Rock Solid

Referring to a recycled aggregates maker as being “solid as a rock” may seem like an obvious and cliched metaphor. But in regard to Independence Recycling, Valley View, Ohio, and its solid place in the concrete crushing industry, the metaphor is the correct one.

In a young industry that is still learning how to establish effective profit margins, Independence Recycling stands out as a company that has proceeded far ahead on the learning curve.

With more than two decades of crushing experience and the ability to work on several projects simultaneously, Independence has established itself as a leader in the secondary aggregates industry in terms of both size and experience.

DIGGING UP THE ORIGINS

The roots of Independence Recycling lie with Independence Excavating, a company that began as a “house basement digger” in the Cleveland area in 1956. The company’s co-founders were father Sam DiGeronimo and his son Don, and their brothers, sons and grandsons are now officers in the three-generation family business.

The DiGeronimo family has built the “basement digging” outfit into a regional contractor that oversees major commercial, industrial and highway projects using more than 300 pieces of heavy equipment.

The company has been involved in the majority of high-profile Cleveland area projects over the past three decades, performing foundation excavation, site preparation and highway and airport project work, as well as less visible soil stabilization, erosion control and sewer construction services. Independence has also branched out beyond Cleveland, performing work in other Ohio metropolitan areas as well as in Pennsylvania, Michigan and several southern states.

Vic DiGeronimo Jr., a third-generation family member, is the president of Independence Recycling, one of what could now be considered a family of companies operating under the Independence name. According to Vic, “we have been crushing concrete since 1977, and in 1985 we did our first portable work with a job at Rickenbacher Air Force Base in Columbus, Ohio.”

The concrete crushing operations were eventually established separately as Independence Recycling, and the company has grown at an impressive rate. “In 1980, we produced 75,000 tons. In our year ending March 31, 2000, we will crush just under three million tons of concrete and asphalt,” says Vic.

Independence Recycling now consists of six fixed crushing sites (two in Ohio and four in Florida), and eight portable crushing plants that are kept busy year-round throughout the eastern United States.

Volume has not been the sole focus for Independence Recycling, however, as the company has taken caution in measuring and accounting for both infeed material and the aggregates it produces. “We weigh what we crush,” says DiGeronimo. “We take all of our totals and we can show what kind of output we had on any given day.” In an industry that is still relatively young and rough around the edges, the company has developed sophisticated operating and tracking systems that allow it to plan profitably.

MOVING TO THE MARKETS

Probably the most important factor in Independence Recycling’s fast-paced growth has been its willingness to stake a claim in markets beyond its northeast Ohio home.

Specifically, Independence Recycling has established Central Florida Crushers, with sites in Tampa, Orlando, Fort Myers and Lakeland, to serve one of America’s most hungry secondary aggregates markets.

Regarding crushed concrete and asphalt in Florida, DiGeronimo says, “it’s the best material they have that doesn’t come from several hundred miles away.” With the profitable shipping range for crushed concrete being limited, there is no question that Independence had to come to the Florida market rather than entering it from afar.

The company’s fixed plants in Florida tend to stay busier than the Ohio plants (and more profitable, with per ton prices for finished product a dollar or more higher). Independence Recycling’s portable plants are also more likely to be found south of the Mason-Dixon line, where projects are again more numerous and potentially more profitable.

A spreadsheet of portable crushing projects for late 1999 and early 2000 shows a greater percentage of sites in the South, at locations such as the Orlando Airport, highway projects in Arkansas and Louisiana, the Nashville Speedway in Tennessee, and at the company’s fixed sites in Florida to provide extra capacity.

The North is not totally neglected, as other Independence Recycling projects include highway projects in Indiana and Pennsylvania, and work related to the demolition of a 17-story hotel in Cleveland and the construction of a new hotel on the same site.

But in states such as Florida and Louisiana with a high water table and a lack of natural aggregates, crushed concrete “is as close to gold as you can get,” says Independence Recycling operations manager Ron Brocco.

As a result of the company’s success in southern states, some of the company’s equipment seldom makes it back to Independence’s “home” base near Cleveland. “One portable crushing unit has not been ‘home’ to Ohio since 1992,” notes project manager Scott Schroeder.

The company’s portable plants spend their time divided almost evenly between highway projects and demolition projects (which can include airport runway resurfacings), and as back-up capacity at the fixed sites.

At Independence Recycling’s fixed site plants, Brocco estimates that about 25% of incoming material comes from roadways, while the remainder is demolition material, including pulled up driveway, parking lot and sidewalk concrete and asphalt.

LOGISTICS LOGIC

With multi-state operations comes the potential for long distance headaches. Being a pioneer in multi-state concrete crushing operations, the officers of Independence Recycling acknowledge having encountered a few of them.

At the same time, the company has established an operations model that goes a long way toward minimizing the headaches caused by downtime or misunderstood project demands.

Vic DiGeronimo Jr., Brocco and project managers such as Schroeder work together to make sure that jobs in all states are planned for, tracked and monitored. A spreadsheet file is maintained more than one year ahead to ensure portable plants are not double scheduled or left out of commission for any length of time.

While computers can help organize the work, experienced minds such as DiGeronimo’s, Brocco’s and Schroeder’s are the keys to making sure that plant capacity is best matched with existing and planned projects.

“When a job comes along, right away something clicks in my mind as to which plant is ideal for the job,” says Brocco.

There are a number of factors that can affect that decision, including plant size and capacity, and also the nature of the concrete or asphalt to be found in a given state. “Just in different regions of Texas you have to find out what’s in the concrete,” notes Vic. “We did two jobs just 80 miles apart in Arkansas, but the nature of the concrete was completely different.”

Adds Brocco, “we have plants that are better for material that contains a lot of steel re-bar, or we may want to use a jaw-and-cone plant to handle abrasive material that comes out of parts of Arkansas.”

Vic DiGeronimo credits the accumulative experience of the company’s operations people as a key in Independence Recycling’s ability to pull off a variety of jobs profitably. “You learn from your history. The only way you know some things is by experiencing it just once.”

The combined knowledge of the company’s leaders is essential to run an operation that produces its nearly three million tons of aggregate at a variety of locations about 30,000 tons at a time.

“Our three million ton total may be impressive, but most of that tonnage comes from 30,000-ton jobs. We move around a lot,” says DiGeronimo.

“Most of the highway jobs come in five-mile stretches or phases,” says Schroeder, “and those figure to be 30,000-ton phases.”

That mix of projects, with different geographic and operating characteristics, has made it essential to train and retain quality people, Independence Recycling’s officers agree. “We have experienced, knowledgeable people, that’s why we can be ready to move quickly from one job to the next,” says Brocco. “We’ve tried our hardest to keep the good people we hire and train, and they have helped us get where we are.”

Brocco is proud of his crews’ ability to surpass deadlines and minimize downtime. “I can’t recall even a half-dozen times over the years when we’ve been down for a day or more,” he says of his portable crushing plants.

Says DiGeronimo of his operating crews, “these guys have a great ability to react. Our guys are definitely customer-service oriented.”

MEETING STANDARDS

As good as the concrete crushing business has been to Independence Recycling, there are still plenty of challenges to be encountered.

One source of frustration for Independence and other crushers operating in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania is the refusal of state government to expand the use of recycled aggregates in road building applications.

Ironically for a state hosting one of the concrete crushing industry’s most successful companies, “Ohio is one of the toughest states to get state specification changes enacted for using recycled aggregate,” says DiGeronimo.

That expanded end market is one way state governments can provide a boost to the industry, while the other way occurs on the landfill side of the equation. “What helps the end use is landfills not really wanting the material, or not being able to take it at all,” DiGeronimo comments.

DiGeronimo also notes that in some markets, the company has trouble finding a home for the steel rebar pulled out by its plants. “There are places where you can’t get rid of it, even if it’s completely clean,” says DiGeronimo of the low-grade steel with its unpredictable chemistry that is often used as reinforcing bar.

He notes that the company gets paid for the product in steelmaking centers such as Cleveland, but that in markets with a limited number of metallics consumers, the going can be much tougher.

The occasional selling difficulty has not prevented the company from continuing its efforts to provide two pure product streams—one of aggregates and the other of scrap steel. Fortunately, in many of the places where the metal is not as highly desired, the opportunities are greater to sell the aggregates at an improved price.

But even expanded opportunities can be held in check by the employment standards maintained by Independence Recycling. “If we had 10 more good project leaders, we’d have 10 more plants,” says DiGeronimo. “But finding 10 people who want to travel all that time and do the work involved, that has proven to be a challenge.”

He feels the work is definitely out there if the company had the personnel to add to production capacity. “We’d be in five other markets if we had the people,” he states.

THE ROAD AHEAD

Most concrete recyclers are optimistic about the industry’s staying power and future growth, and Independence Recycling’s officers are not exceptions.

“We’ve learned a lot,” notes Brocco regarding the company’s more than two decades of experience. And the learning process has not come at the expense of customers. “More than 75% of our business is probably repeat business,” says DiGeronimo.

“Every year we have goals, and nearly every year we seem to surpass them,” DiGeronimo remarks. “At one time our goal was one million tons in a year, and then it was two million, and now we’re closing in on three million.”

Vic recalls that it was just in August of 1997 that he received a watch from his father Victor DiGeronimo Sr. because Independence Recycling surpassed the one million tons per year mark for the first time.

The company’s progress and momentum since then has been impressive, and the company has work in the project planning stages as far ahead as 2003.

Vic DiGeronimo Jr. may need to rotate new wrist watches on a daily basis if Independence Recycling continues to surpass its goals and crush concrete and asphalt in greater and greater amounts. C&D

The author is editor of C&D Recycler.