Unprecedented Growth. Unqualified Success.

The newly expanded Ergon Asphalt & Emulsions, Inc.

Imagine you and your spouse are expecting a child. You like surprises, so you decide to wait until The Big Day to find out whether your new addition will be a girl or a boy. You’re excited about your growing family, but you also realize that you’ll face new challenges and responsibilities in the very near future and beyond.

When The Big Day finally comes? It’s a girl! And two boys. That’s right: triplets. Congratulations, your family just more than doubled overnight.

That’s basically what happened to Ergon Asphalt & Emulsions (“EAE”). Last year, the company acquired 21 new facilities in an unprecedented lease agreement. The move pushed the grand total of facilities in the EAE family from 18 to 39, more than doubling the company’s size and making it the largest marketer of asphalt products in North America—if not the world—virtually overnight.

In addition to conventional paving asphalt, Ergon Asphalt & Emulsions, headquartered in Jackson, Mississippi, manufactures and delivers a wide variety of advanced polymer-modified asphalts, emulsions and sealants, as well as equipment. The new locations enable the company to market its products more effectively throughout a drastically expanded footprint.

Previously, EAE’s influence was relegated to 10 states in the Mid-South and Southwest. The new terminals serve to reinforce the company’s presence in those states, with the addition of new markets in Utah, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania. Other benefits include greater purchasing power, increased manufacturing capacity, and greater mobility with regard to product delivery.

However, just as it would for a family with newborn triplets, such immediate growth also brought a variety of challenges. First and foremost was the sheer number of terminals that quickly needed to be brought under the EAE banner and managed effectively.

“I always thought of it like building a new table,” said Baxter Burns, Executive Vice President of EAE Marketing. “Our company has an operational leg, a technical leg and a sales and marketing leg. Our first challenge was to make sure those legs were strong enough to support this new, much larger table of ours.”

With a great deal of support from Ergon, Inc., and the company’s subsidiaries, EAE met that challenge head on, mobilizing a wide variety of corporate departments and personnel from many of its facilities to ensure the company had the “legs” to handle such a large and immediate expansion. “I truly believe that no one but Ergon could have taken on this much immediate growth without imploding,” said Mr. Burns. “All of the ‘Ergonots,’ as I like to call them, really rose to the occasion.”

The next challenge was getting the table organized. Each of the new locations came to EAE fully staffed and with different systems and policies in place. Fully integrating those elements into the EAE family took time, patience and a great deal of focused coordination.

The timing of the transition was a major issue. “In the asphalt business, you usually use the winter months to gather work that you can carry out in the warmer months,” said Regional Operations Manager Steve Adams. “So it was a real gamble for Ergon to take over these plants in May.” The gamble was twofold. (1) Could EAE secure enough contracts to justify starting production at the new facilities? And (2) could they get the plants operational in time to do the work? The answer to both questions was a resounding “yes”. “It really paid off,” said Mr. Adams, “Ergon got the plants up and running in record time, and the marketing team had plenty of work waiting for them.”

Mr. Burns stated: “We were especially pleased with how quickly our core competencies were adopted throughout all of the new facilities. Around 60% of their customers were our customers already, and they didn’t miss a beat during this transition. The same was true for those markets that were new to Ergon.”

“We’ve been very successful here at the Ennis, Texas, facility,” said Tony Doblado, Plant Manager for one of the newest members of the EAE family. “Ergon welcomed us with open arms and from day one focused on our individual strengths and talents.” Employees at the Ennis plant and others brought EAE new insights and ideas for process improvements, troubleshooting, customer service, and more. Together with the other new facilities in Texas, the plant gave EAE a presence in 90% of the DOT districts in the state.

Most important to the transition was maintaining an uninterrupted continuity of customer service and product quality. To accomplish this, Mr. Adams teamed with other key personnel to develop ePAVE, an innovative system designed from the ground up to standardize quality control procedures across the company’s facilities—both new and existing alike.

One of the many contributors to the ePAVE system was Bill Grubba, who came to EAE as a technical operations consultant for the leased facilities. “After working with the people at Ergon and seeing the culture of their business, I realized immediately that I wanted to be a part of the family,” he said. “And it really was like joining a family. They’re a great company to work for.” Mr. Grubba now serves as VP of Formulations and Special Projects for EAE.

“We owe a great debt of gratitude to the employees we inherited during this process,” said Jimmy Langdon, Executive Vice President of Operations. “They brought a staggering amount of experience, know-how, and local market knowledge to the table; and, they were enthusiastic about contributing to our success. Most of them were formerly our competitors, but they were ready to join our family and help us make the transition from a regional company to a national leader in the asphalt and emulsions business.”

By all accounts, the integration of the new facilities has been an unqualified success for Ergon Asphalt & Emulsions. Now with operations from coast to coast, the company is primed to deliver more innovative products and better service to more customers than ever before. Mr. Langdon sums it up best. “This expansion hasn’t just made us a bigger company,” he said, “it’s made us a better one.”

The Ergon, Inc., family of companies extends welcome and appreciation to the newest operations in our Ergon Asphalt & Emulsions, Inc., division:
The Ergon, Inc., family of companies extends welcome and appreciation to the newest operations in our Ergon Asphalt & Emulsions, Inc., division:
• Ardmore, Oklahoma
• Lawton, Oklahoma
• Austin, Texas
• Little Rock, Arkansas
• Catoosa, Oklahoma
• Memphis, Tennessee
• Corpus Christi, Texas
• Northumberland, Pennsylvania
• Dodge City, Kansas
• Muskogee, Oklahoma
• El Dorado, Kansas
• Parsons, Tennessee
• Ennis, Texas
• Reading, Pennsylvania
• Fontana, California
• Salina, Kansas
• Garden City, Georgia
• North Salt Lake, Utah
• Halstead, Kansas
• Woods Cross, Utah
• Las Vegas, Nevada