphalt plant this clean.

Anthony Codispoti  : I would not imagine that I’m thinking an asphalt production. It’s got to just be filthy all the time.

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Yeah, in a candy. And that’s the thing, but we just I but my approach to it is if my guys are constantly cleaning, we’re likely to catch problems before they manifest. So if these guys are constantly active in their plant, you know, there’s a good result that comes with that. And it also comes with just pride in it too, you know, it’s like people show up, you’re, you’re like, they’re like, great, man, this is awesome. The guys who work here got their stuff together. This is really cool. You know, and this is not what I was expecting. And, you know, you’re kind of rewriting that. And that’s, that’s a standard that we want to hold and promote, you know, and then how do you, how do you maintain that standard?

So I think that I think it’s worth the, the research for anybody to, you know, don’t let somebody just tell you that asphalt plants are bad, like God take a look for yourself or anything like that. You know, so we’re, we’re always happy for guys are always happy to show it off.

Anthony Codispoti  : It’s the next time I’m in Chicago, I’m going to come check this out. I want to be fascinated by manufacturing processes. It would be, it would be just exhilarating to see all the different steps it goes through.

Absolutely 100%. So I just have one more question for you, Virgil. But before I ask it, I want to do two things. First of all, for everyone listening today, who do you know that would really enjoy hearing this episode? Somebody that maybe is in a similar industry? Why don’t you go ahead and forward and share this episode with them? Virgil, I also want to let people know the best way to get in touch with you. You don’t have social media presence. Maybe you just want to point them to one of the company websites or you share your email address. You let me know.

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’m reachable all the time. I love connecting with people on a level that’s a little bit more personal. So Plants at builders-asphalt .com is kind of my general inbox. You know, whenever we’re dealing with anybody who’s interested in the business, and then, you know, I encourage to check out our IG. I don’t know if you’ll leave that in the notes or not, but Lindsay, our social media girl, does a really, really good job kind of showing everything off. I got a bunch of stuff that we’re going to try to fill next week as we kind of ramp up maintenance, get ready for calibration. So, you know, I’ll be present on there, but, you know, not personally my account. I’m just kind of a contributor.

Anthony Codispoti  : We’ll look for your beautiful mug on Instagram. We’ll be sure to share the handle and the show notes. So last question for you, Virgil, as you look to the future, whether you think specifically about builders-asphalt or the industry in general, what are some of the most exciting changes that are coming that you’re looking forward to?

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Oh, man. I mean, I think we really have… We’re in this really special time right now as far as manufacturing goes. I think we’re technologies at and it moves at a breakneck speed and the vendors and other, you know, structural people that we’ve kind of used to support our business. There’s a lot to look forward to, you know, especially when we get in that new age of automation and just manufacturing in general.

There’s a lot of cool stuff we’re coming down the pipe with, you know, and then, you know, just trying to give as much… I don’t want to go more towards like the AI stuff, but, you know, there’s a whole safety aspect of things where the human error can kind of get removed without removing the human in our industry, you know, because there’s a thousand different… So as we get into the loadout aspect, so if you can imagine, I have a semi truck that pulls underneath and I am going to dispatch 20 tons of material into this truck and it happens in the course of about 10 seconds. It’s, you know, they’re designed to move quickly and we really try to keep an eye on total time per truck in a yard and everything like that. So it’s like, how do we speed up our loadout process while also doing it safely? And we’ve partnered with a company local here, Digital Forces, who’s done a really good job at tailoring their loadout system for us so we can start bringing in like plate recognition, so we can remove ticketing errors, but we can also have these camera instances where when trucks pull underneath, are they under the right silo? And so we’ve got a lot of people that are working on this, but they’re building a lot of this automation into this too.

So like when you’re dealing with like potential operator fatigue or just the chaos of what’s going around, like how do you not replace the operator, but how do you assist the operator to do better? They’re doing a really, really, really good job. But that’s, we started implementing their loadout in over the last couple of years. And I think we’re going to try to get our yards to where their state of the art and really reduce that truck in yard time and try to get that cycle time brought down while really making just a better for our customers, you know, on a logistical end. But you get into electronic ticketing, truck tracking, you know, now you can see like when was my truck loaded, how far away is it from the paver? You know, we’re getting into these visibilities that is just super, super, super exciting.

Anthony Codispoti  : So How many of your plants are sort of at that place? Right now. We’re, we’re all still in process.

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Yeah, we’re impressed. So the loadout aspect is there. But as far as the automation things, we’re going to start bringing them in now, we’re going to start rolling those out to a bigger facilities first. And the cool part with them being local too, is we can do a lot of R &D for them.

So when they have anything new that they want to trial, we’re happy to be their guinea pigs. And I really, I’m really excited about it. I think that’s those are the things that we really, really look forward to. So and then whenever you come to town, man, we’ll, we’ll show you what we got.

Anthony Codispoti  : Looking forward to it. Well, Virgil, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Virgil Lee Marsmaker : Absolutely, Anthony. It’s been a pleasure. This has been really cool. Thank you.

Anthony Codispoti  : Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.