< PreviousBased in Manassas, Virginia, Brothers Paving & Concrete Corporation continues to excel in its core areas of asphalt and concrete work. The company is led by CEO/Founder Paul Battista, who sets the example for his company’s growth through his own professional development – which includes his enrollment in a highly selective executive education program administered by Harvard Business School.Paul BattistaCEO/Founder of Brothers Paving & Concrete CorporationAUGUST 201820Written by Nate HendleyBrothers Paving & Concrete’s array of services include asphalt paving, asphalt repair, seal coating, asphalt rejuvenation, crack sealing, pavement markings, concrete site work and snow removal. The company almost exclusively performs all of its own work – with little reliance on subcontracting. “We might occasionally partner with somebody to sub for us when we’re super busy – but for the most part we self-perform everything we do with our own equipment,” states Battista. From its base in Manassas, the company primarily works in Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC. Given the company’s location, it’s handled projects for some pretty high-profile clients. “We’ve paved at the White House. We’ve done a lot of paving at the Pentagon. We’ve paved at Mount Weather. We’ve got a handful of federal work we’re currently doing,” shares Battista. Located in Virginia, Mount Weather is the site of an operations command facility for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Needless to say, special clearances are requisite for work at the White House or any of these other federal government locales. Brothers may be somewhat unique among the industry in its number of employees with both the professional abilities and “clean” backgrounds that enable access to such areas. Besides the government segment, Brothers also works for retail/commercial, office and residential sectors. “The company does a lot of office parks and office communities, and routinely takes on jobs with homeowner associations (HOAs) and property managers as part of its residential work,” states Battista. Brothers can trace its origins to a 1985 launch of a firm called Brothers Development. Brothers Paving & Concrete Corporation began in 1997 when Battista purchased the concrete division from Brothers Development. In the decade after Battista founded Brothers, the company experienced hyper growth – expanding from startup to 25 million in annual revenue,” he states. When the recession of 2008 hit, “Everything in our industry tanked. Everybody goes into survival mode. The most impor-tant thing for us, from 2008 to 2015, was brand preservation; that’s all we focused on. Trying to maintain relationships with our ‘A’ clients, maintaining strong relationships with the 21CONSTRUCTION IN FOCUS right banks, the right vendors. We partnered with some of our key vendors in ’08. A lot of them came to us. They said, ‘We’re only going to pick a couple of people to partner with to ride this thing out. You’re one of them. You’re going to get asphalt, you’re going to get concrete and we’re going to work with you through the crisis,’” he recalls. “The team here has been through a lot over the past 20 years. Shawn Boyce, a key employee who has been with me from the beginning, is now a partner and owns a piece of the company.”This experience reinforced Battista’s belief in the importance of building relationships, or partnerships as he prefers to call them. “We partner with people. Our suppliers are a critical part of our success.”“Our culture here is that we partner with people. Our sup-pliers are a critical part of our success. We partner with the right suppliers. We put a lot of effort into making sure our customers look good for their customers. We not only have to understand our business, we have to understand their business,” he explains. “The big differentiator between Brothers and other construc-tion companies is how we approach our relationships with our customers and our vendors,” continues Battista. This translates into a focus on professionalism – sticking to schedules, offering straightforward proposals to clients, utilizing “spotless trucks” to get to jobsites and putting front line employees in nice polo shirts with the company logo on them and having our crews wear neat, clean company uniforms,” he states. “When somebody reaches out to us for asphalt and concrete services [we offer] proposals that are very detailed and clearly define what we’re going to do… when we schedule a job and tell you your parking lot needs to be cleared on Tuesday and Thursday, you can feel confident that we will send notices out to the 200 or 300 tenants, AND that we’re going to show up on Tuesday and Thursday on time as promised,” adds Battista.The company currently has approximately 140 employees, up from roughly 130 last year at this time. Brothers treats its employees well – in addition to steady pay, benefits include medical, dental, 401(k) plans with employer matching, vehicle allowances, and more. In return, the firm has a low turnover rate and a high number of long-serving workers. While hard work is expected, “I think there’s a lot of respect here. I think people feel like they have a voice here and feel like they’re part of a team,” explains the Brothers CEO. Getting new hires isn’t always easy, however; Battista says his biggest challenge at the moment is the “labor shortage – trying to find the right people, trying to find qualified talent.” This fits with the company’s devotion to doing high-quality work, with an eye toward maintaining its reputation and bringing in repeat customers. Something the company keeps in mind is the fact that it might be years before customers call the firm for repeat business. Battista was invited to apply to, and was accepted in a Harvard Executive Education program, a prestigious three-year initiative run by Harvard Business School. The program offers real-world training, discussions and lectures to execu-tives/owners who might have otherwise completed their formal education some time ago. AUGUST 201822“It’s amazing. I just finished session one of three. It’s incredible. I’m with a select group of very sharp CEOs who run compa-nies ranging from $20 million to $2 billion and I’m with some of the best professors on earth. Many are on Fortune 100 Boards of Directors. We study strategy, leadership, finance, market-ing, negotiations and other business areas via their case study method. We focus on the key elements of being a successful business owner and leader,” he says. The program runs on a periodic basis throughout the year, and Battista expects to graduate in 2020. He appreciates the depth and practicality of the lessons: “It’s not an MBA program; the guys in this program don’t really need an MBA. We’re not talking or studying theories of workflow analytics. We’re sharing how we have successfully applied workflow analytics in our various businesses. Real life applications. Then asking ourselves how we can better run our businesses? It has been a life changing experience.” Given the nature of what Brothers does, it’s no surprise that “safety is a high priority here. I have a director of safety and a safety coordinator and I have weekly meetings with them,” states Battista. Regular toolbox meetings are held with crews, focusing on specific safety-related topics, and OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) guidelines are strictly adhered to. Brothers has a website and takes part in trade shows for pro-motional purposes, but Battista also likes to apply the personal touch. “I try to interact as much as possible at the executive level with our largest customers. We offer educational seminars. An educated customer for us is a better customer. They fully understand what it is we’re doing. They have a reasonable expectation of what the results will be from what we’re “People feel like they have a voice here and feel like they’re part of a team.”23doing. They have a better understanding of the value we bring to the table. Important stuff. We offer a lot of value for a fair price,” he explains. The company isn’t planning on introducing any new services or products in the near future, but intends to stick to “stuff we’re good at, stuff we feel comfortable we can make reasonable margin on. We put a lot of effort in growing our existing client base,” continues Battista. Brothers Paving & Concrete Corporation does, however, have ambitious goals for the next five years. The firm wants to expand its own market while possibly adopting a franchise model. “I see us continuing to grow in the markets we’re in. Our strategy is pretty aggressive growth,” states Battista. The company envisions year-over-year growth in the 10 percent range and setting up a branch outside Virginia. “There’s been talk about establishing a division in Utah. That’s something that’s definitely a possibility,” states Battista.Asked why he isn’t thinking of starting a branch in a state closer to home, Battista says simply, “my adult kids now live in Utah.” The presence of family members in that state makes expansion there a distinct possibility, he explains. Franchising is another idea for which the company has already laid the ground work, notes Battista. In fact, Brothers was con-sidering launching franchises years ago but had to put the plan aside during the recession of 2008. That plan has been revived. In the model under discussion, interested entrepreneurs could purchase a Brothers franchise and, “we would train them, educate them on how to properly scale a business from a small mom and pop organization to a $10 to 20 million dollar business. We definitely understand the process and we have the relationships with national clients to do this,” says Battista. The company hasn’t set a specific time-table for the plan. The concept is “something that’s sitting out there as a possibil-ity. If we have a decent economy for the next three to five years and we’re at a point where we can afford to give proper “The company has laid the ground work required for setting up franchises.”attention to the idea… I could see [selling franchises] possibly in next five years for sure,” he continues. “Shawn and I also initiated a pavement software startup – known as “PAVEMENT SOFT.” We created this amazing software for our business years ago and made it available for purchase by our industry colleagues approximately one year ago. We cur-rently have over 100 companies beta testing it for us. Available features include Customer Relationship Management (CRM), estimating, satellite measuring, proposal templates, field work orders, and QuickBooks integration. This software will enable a detailed proposal with maps for the customer within minutes of a request for bid. We are expecting major worldwide demand for this software in 2019. Those with interest in this software can check it out at Regardless of what direction Brothers takes, the company will continue to adhere to an adage coined by Edwin Gay, former Dean of the Harvard Business School, which notes that “the purpose of business is to make a decent profit decently.” Battista concludes by noting “that’s our mantra.” AUGUST 201824“Safety is a high priority here.”25CONSTRUCTION IN FOCUS AUGUST 201826Humans have been using aggregates and other naturally derived materials to build the world around us for millennia. Arguably one of the most famous concrete structures in the world, the Pantheon was completed in 128 AD. Meanwhile asphalt, a viscous form of petroleum, was used to embalm mummies in Ancient Egypt and to cast statuettes of household deities in ancient Japan. Today, it’s used to build roads.Written by Samita SarkarBut while people have embraced the age-old trade of construction – using earth’s natural resources to construct buildings, homes, roads, and even artwork – since early periods of civilization, the late 20th century saw a rise in the desire for more efficient-ly produced products, and the 21st century has brought about a new fascination with how these materials behave at the nanoscale level.For instance, ten years ago, Dr. Richard E. Riman of Rutgers University invented a technology that allows for the manufacture of products in water at low temperatures, rather than the high tem-peratures required to degrade plastics. states that this will result in the availability of many products, including composite materials, that are stronger, lighter, cheaper, and greener. The technology has already been used to create concrete that stores carbon dioxide.As the website discloses, Dr. Riman had his idea for this type of processing long ago but didn’t launch it until 2008, when he founded his startup, Solidia Technologies Inc., in response to the issues faced by the trillion-dollar concrete market.“When it became important to investors to see green technology developed to address carbon emissions in the world, I decided it was time to take this technology commercial,” said Dr. Riman. Dr. Riman also notes that the material costs the same as conventional Portland cement while being stronger and more durable, and can be imple-mented without disruptive capital expenditures. According to used Portland cement, Solidia concrete doesn’t harden after adding water, but instead needs to absorb carbon dioxide. The concrete blocks capture 240 kg of carbon dioxide for every 1,000 kg of cement, in addition to releasing fewer emissions during the concrete’s manufacture. It also takes 24 hours to cure; Portland cement takes weeks.Solidia concrete and cement can reduce the carbon footprint by up to 70 percent, fuel con-sumption by 30 percent, and water consumption by up to 80 percent. Its patented processes are available to concrete manufacturers interested in licensing its products. Since its founding 10 years ago, Solidia has landed deals with three concrete makers. Once it reaches 10, it should have the customer base needed to produce in much larger quantities.Solidia isn’t the first start-up to attempt “green” concrete, but it’s the most promising, and has an impressive investor list that includes the world’s largest cement maker and one the world’s largest venture capital firms. It has also been funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.“Unlike commonly used Portland cement, Solidia concrete doesn’t harden after adding water, but instead needs to absorb carbon dioxide. The concrete blocks capture 240 kg of carbon dioxide for every 1,000 kg of cement.”While protecting nature – and one’s own bottom line – has provided incen-tive for companies to do business with Dr. Riman’s company, it was the beauty of nature itself that inspired scientists at the University of Michigan to create “bendable” concrete. Also known as Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC), it is up to 500 times more crack-resistant and 40 percent lighter than regular concrete. The idea for ECC came from mother of pearl, the iridescent coating found on the inside of seashells. The veneer is made from aragonite (a form of calcium carbonate, a brittle substance), which manages to remain ductile due to its thin layers observed on the nanoscale. A natural polymer between the layers holds them together and makes them both strong and flexible. Similarly, ECC looks like regular, brittle concrete, but is instead micromechanically designed, and reinforced with selected short random polymer fibres. In an article for Professor Victor C. Li (whose team devel-oped the composites) writes that the reason this quality is so significant is because it prevents cracks that allow water or road salt to penetrate concrete structures and damage their reinforce-ment. Bendable concrete is also useful in areas that experience a high frequency of earthquakes, where building and bridge collapses can claim lives. ECC has been used to repair several bridges and build-ings in Japan, and has also been used in the U.S. and other parts of the world.ECC is so unique because it has self-healing properties and can remedy cracks just through exposure to water and air via reactions; it can adjust its own thermal capacity, keeping building inte-riors cool through tiny encapsulated wax materials in the concrete that change phase with the temperature; and now, the team is teaching ECC to neutralize pollutants with nanoparticles that break the pollutants down with sunlight-cata-lyzed reactions.As Dr. Li wrote in the article, “These auton-omous and adaptive functional features can contribute to the development of future smart cities with infrastructure that responds to environmental changes. Our goal is to create a new generation of smart, bendable concrete that will help build and maintain a resilient, sus-tainable and healthy living environment.” Dr. Li is co-founder and co-owner of Li, Fischer, Lepech and Associates, a con-sulting/service firm specializing in ECC Technology.Some of the older innovations in the field are already being implemented on a wider scale. Pervious concrete (also called porous concrete) was devel-oped around 1970, and is advocated as a best management practice by the Environmental Protection Agency. Interested concrete installers can contact the National Ready-Mix Concrete Association, which provides certification exams for porous concrete installation.Also in the mid-70s, changes were made to conventional asphalt paving techniques, and the first porous asphalt parking lots were created – a sister to pervious concrete that was implement-ed around the same time. Asphalt is a key ingredient in modern roads, used to bind the aggregate. Asphalt occurs naturally, and can also be refined from crude oil. Porous asphalt is becoming an increasingly popular alternative not “While protecting nature – and one’s own bottom line – has provided incentive for companies to do business with Dr. Riman’s company, it was the beauty of nature itself that inspired scientists at the University of Michigan to create ‘bendable’ concrete.”only in parking lots, but also in parkettes and urban walking paths because it promotes drainage. As the National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA) says, “when it pours, it’s porous.” Porous pavement allows rainwater to seep through, usually with an open-graded stone bed underneath. While the pavement is coarser and more expensive, NAPA argues that its added costs are offset by the lack of need for other elements of storm water manage-ment systems. By acting as a filter, it also improves water quality while reducing total runoff. Moreover, the technology is long lasting. Massachusetts’ Walden Pond State Reservation parking lot was constructed with porous pavement in 1977, and has never been repaved.In a study published in journal in June 2018, it was revealed that porous paving on city streets helps newly planted trees to quickly get established, although their roots will form more shallowly than with unpaved soil. The study was con-ducted by Virginia Tech researchers from Blacksburg, a Virginia town where porous paving technology was used to create attractive tree-lined streets. Storm water drainage isn’t the only issue the asphalt industry is working to resolve. Using nanotechnology, Swiss researchers are hoping to release a new type of road asphalt with self-closing cracks, increas-ing the lifespan of many roads. The technology works by mixing a certain amount of iron oxide nanoparticles into the asphalt. Heating the asphalt using a small magnetic field then melts it and allows it to seep into cracks and self-heal. Applying an electromagnetic field to the road on an annual basis would repair it, as this would suffice to make the binder liquid flow inside micro cracks and double the lifetime of a road. reports that one of the developers, Etienne Jeoffroy from the Complex Materials lab at ETH Zurich and Empa (the Swiss Institute for Materials Science), envisions a future where vehicles with magnetic field generators will simply drive over the roads, trigger-ing the self-healing process. “The idea is to have a truck that would carry this magnetic field with a large coil to cover the maximum surface. With this process you’ll only need to close the road for a few hours,” he says.Interestingly, writes that five years ago a team of scientists at Michigan Technological University, led by Dr. Zhanping Yu, found another benefit of nanotechnology in asphalt road building. Using nanoclays found in shale or mudstone makes asphalt stronger, more resilient to deformation under heavy traffic and hot weather, and more resistant to pothole forma-tion. Results of the performance of NMA (micro- and nano-modified asphalt) were published in the in March 2013.The developments are interesting, but unlike the porous technology that has been around for some 40 years, nanotechnology isn’t yet mainstream in concrete and asphalt manufactur-ing. Still, there are many opportunities for construction companies to invest in these scientific advancements and remain ahead of the curve.29CONSTRUCTION IN FOCUS Next >