33. Supplier Partnerships with Joey Biasatti

Andrea and Griffin are joined by Joey Biasatti, VP of Sales for Quikrete Cement. We chat about cement supply chains, vendor partnerships, and asphalt as an obscenity. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to Loaded, the Hahn Ready Mix Podcast with Andrea Meyer, Griffin Hahn, producer Lexus here, and we have a special guest.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

We've got Joey Biasati with us. How are you, Joey? Doing great.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

I'm in Iowa, so life is good right now.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

So yeah, that's it's wonderful. Joey is the vice president of sales, correct? Correct. And I have to tell you, I know that this podcast gets a lot of listens, but when you said that you were going to fly from Texas just to be on our podcast to come up to Iowa, I mean I just I just we're just so appreciative.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

I I couldn't book a uh trip fast enough. I started I started driving towards it. I was like, no, I think a flight might be a little bit better right now. But um yeah, glad to be here and honored to be uh part of this podcast and to be part of the team, honestly.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Well, that's great. Well, it in actuality I asked you like you know four hours ago today since you're in town.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

There's no way out. We have you trapped here.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Yeah, exactly. Well, do we have any announcements before we get started with Joey?

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Yes, I actually posted this one on our Pelocity community, but just in case uh anyone missed that, I wanted to bring it up here as well. We frequently have our trucks traveling on Highway 61 towards 280, which is a four-lane road, but there's no median. Yeah, and there are several bus stops along that road. So I just want to make sure everybody realizes that when that school bus turns the red lights on and the stop sign comes out, all four lanes have to stop, whether you're behind the bus, beside it, or in the oncoming lanes, all four lanes have to stop.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

We've heard that may not be happening a hundred percent of the time. And I do think it's if you're coming down the hill and you're loaded, or you're probably not loaded coming back from that way, but just still a little tricky, always a good reminder to keep on it.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Um, you know, 15 years ago when I was driving a mixer, I definitely did not stall out truck 182 going up that hill. I stopped for a bus.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

That was that's my new that was not a stall out, that was an intentional business.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

My new that's that's my story, and I'm sticking to it now.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

So my other announcement uh might be related to that. I think we have we have gotten a little busier. We've been working a little bit more hours, a little more uh tight turnarounds on our loads, and I I can see and I can feel a little bit of stress from people, and so I just wanted to remind everyone that take your time, slow down. If you're frustrated, come in and talk to someone, find a safe space to vent. Uh there's there's nothing that's gonna go better by continuing to try and force it through when you're rushed or stressed out.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

So Yeah, yeah. That's when mistakes happen, that's when accidents and injuries and things like that happen. So um yeah, absolutely. Take your time, be in a calm place. Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

You know, we we talk a lot about that um with our group as well, with safety shares and awareness and things like that, and we talk a lot about how we try to be safe at work, but when we're at home, are we knuckleheads? Do we throw a ladder on top of a truck to climb up to cut a limb down? And look, I would raise my hand and say there's several times when I've thought about things that that I probably need to do real quick and then relate it back to like, you know, I preach safety to the group and to the team, and if I'm not doing it at home, where a lot of accidents do happen, right? We have a lot of people get injured at home, and it's made me kind of pause and re-reevaluate what I'm doing. I have small kids, they're looking at me. I'm preaching to a group about safety, um, not only at work, but at home too.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

So that's a great point. We we probably haven't had that conversation from that perspective enough.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Uh it might have came up a couple times when you had injuries from your home landscaping projects or something.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

Aaron Powell What injuries did I have from my home landscaping projects? Where are you pulling this out of? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

This sounds like something that would happen to you.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

Oh my gosh. Okay.

unknown 4:00

Great.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Well, Joey, let's get into it. Um give us a little just a little bit of your background. Uh, how'd you get into the CMEN industry? Uh tell us about your life.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Aaron Powell Yeah, great question. So um I graduated college from uh TCU in 2003. Um at that point in time was trying to figure out um, you know, what I wanted to do. Um, you know, majored in marketing management on the business side of the business. And um after I graduated, got a job with a marketing consulting firm, which is kind of a um eloquent way of saying I was basically kind of a cold caller, right? So um I did that, uh my senior year internship turned into a full-time job, and uh what I realized was I want to do something in an industry where I can touch, feel, and see. Yeah um speaking on the phone to people, things like that was wasn't the greatest thing in the world. It was rarely getting in front of people and things like that. And so um got on monster.com, which was a job search engine back in the day. Yeah, and um found a job um with uh Hansen Pipe and Precast was the company. And so started my career in the construction industry on the uh precast side of the business in San Antonio, Texas. Uh worked there for about six years, kind of helped design and grow product lines. It was kind of a smaller uh plant that we had with the larger plant in Grand Prairie, uh kind of grew the product lines a little bit and then um was getting a service award through the AGC. I was on the membership committee and ran into a gentleman that worked for the aggregate side of the business. Yeah. They were looking for some young talent, young blood to come in and kind of shake up the market a little bit and asked me if I would join um the aggregate side of the business. And I was like, you know, why not? You know, I've been trying to learn everything I can in the industry. So made the move. Same company on the ag side of the business, uh, was there for about six years as well. During that point in time, uh, we sold a lot of aggregates to a lot of asphalt companies and Ratamix companies in the San Antonio-Austin area. One of the companies was um new to the market named Summit Materials. They just bought a company that we supplied aggregates to in Austin for asphalt.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Met Tom Hill at the time. Um they were looking to grow their footprint into the San Antonio area. They laid a lot of asphalt down in San Antonio, didn't have any plants. They had plants only in Austin, and we're trying to grow and self-supply their asphalt. Uh, so when I met Tom at a Young Leaders Association, he said, look, if you guys ever have any space in San Antonio, we'd look to we'd love to put a plant on site. I said, Sure, let's do it. Talked about it for a little bit. He said, We need a pause. They were at that point in time growing and acquiring and moving and shaking and doing all those things. Uh the asphalt market was booming in that part of the country, so my phone rings a year and a half later and said, Hey, we really want to come and look. And so we stitched out some property um near the plant. They got it permitted, got a plant on site, and then about two weeks before it opened, my phone rang. Um, and it was Tom, and he said, Hey, look, you know, that plant's about to open. We've been in Texas, but we need some Texas leadership. Someone knows the market where you have industry to come in to work for Summit. Um, at that point in time, been with Hansen for 12 years. My third child was born about two days before that. Um, started with Summit materials in the aggregates and asphalt.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

So you got into the concrete and cement industry through asphalt? Through at through through building products. Yeah, but I mean, uh my whole opinion of you is changing. That's fair. That's fair.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: There's also like a limit of the number of times we can say the word asphalt on this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

So you're already open to link.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

I can't I can't deny that I was not part of the asphalt industry for a short period of time, but I did sell into the concrete industry as well. Trevor Burrus, Jr. You did not inhale, right? Exactly right. I did not inhale. So worked worked in that role, kind of oversaw that paving business for a while. We ended up selling that business, and then I joined Summit kind of on the commercial side of the business, kind of stitching together, same process, same policies, things like that. Yeah. Realized pretty quick that I need the scoreboard turned on. Um, you know, I hate to lose, love to win. And when I was kind of in that middle role, kind of in the middle man, it just I, you know, do you have a good month? Do you have a bad month? You never really knew. Um so I traveled the country through Summit, met um the cement group, David Looms, uh, who our president is.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Um, and he called me shortly after that, hey, we're looking for a VP of sales, you have any interest in joining the business. Um talked about it, looked at it, interviewed for it, and I got it, and you know, four years later, uh here I am. So industry for a little over 20 years and been blessed to touch multiple sides of multiple things in the industry and um and join it. So yeah. Great.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Great. So it's been an interesting year corporate-wise for you, right? So you know, everybody around here we still think of um as a continental cement, right? And that was owned by Summit Materials. Um and you guys made a transition to calling it Summit Cement, which I think was just a just a name change more than anything else, right? After you guys acquired Argos. But then uh QuickCreet comes in and acquires uh Summit. So how has that kind of whole process been for you? That's a lot of change, and and you know, how does that change the way that uh you're able to interact with your customers like us?

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Sure. No, it's a great question, and there's been a lot of changes. So um been with Summit, now QuickCreep for 10 years, right? And the last two years, the Sement Group, we bought Argo Cement in January of 2024, and then turnaround in February of this year, um, QuickCreep bought us. And I will say this Summit was a great home. Ann Noonan was a fantastic leader, so was Tom Hill before her, uh, met a lot of great people, a lot of great experiences through Summit. But you know, the publicly traded companies, there's a lot of things and there's a lot of decisions you have to make to hit milestones, to hit numbers, things like that. Uh QuickCrete is obviously very motivated to um be successful and to continue to make money, but I'm very proud to be a part of a privately owned American-based family company. Yeah. Um the three Winchester brothers are still active into the business. We had a meeting in Atlanta um a few weeks ago, they were there asking questions. Um it's been a lot of fun. It's been really refreshing. Uh basically the things that are different, you know, it it's our job to run the business, to do what makes business sense, not so much what we've promised Wall Street or things like that. So very motivated to be to continue to to make more money. I want everybody to do the same. Uh, but we can make reasonable decisions, move a lot faster than we could. Some of the growth projects we were looking at doing through Summit that kind of went on pause. We know now why, because the distraction with buying Argos and being bought up by QuickCrete. Yeah. When QuickCrete bought us, they said, let's go, what what are we waiting on? Yeah. Uh so a lot of expansion work going on right now, looking at new markets, things like that. So it's been been refreshing and a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 10:40

Cool. Well, we're excited about um you know, there there's there's always a feeling with a big, you know, Wall Street traded company that they're just gonna rubber stamp something for their whole footprint, right? And there's not nuance and there's not um you know, looking at at you know what's going on in a particular market or what's happening with particular customers. So we're excited about the opportunity that this change brings, you know, for for us and our relationship as well. So that's great. That's great. So talking about relationships, what what is it you know when when our people are listening to this podcast, you know, what does a strong supplier-producer relationship look like from your perspective?

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Yeah, that's a great question. Um and I'm gonna kind of circle around a little bit, but I'll get back to answering your question. So uh was in Davenport, our plant just down the road from this office earlier today. We had our QAC meeting. We do quarterly, we talk about results on testing, things like that. And you know, the Davenport plant, the culture there is one of the best I've ever seen. You know, we have you know eight plant eight cement plants in our footprint now, twenty-two terminals, things like that. I would put Davenport as a culture up against any other plant that I've ever been into. You you walk in and you just kind of feel it. So uh we talked a lot about, you know, how how do you get that culture, how do you get there? And it's there's really no rule book. You know, you just kind of show up every day and do the right thing and you bring people along with you, and there's some leaders within the group that really uplift things. And I would say a a supplier-vendor relationship is kind of the same way. You go through a lot of things together. They're not all great, um, it's not all lunch, it's not all golf. There's a there's a there's a lot of struggles that you go through, whether it be a problem on a job, or whether it be a disagreement on an invoice or an upcoming price or things like that. But you work through these things and over the course of a lot of years, there's just kind of unspoken trust that you do have. I think for the proper relationships, I think that we're blessed to have a great customer base, um, extremely based. I'm extremely blessed for that. We don't we don't do business with everybody, some people we don't want to do business with, uh, but we value, you know, when you align with your customer, you value honesty, integrity, do the right thing, work hard, play hard. I think it just all comes together. So don't know if that exactly answers your question.

SPEAKER_02 12:49

No, absolutely. You know, and I think that's we spend a lot of time internally talking about great customer service for our customers. But I think it's it's also important to be thinking about how do we be great partners with our vendors. Because there's times that we come and ask for help or ask for something special, or we rely, you know, with we go back to COVID and you know, there's allocations and stuff happening in the industry, and and you know, we rely on you and and other good partners that we have that to take care of us even when times are tough. So that means we have to we have to build that relationship from our side as well. We can't be, you know, uh one-sided, we can't be yelling and screaming and so um you know I think it's important for our whole team and everybody that interacts with your team to know that they're like that is uh important for us to build that relationship at you know at all levels. Sure. You know, so yeah, great. We I mentioned COVID, so that was a a difficult time for a lot of reasons. Yeah. But specifically with cement, you know, there was um supply chain issues, uh, you know, I think with uh both getting fuel for plants and and just transportation and and that that was you know nationally a rough time to get cement supply. What do you think's changed with cement supply in this country and and where are we at now versus then? Because it it's seems to have been from a supply side anyway, pretty smooth sailing from our perspective since then. I mean but what's your what's your take on where that where that's at?

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Yeah, so COVID was interesting, right? I mean, there was um, you know, we we in this industry we are fortunate and deemed essential, right? And you know, we all knew a lot of people that lost jobs, things like that. Fortunately, you know, construction continued, roads were continued to be built at a very rapid pace, not a lot of cars on the road, and so you could move around and and get things done. Now you're right, you know, you couldn't get parts, trucks, there there was a lot of things we could not get. Um, but I think it made us stronger as a company to kind of manage through that a little bit and maybe stronger as an industry. Um now that COVID is passed and it feels like it's one of those deals that feels like it was 20 years ago, or sometimes a couple years ago, however you want to look at it in your perspective. But now I would say things are a little bit more stable right now. You know, I would say the last couple of years post-COVID, uh we've had, you know, volumes and demand that was just just so robust it was almost unsustainable. You know, enough trucks, enough driver hours, enough material to get the job done. As those demands have softened a little bit, um it's made for some challenging times in certain parts of the country. Um exactly right. And and and and I I keep leaning back until, you know, do we do we compare those times where volumes are at the ultimate highest versus today? Yeah. Um and I think sometimes when you look at growth, you know, you want to grow every year, right? That's the goal. You know, whatever it is in personal and financial, whatever it is. But you're looking at these growth numbers that are so extremely high, it can that could not continue.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

But when it falls down below that, it feels like you know the world is, you know, stopped, what's going on. Right. Um the economy has slowed down, but you know, constant growth for a long time is a lot better than huge peaks and valleys.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Um and so I think our perspective is a little bit different on what true growth looks like because of those wild volumes that we had a few years ago.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Sure. Well, uh we talk a lot about seasonality in in here, and we go from sprinting to not even walking, just standing still, right, when it gets to winter. How do you guys deal with that? Because you're you're obviously um as as we go, you guys go, right? And in uh in the industry. So when everything grinds to a halt, how do you guys handle that and how do you guys kind of prep for the next big rush in the next summer?

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Yeah, that's a great question. And so I would say our forecasting process is really robust. Um we try to get out as as far as we can on planning what a normal seasonality of demand would look like. Now, normal weather patterns, I don't know that there is such thing as a normal weather pattern anymore. No. Because every year there's a we're still waiting for that.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

That one time where it happens how we think it's going to happen. Yeah. Or how we want it to happen.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

It never happens that way. And so, you know, we can only make so much cement per year, right? And so we really try to do a good job of planning, get in front of that. We winter in barges, we we we send material up the river where we can before it freezes out. Um in our Missouri plant, we still, you know, we provide a lot of the markets in the South. And so our footprint, you know, in the central region alone, which is where we sit now, covers eleven states. You know, it's Texas, Louisiana, uh, Florida Panhandle, Mississippi, Alabama, all the way up the minute uh the Mississippi River into Minnesota. And so we have markets in in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, they could have a 10 or 11 month season. Markets up here completely different. The further north you get, the shorter the season gets, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

I would say from from an employee perspective, when when we get when we get frozen in and cold, things like that, a lot of plant maintenance, um, a lot of organization goes on, a lot of things that we couldn't touch during the busy shorter season.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Um it's kind of how we handle it. I don't know if that's uh what you're looking for there, but I would say it's different in in different climates that we're in.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

Yeah. What uh what about trends in the cement technology or market dynamics? What do you what do you see happening right now in the industry? That's a pretty broad question, but I'll let you go where you want to go with it.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

No, that's completely fair. But you know, when you look at, you know, I think every generation, including myself, thinks that their kids had it easier than we had, right? I think that could go to our great grandparents would say the same thing. But this is me being kind of a hypocrite, two sides of my mouth here. The technology with AI, with all the things that we have now with you know this these cell phones that can give you the answer to whatever you want is completely different than we've ever seen. I don't think that's slowing down. I've got three kids, a 16-year-old daughter, a 14-year-old daughter, or a 10-year-old kid. And if I could go back to a flip phone with those kids, I would love to be able to do that. Yeah. Um, that's not in reality, so there's a balance there. But I think automation and I think, you know, AI and advanced technology is gonna make us better operators, more efficient producers. If we can manage the noise around it and really find what's really good because there's so much out there, it can get overwhelming.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

So I think as technology progresses, I think that our, you know, our our window of errors are gonna get smaller, um, our efficiency is gonna get greater. Um, this is a human and a relationship business. Um we're always gonna need people, we're always gonna need relationships. I think that even with today with technology, a lot of times sending texts and emails versus phone calls is is is used too much. Um I think sitting down in front of someone eye to eye and face-to-face is the is the way business should be handled. Or via podcast. Or via podcast, right? I mean, we're so with this podcast, we're reaching people that I've not met yet. I look forward to meeting more people that are going to come up and be like, hey man, you hear that clown on the Griffin show the other day. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

So but I think I think about, you know, even pre-AI, I was in been in cement plants and seen, you know, you guys have like the optical eye looking at the material flow and like looking at the elemental composition in real time. Like it just blows my mind. Sure. Uh and that's before AI, right? That that's that's kind of old technology now. But I mean, that is something that you know I brought up when people have been like, well, do you think we got bad load of cement? And I'm like, you know, I'm not gonna say that nothing ever happened. I'd just be shocked if that happened because it's just watched you know, with computers so to such a fine degree, right? It's such a like it's it's just chemically, it's it's all you know, manufactured, you know, to to to be what it needs to be. And so um, yeah, I gotta imagine that the the opportunities are huge to to continue to refine that process and get even more specific on that.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

To your point, when you look at some of the, you know, and the the plants vary across the country with, you know, newer plants, you know, not brand new plants, newer plants versus really old plants and the technology. When you look at some of the old control rooms, you see these massive walls of switches that are so old school and so yellowed and so weird that we're still using, I think upgrading some of those has continued to kind of shorten that window of error.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

Yeah. So what do you think uh any changes in like regulations or or materials that are coming to the cement industry that is something that everybody should be aware of?

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Aaron Powell You know, I I think I heard one time, and I don't remember who said I would love to give the person credit, so I'm gonna steal it, but you know, the easiest time to ever build something new was today, not yesterday, right? And so the best time to plant a tree was ten years ago, not today. Yeah. Um you know, regulations change based on the administration, right? And so it depends on uh what's going on with that. I I would say that um, you know, we're very um aware of our environment and how we operate things like that. Obviously, people can you know look at a pile of dust at a quarry and say that's a dirty quarry, but they don't understand what's kind of going on. Yeah. Um things like that. But um, you know, w we recycle waste to to aid in with our fuel, things like that, I think, as long as we were very blessed to be part of the the Green America Recycling Project here in Davenport.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

I mean, that was that was a big, big deal um and it was an awesome facility you guys built there.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

So it's a fantastic story, and welcome anybody listening to this podcast to sign up to go visit that because we're replacing a lot of energy with waste and uh we're very proud of that that that whole system. We have that at Davenport and Hannibal, and we're actually rolling that out at the other plants as well that we've acquired. So looking forward to that.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

My favorite part of that one was like you guys had the existing facility that was, I don't know, some some throughput of tonnage of waste and you built the whole new one completely around it while the other one was functioning. Yeah. And it was just exponential growth of that, you know, that process. So that was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah we we didn't want to stop the production of it because for the right reasons and so we put a roof on top of it, got the other run and then kind of cut the other one out. So it was pretty wild.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

It was a unique way to construct something that was that was cool. Let's wrap it up with what's one thing that makes you confident about the future of ReadyMix and Cement?

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Aaron Ross Powell things are going to be built. Things are going to be torn down and rebuilt. You know I think that we're all fortunate even though when when times are recessed it doesn't feel so great. You know some down years feel really, really tough. But this industry's going to continue to go and it's going to continue to go for a long time. AR and robots things like that can't can't replace what we all get to do.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

And I think you know this is a very sustainable industry. You look at some of the things interior design some things like that that AI is starting to kind of really you know someone like me with limited taste can take a picture or something and show my wife that I've redesigned the the living room right but our industry not so much. Yeah. And so look, you know there's cycles in the construction industry. Some markets are in a little bit of a flat to down. It's going to come back.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

And and it's going to be a place that um you know we can all have long careers and multi-generational careers will continue. Yeah absolutely great.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Aaron Ross Powell Well thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

I really want to make sure you know how much we appreciate that you did not take Griffin's bait and go down into the really nerdy technical concrete and cement information that no one wants to hear about it he loses me pretty quick on that and so that's when we talked about this before I said okay Griffin I you know I can't I can't go there with you.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

I've seen other guests go down that road and I'm really proud of you for for sticking with us.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Well I'm proud to be here proud to be a part of the the the Han team and um like I said man this this market Iowa is is great some of the best customers that we have and um you know it's always a lot of fun so appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

Well again thank you for flying from Texas just to be on our podcast and uh anytime just let me know when awesome thanks for listening to Loaded remember to share this episode with your friends