“The first rule of going into business is to make sure that you don’t burn any bridges behind yourself. You might need them later to help haul across men, materials, and machinery,” said Robert G. Pedigo Jr., American Paving & Asphalt, Lafayette, IN.
“The second rule is to make an honest assessment of your strengths, weaknesses and capabilities. It’s one thing to have your reach exceed your grasp, it’s another to be able to realistically know that you can complete the projects that you undertake, on time and within budget. And never promise more than you can deliver.
“The third rule, and one of the most important, is to start your company with the best possible equipment spread that you can afford. You can’t do tomorrow’s jobs with yesterday’s machinery. That’s why we purchased a new Blaw-Knox PF-150 paver and an Ingersoll-Rand DD-24 roller,” Pedigo continued.
“We’ve only been in business for ourselves for a few months, but we have been fortunate enough to have ample work to make those all important equipment payments, and to have a little left over to work with.”
The company purchased asphalt externally from Jake Keiser at Keiser & Keiser because of his mix quality and availability, according to Pedigo.
“K & K have been totally supportive of our company, and have helped us with equipment rentals in addition to supplying us with mix. We have a choice of suppliers right now, and until we grow somewhat larger … but someday … ,” he said.
Pedigo began working with asphalt right after high school, with the county highway department patching roads and streets. After a two-year hitch in the military, he came home and started working for Keiser & Keiser. That was in 1972. “I learned about the dependability and reliability of pavers from them. They are a 100 percent Blaw-Knox user company.
Pedigo worked as a laborer and an operator with K & K, working his way up to a paving crew foreman, until he decided to start American Paving.
“I told them it would probably be a year until I gave them my two week notice, then I ordered the Blaw-Knox paver, which took several months to come in. When I finally saw the PF-150 sitting in my driveway I gave the company a two-week notice. Shortly after, I was paving a driveway. When I felt that a partnership was the right way to go I went with Gerry Berry, who I have known for more than 20 years. He owns a tri-axle dump truck which helps the company tremendously,” Pedigo noted.
The company covers an area of about 50 miles from its office. This includes Tippicanoe and several other counties. The towns of Crawfordsville, Kokomo, Monticello and West Lafayette are also in this area. American Paving & Asphalt has its own tandem and tri-axle trucks, but depends heavily on another personal friend, Fox Hauling Inc. for leased trucks, according to Pedigo. The tri-axles can carry up to 20 tons (8 t), the tandems up to 14 tons (12.6 t) apiece.
“Dealer service and factory support are probably the two most important things a new company like ours can have. If we need service, Brandeis can be up here in an hour in an emergency. We haven’t needed that yet, but it’s nice to know that they have that kind of service. The last thing we need is to have several loaded asphalt trucks standing around with no laydown or rolling equipment. That’s why I bought Blaw-Knox and Ingersoll-Rand equipment to begin with.”
Typical of the parking lot and driveway projects that the company does is one it did for the Tipp Baptist Church on Airport Road (300N) in Lafayette. It had a fairly rectangular-shaped 2,500 sq. yd. (2,090 sq m) site that measured 180 by 120 ft. (55 by 36.6 m) with a 20- by 50-ft. (6.1 by 15 m) driveway. “Once we prepared the stone lot and brought it up to final elevation, we came in with the PF-150 late in the paving season (December 11) and put down 345 tons of base mix 3-in. deep,” Pedigo said.
“That was just about all the DD-24 could handle but, since proper density is so critical to the life of an asphalt pavement, it did the job. We were making 10-ft. wide passes for the majority of the lot. It was when we brought the driveway to where it flared out and matched the existing state road, however, that the Blaw-Knox paver really showed what it could do. We also were able to pave right tight against the buildings, too. Of course, it takes an experienced operator on the paver. But a good operator and a good laydown machine are a great combination. It can eliminate a whole lot of handwork, saving both time and money,” he added.
This job required 345 tons (310.5 t) of No. 5 base on that first lift. This is a course grade asphalt. It will sit over the winter and American Paving came back in the spring to add the 120 tons (108 t) of No. 11 commercial grade surface course.
In addition to commercial, industrial and church parking lots, and shopping centers, American Paving and Asphalt also does work in the public sector. An example or two of these projects would be where the contractor bid on and was awarded a street resurfacing contract with the City of Clark Hills, IN.
The company had a contract with the city to resurface three streets and do some patching. “We were low bid and came in very close to the engineer’s estimate. We put down a little more than 300 tons of surface mix to make some of the city streets a little better than we found them. The engineer was very satisfied with the work that we did and said that there would probably be more work there for us next year. That sounded pretty good to us. We’ll need all the repeat business we can get to make a success of our own.”
Another job that American Paving & Asphalt is doing on the West Side of Tippicanoe County in the Huntington Farms subdivision. The company has already done all the preparation work there.
“Those are 25 ft. (7.6 m) wide streets and I’m anxious to put the auger extensions on the PF-150 and stretch the screed out to pave them in two passes. We’ll put the joint matcher on the machine and pave just like the big boys do. We take full advantage of the Blaw-Knox electronics because, if we don’t, we don’t get full utilization of the machine,” Pedigo said.
“I can push fully loaded tri-axle trucks uphill easily and I can tackle larger jobs with more precision with this paver. The factory has designed and built in this capability. Now it’s up to us to make use of these features in order to make the company money,” he added.
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