Q: What has being located in Dayton area meant to Dayton Superior?
A: I'm not from the area, but I'm caught up in innovation. That's made with love, and I'm fascinated by the history of the area, and the Wright Brothers. There's a rich history of innovation in the area, so we are now tapping into the local universities. A number of young chemical engineers we just brought on think this is a cool business to be in, so we're able to get really quality interest now. I think we hired 185 people this year and I've still got to hire 50 more. Dayton's been a great environment. We should be here for another 90 years.
Q: How will your $2 million ‘innovation center’ help expand your company?
A: Concrete construction has been around forever. One would think after a number of years there's nothing left to create, to invent, but we think just the opposite. We've created a process with our innovation center where we can fill up this pipeline. In June of last year, we opened it up to customers. We sat down in conversations saying, 'Boy, if we only had a way, what would be your dream?' We thought of over 200 ideas. To Dayton Superior, that's $300 million worth of value. The process allows us to organize this way of thinking.
Q: What will your customers gain from the ‘innovation center?’
A. We recently hosted the Canadian ministry of transportation. Canadians are struggling with a lot of bad weather and a lot of need for salt. They just overkill on salt and their roads are just torn up and falling apart because of erosion. We talked to them about developing a whole series of new products so the roads last longer. That's a lot of what we do, we do the hard and difficult stuff. We've done stuff for the World Trade Center, the Panama Canal, most stadiums. The products we make aren't the coolest things in the world, but the stuff they use them on is just really cool. That's what I love about the job, it's fun.
Q: How has the company recovered from the Great Recession?
A: A lot of it had to do with the rebound of the private sector. There has not been, yet, a full recovery. Most people hear about a rebound in residential work, but if you drive around the highways are a mess, the bridges are falling down. Congress passed a bill to extend highway transportation funding, but it's only a patchwork. It won't even last until next year. They've got to get serious about infrastructure reconstruction. Our business has been flatlined. It's not going anywhere because there's no funding. The states don't have the money. It's tens of hundreds of billions of dollars just to repair the bridges and the bad highways. What's been driving construction is highrises, buildings, towers like the World Trade Center. We're starting to work on stadiums. We did the Falcon Stadium in Atlanta. The private construction's come back strong. It's federal infrastructure that hasn't rebounded yet. But we've come a long way.
Q: What advice would you give to a CEO trying to expand their business in a downturn economy?
A. It's all about the people you have at your company. We're looking for the top 10 percent. At Dayton Superior right now our growth and the business profitability is growing exponentially to the market recovery. We're throwing world class people at this business; we're making it kind of a fun place to work. My advice is make sure you have top talent. There's plenty in the area. We have no issue attracting talent here. A lot of companies do the opposite, you know, they start cutting in a down economy. If you want to survive, you've got to hire new.
Q: How will your company expand in the next few years?
A: Geographic expansion. We've put a lot of energy into our international sales. We're approaching 15 percent of our sales from outside the U.S. In the last year we've put significant resources in facilities in Guatemala, Columbia and through other parts of Latin America, New Zealand and Australia. We're the big player in the North America market, and we're not so big in the rest of the world. It's a great opportunity. We have great technologies; that's an upside. The other thing it does for us, with the cycles in the U.S. there are countercycles typically on the other side of the world. If the weather's bad here, there's not a lot of construction, but it's probably sunny on the other side of the equator.
About the Author