American Pavement

Jeremy Perkins 0:00
This is bucket talk, a monthly podcast taking you across America to meet the most badass trades, people, industry leaders and personalities. If you're looking to level up in the trades, you're in the right place.

Josh Stanley 0:41
Josh, 34 years old. Number three. Paving operator, Jack, I'm 38 and I'm number two in line. Number two in line to the to the there's another brother too. Okay, so you're the spare. Yeah, yeah.

Jeremy Perkins 0:57
Awesome, awesome. So thanks for having me down here. Thanks for coming. We just did a entire walk through, and I learned more about paving than I've ever known.

So this is you guys have been paving and doing asphalt for over 25 years.

Bill Stanley 1:15
What's it? 25 this will be our 32nd season as American pavement. I'm a

47 year veteran of the industry now, yeah, okay, and you start, you you started with your brother, and you guys worked with your father. Yep. Did your father own his own company? He did. And what was that? Was that American pavement? No, no, no, it's a separate company. It was a, he ran a mom and pop company, yeah, and we did driveway work. And back then,

everything was done with a horse and wagon, as I like to say. We started off with picks and shovels, brother. All right, all right, and now you guys were fully automated, okay, and we're in this beautiful building. You guys have been here for four years now. Yeah, about four years. Okay, the young ones came on. When did you guys come on? About

Jack Stanley 2:05
since we're rolling up the pee outside, right? Yeah, since, since we were potty, potty trained, we got to go with dad in the truck.

Jeremy Perkins 0:12
All right. This season of bucket talk, we're here with American pavement. I didn't up. It's good. American pavement, family owned and operated. Old man here started the whole company, got his boys introduce yourselves. I'm

Bill Stanley 0:27
Bill Stanley, dad to these three guys. CEO owner, head cook, bottle washer for American pavement, specialist out of Danbury, Connecticut.

Matt Stanley 0:36
Hell yeah. Hell yeah. I'm Matt Stanley. I'm the youngest son, 004,

I always tell people, my dad made hard work cool, like he was the man coming home at night covered in grease. We want to be just like him. So whenever we were old enough to go with him, he took us with him, and he taught us what real work was at a very young age. So awesome. Be thankful for that. Now,

Jeremy Perkins 2:31
was it that bond that you guys created in the truck, you know, at a young age, and just looking up to dad and and seeing like hey, all the he's he was doing and getting into, was that when you guys made your mind up to to get into the paving game, or was it like, I don't want to do that? I

Jack Stanley 2:50
think we all kind of knew at a young age that this is what we wanted to do, really, yeah, I

Josh Stanley 2:55
think growing up that was like, my pickup line was gonna take over dad's business. The girls, right? Oh, my God, still working on it, though?

Jeremy Perkins 3:06
No, that's awesome. I mean, you know, it's kind of a, I don't know you. You talk with a lot of mom and pop operations, a lot of Father Son brothers. You hear the horror stories. You hear the good stories. I mean, you guys seem to have keep it together, at least publicly, right? One of our biggest

Jack Stanley 3:25
compliments all the time is when people come on the job, they say, Yes, I never so I've never seen a paper company that's not fighting or yelling or screaming at each other. Oh yeah.

Bill Stanley 3:37
So when you talk about the family business, my wife and I, we, we were sort of old school, yeah. So years ago, the farmers how they raised their children, they'd say they'd be with mom until they were old enough to go in the barn with that. Yeah? And that's probably pretty simple, yeah, that's what we did, very easy, and it does work. That's awesome. So, and when everyone's rowing, boating in the same direction, you're going to get good results.

Jeremy Perkins 4:02
Yeah, absolutely. You guys have created a great name for yourself in the area clientele that have been with you since you first started in the industry and and now you guys are working with those same clients. We

Bill Stanley 4:15
have customers that I worked for their father, and now my sons are working with their sons.

Jeremy Perkins 4:24
Wow, yeah, creating a legacy,

Bill Stanley 4:26
yeah, yeah, which is really neat,

Jeremy Perkins 4:28
yeah. So you guys are so right now we're in western southern Connecticut. Yep, southwestern connect. So we're right near the New York border. Okay, and your main operation is obviously the Danbury area, but, like you go anywhere in Connecticut, New York, good, well, at least Southern New York. Yeah, and you guys mainly do commercial, residential,

Unknown Speaker 4:52
commercial town

Bill Stanley 4:53
work, right? Commercial, municipal, cool.

Jeremy Perkins 4:56
I always like to ask this question, because. It seems like you guys have gotten this far. And, you know, it's amazing to aspire to this. And some of it may be planned, some of it may not have been. And you know, you guys have have become a very successful business. But like, what's next for the group? What are you thinking?

Bill Stanley 5:17
So we've built to here, yep, the next, if there is a next tier, that'll probably be these guys. But my focus right now is we're working on not getting a lot bigger, just a lot better. Yeah. So we want to perfect it. Perfect it. Perfect it, which should end up in our bottom line. Yep. So rather than grow our gross to umpteen millions, we rather grow our profit up and leave the gross. We always want to add gross, but the gross number is one thing, but if you can get do less with more profit, that's what we're working on, cool which means getting my guys home earlier, less overtime, better benefits and better workmanship, which should result in a higher dollar. That's where my brain is right now, in my stage of the game. And you know, it's no different than a bottle of water, which you could buy at Costco for a quarter. You go to a convenience store and it's $1.50 you go to an airport, it's $8 it's the same bottle of water, right? We want the $8 bottle of water because of our service, who we are and how we do it, present our product, yeah, and stand behind our

Jeremy Perkins 6:25
product. Now your product is also, is also outward facing, but it's also inward. You were talking about the legacy of some of the guys that have been working with you. Obviously, we have a huge trades, tradesmen, trades, people shortage out there. It seems like you guys are fully staffed. It's a great place to work. You guys have fostered a good work environment. It's a tough job. I mean, you know, not many people are banging down the doors to be pavers, right? But somehow, you guys managed to a have top notch service, a good product. You guys are cutting edge with a the machines you're doing. Some other piece of equipment I've seen is, is just like life changing for the industry. You know, Matt and his brand raised on blacktop. I mean, really, really, just pushing the industry forward. You guys got to have a good product internally, not just externally. We

Bill Stanley 7:14
try, we do our best. We have the same problems that every business has, but we feel we're we're hands on 100% I'm on speed dial 24/7 not only for my clients, but our guys. We probably solve every problem in house, if we can, and if we can buy a machine that has a cab on it from my operator, and I can keep him hot and warm and dry and cool in the summertime, we're in on that, yeah, which gives me a better employee, right? Yeah. So when you talk about being cutting edge, yeah, that brings people in, yeah, keeps them here. Yeah. You know, a lot of people say you're crazy to spend that kind of money to put a roof on that thing, but if there's a roof I want it Well,

Jeremy Perkins 8:03
I mean, and you guys pride yourself on being obviously quality, but speed is you guys have done things around here with newer, faster equipment. So having that any downtime, with labor shortages or anything like that, not being able to fill crews, that hurts your bottom line anyway. So like, you know that investment maybe, maybe a lot up for upfront, but like, long term,

Bill Stanley 8:27
we can get two or three working days a year more because that's fully enclosed

Jeremy Perkins 8:31
pays for itself. We'll take them. Yeah, right, yeah. Now, your guys happy, your clients are happy, and your bottom line is better. And

Bill Stanley 8:38
we wouldn't be doing this podcast today. If we weren't inside any heated building, I know it's freeze, right? And it all comes down to the that's the whole ministry of the whole thing. Yeah,

Jeremy Perkins 8:49
right, yeah, no. So that's pretty cool, you know, as we walked around, we were, we were looking at your, your hot patch operation out back. That's, I mean, I don't know if it's cutting edge for the industry, but it's definitely something that you guys have, have worked to grow and and, you know, fill the void when you guys have some downtime and create a more sustainable environment. I mean, you guys are recycling, recycling asphalt out there, you know, which

Bill Stanley 9:14
is the future of our business? Yeah, yeah. That's kind of one day that's going to be done on a big scale. Yeah, yeah.

Jeremy Perkins 9:20
Is there already been made? Has there already been strides in the industry towards that? Yeah, have they done it at scale yet? Or no,

Bill Stanley 9:26
that not. It's has few years you will see that they're not going to be mining for virgin material out of mountains. Yeah, we have all the material right on the ground. Yeah. I mean, there's, it hasn't been perfected yet, but it

Jeremy Perkins 9:41
will, yeah. I mean, there's millions of miles of road that just get reclaimed every

Bill Stanley 9:45
year, correct asphalt, most recycled product on the planet right now. So

Jeremy Perkins 9:49
prior to that, prior to this recycling, what was done with the millings and stuff? Was it just, was it buried? Was

Bill Stanley 9:55
it well, millings are a basic of sort of a newer product. I mean, they've been. Around a while, but they become very popular because there's so much more mailing. But broken asphalt was occasionally crushed down and turned into gravel, which now is done frequently. But years ago, that would be dumped in and used as Phil, okay, uses Phil dump it over a cliff.

Jeremy Perkins 10:15
So that's cool to see. You know, a once an industry once that was a little our

Bill Stanley 10:22
industry's changing fast.

Jeremy Perkins 10:25
Oh, yeah, yeah. And that

comes out of technology. Now, was that was the, was the idea for millings and, you know, hot patch and all that stuff. Did that come from, like paving crews just messing around and figuring out a way to do it? Or was that regular regulatory?

Bill Stanley 10:41
No, it was pretty much everything in the industry started off with a guy with an idea, no, no way. Yeah, that's good pulverizing in place instead of hauling it away, yeah, yeah, and yeah, there's a guy looking for a better mousetrap,

Jeremy Perkins 10:56
Yeah, cuz hauling it away is time and time is money. So

Bill Stanley 11:00
in our industry, believe it or not, is more every day, but we're really green, really, yeah, wow, everything's recycled.

Jeremy Perkins 11:09
That's unbelievable. I mean, you think of it as a dirty petroleum

Bill Stanley 11:12
so even when you see milling or in place reclaiming, cold in place, hot in place, which they have different techniques all over the country, a lot of times the decision is made over hauling times with the trucks, yeah, put 50 trucks on the road for a month to remove a highway. It's better, cheaper and greener to do it right in place, which now they can do. So that's actually driven a lot of the technology.

Jeremy Perkins 11:34
That's pretty cool. Yeah, that's pretty cool. So you first started off in the industry with horse and carriage and then upgraded to a wheelbarrow. We had lightly talked about, like anybody who wants to get into this industry, or start from the bottom, whether it's feasible or not, what's the first piece of equipment you go out and purchase outside of a horse and a carriage to really well

Bill Stanley 11:59
in the there's a saying in the paving business, and it, I guess it hasn't changed. You need a truck and a roller, okay? Truck and a roller,

Jeremy Perkins 12:07
truck and a roller, and then from there, it's a skid steer. And then just kind of Yep, you know, either borrowing or

Bill Stanley 12:14
Yeah. So when I started, if we're going to talk about the industry, and especially the history of it, skid steers weren't even on job sites. Now there's 10 on every site that's completely pretty new. Your your guys age, you guys are back, right? Yeah, back those bulldozers? Yeah. Excavators and now minis have revolutionized the industry tenfold. But years ago, the United rentals, Sun bet rentals, hertz rentals, the cats to John Deere, that you can go into a dealer and lease or rent a piece of equipment for a day a week, a month a year, that did not exist back in the day. Okay? That didn't exist. There was no United rental where you could go down and rent a piece of equipment to do a job, fees that that wasn't even available. Either you had to have it, borrow it, or hire somebody to do it. No, you were not renting, you know, skid steers at the local rental dealer. That was a day, which is, again, is totally revolutionized the industry, right? No, no, no, no, no. Very few, you know, right? And they weren't. And even the leasing financing rentals that didn't even exist, if you didn't have cash or triple tier credit, you were not getting in the game at all. So all that happening. So all that was important. Actually, the first, we didn't talk to me earlier about, you know, how did I get started? The first piece, the first skid steer, I bought, I paid 21% interest. Geez, yeah, so I bought a $20,000 skid steer back there. Probably cost me 40 grand to pay for the thing, but that was the only way I could get my hands on it. Could have put it on a credit card cheaper. I didn't have, we were not, you know, when you starting off, you know, tier one, how you're gonna, right? Yeah, right, but that's what charge cards, right? They didn't even have those,

Jeremy Perkins 14:01
right, holy so then, you know, obviously you had a piece of property down the road. Did you rent own? We

Bill Stanley 14:07
own that? Yeah, well, we bought we actually, we rented it, leased it, and then we bought it. Okay,

Jeremy Perkins 14:13
so you guys have always been as I talked with you. Some people lease their equipment. Some people rent their equipment. However, you guys pride yourself on owning every aspect of the business, so everything is bought and paid for. Now,

Bill Stanley 14:30
yes, now we've done all the above, yeah. But now when we purchase, and suppose, mostly, for the most part, it's replacement, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And if we can, we buy it, oh, yeah, or we fix it, we'll just keep the old one. That's

Jeremy Perkins 14:46
cool, right? So I was talking to you about who's the guinea pig for operating new pieces of equipment, and you seem to have been the one

Jack Stanley 14:56
we all are. But I took to one thing, they took to another thing, right? So

I push the buttons. Yeah, if there's a button to be pushed, I push it. See what happens. Growing up, I was the VCR TV video game console setup person, yeah, you know, like every house has one, right? You know, somebody's got to set up the VCR make sure that the cables work. And that was me. I was behind the TV with the wires. So when we get a new piece of equipment, I'm usually the guy that goes into the system and figures out the x, y and z and everything that's going on. But whether it's watch, yeah, but whether it's dirt or paving it, that'll that'll fall in his aspect or my aspect. Okay, yeah, I'm, I like to get on the equipment and figure out, moves. Yeah, right. But I need, I'm the kind of guy that wants to use 100% of the capability to machine.

Jeremy Perkins 15:49
Yeah. So it seems like you guys have good relationships with manufacturers in the industry of equipment. And you know, I'm sure when a new piece of equipment comes out or something that's different, you guys are the first ones they call to say, hey, let's see how this performs on the job site, occasionally, occasionally. So I would assume the learning curve is probably pretty big for you. As you know, there's no training videos or right or limited, limited training. We

Matt Stanley 16:15
go to trade shows. I like to set up the machines and talk to the engineers, yeah, you know, discuss with them. And a lot of times you'll see things on these machines that came from us that they're like, oh, that's they did that because we told them to do that. Yeah. You know, that happens a lot, yeah.

Jeremy Perkins 16:29
That was pretty cool to see the the leboy machine out there that you guys did, the special raised on blacktop edition, you know? And just even the little from the spray can holder to the depth gage holder, to the lights where you need them. I mean,

Matt Stanley 16:43
we have a video of us in the shop, like selling it, selling it to Lee boy. We

Jack Stanley 16:48
got another paper that we actually took down our guy and mocked it all up and sent it to him. So this is what we want. This is what

Josh Stanley 16:55
we want. That's cool. For 14 out of 15,

they took 14 options

Jeremy Perkins 16:59
out of the 15. Wow. What was the 15th? What was the 15th track? It was

Josh Stanley 17:08
the lighter Ian push button, lighter, slippery

iPhone charger. No,

Jeremy Perkins 17:15
yeah, yeah, no, that's cool. That's cool to have a name that's not only just respected locally, but respected, you know, in the industry on social media. You guys have said social media kind of catapulted you guys into where you guys are now, starting with, you know, website wasn't what you guys needed. So, you know, Facebook business, and then kind of moving into Instagram and Tiktok and all that stuff. I mean, hell, you look good on camera, but I think it's great. I mean, the this, this resurgence with raised on black top, it's more than just, you know, for four people in the industry, I think a lot of people can relate to it. As a blue collar professional, yeah, there's some form of, we're all essentially raised on blacktop to some degree, right? And, you know, I like this. I like this cult following you're bringing and then, you know, kind of expanding. So what was the kind of thesis for that? Like, where did that come from?

Matt Stanley 18:18
Well, now that we're talking about this, you know, we talk about our reputation, and we always had this really good reputation locally, and my mom and dad worked their off to build that and to keep it, you know, I remember being on jobs at 12 years old. And like, I'm not exaggerating, every job we would be on. I've never seen a group of guys work like this, still, still, still, to this day, and I'm like, I'm seeing this as, like, a 12 year old, yeah, you know. So I knew it was, we had something special going on, you know, and then we just brought that online, and that just helped catapult our reputation from a local level to state to now, we're known like, worldwide, yeah, and we're not known for dancing on camera and dancing on Tiktok. We're known for, you know, putting the work in, which I think is really cool, yeah, you know, it's not a gimmick online. And Ian raised on blacktop. It's, like, very authentic, you know, I'm not, it's not a money grab at all. It's like, really trying to build this, this following around our industry that we never had before. And a lot of the reason why I started raising on blacktop was when I got online, I meet kids across the country that grew up just like us. You know, they didn't just get into the business when they were out of college and had nothing else going on like they literally were raised on blacktop, literally grew up on a machine, just like we did. And before social media, I didn't really realize that, and I got connecting with these kids online that are just like us. You know, we're meeting them at trade shows now, and we're keeping in touch with them, and now they're coming to visit us and stay in a week with us, right? So we're developing these cool relationships

Bill Stanley 19:49
guys and building the industry, right? Yeah.

Jeremy Perkins 19:52
I mean, I cool. I think the cool for the kids, well, yeah, absolutely. I think one, you know, I mean, this has kind of been repetitive, but, but to be honest. Us. Well, what I'm about to say is a little repetitive, is the fact that, like, when we were growing up, and maybe not so when you were growing up, but like, being blue collar was a detractor. Like, it wasn't, it wasn't cool. It wasn't, yeah, I

Bill Stanley 20:11
was supposed to go to college. Yeah, yeah, the bankers, yeah,

Jeremy Perkins 20:16
and, and, and for for us, it's like, you know, once you get into the trade, once you once you block out all the bull, you realize, like you're actually, you're doing something, you're moving you're, you know, you're supporting a clientele, a community, you know, all the jobs that you were talking about with, with clients that you have over the years, and just just the the confidence that they have in you that it'll get done with little to no disruptions and disruptions to their life. And sometimes people take that for granted, and once you pull that back, once you take that away, it's hard to find carpenters, electricians and and people. People can't get hot water. People can't get the outlet where they want, because it's $10,000 to do so. Or, you know, the last guy screwed them, and I think that, like now this, this huge resurgence for the trades, you know, Mike Rowe kind of started it, yeah, you know, you guys are bringing it. We're bringing it. You know, we need good quality guys that stand behind their product and really care about what they do on a daily basis. And the sky's the limit from there. I mean, you got this, this is no small operation, and this is nothing to frown upon. And I think that, you know, I'd be proud of to have this brand on my sleeve. You know, it's a great place to be. Thank you. So, yeah, the work is hard, but it's rewarding. At the end of the

Jack Stanley 21:38
day, it's also rewarding that like, you don't realize it because you've grown up in it, but like to mentally push yourself every day, right? Like there's something to be said about that, right? We run into tough every day, or in the in the heat, like it's, it's tough, but at the end of the day, you feel like you did something. We're not hiding behind a desk totally. You know, you hear all these cold plunges, this cold punches that, yeah, do this. How about

Jeremy Perkins 22:00
some hot plunges out there, right?

Jack Stanley 22:03
Yeah, November day, go pave a park that's 20 degrees.

Bill Stanley 22:06
Yeah, we don't have to go to the gym after work. No,

Jack Stanley 22:10
that's it. There's something to be said about that, and I think the conversation has started. But you know, brands like brunt, where you guys are here and you're involved in the blue collar industry, and you know, now we belong to something, yeah, you know, before, there's other brands that we won't talk about, but yeah, they were just there, and I don't think they really gave,

Bill Stanley 22:28
yeah, you know. And it's funny, you talk about the, you know, talk about the unknown or the unforeseen, you know. You take the social media aspect, which is, you know, the invention of the 21st century, right? That's reached changing the world, right, right? And out of social media, you're here today because of it, right? You're a work boot guy, yeah, right. We're a paving contractors. And Mom and Pop has actually got a voice through the social media thing that we didn't have pre that, right? Totally isn't ironic, right? Yeah, that now, when everyone's looking around going, Wow, my kid can go over on an excavator and make $100,000 a year. Yeah, right. Six figures. We're right about the six figures fall right. Yeah, right. And the guy who was in the computer business was frowning on us prior,

Jeremy Perkins 23:17
totally. I mean, you know, outside of this, you talk to excavation companies and stuff like that, and stuff like that, and just the amount of money they have in overhead, and, you know, the operating costs, and then you know, the finances and accounting that need to go into it, you know, planning and and infrastructure. I mean, you guys are running, you know, on paper, multi million dollar companies and

Bill Stanley 23:38
and, you know, you see the men who built America, if you've seen these series, right? Okay,

the people we work with, these Mom and Pop people, whether it's the factory owner, the restaurant owner, our workbook guy, these people are the best salt of the earth, most honest, hard working people that I had in my entire life. Experience of meeting people are these people in the field? Yeah, and it doesn't matter what what profession. They're little league coaches. They're the ones fixing the fence at the church. They're the ones that their name on the hospital elevator button somewhere. Yep, it's usually a mom and pop, and that's what we're all about. That's awesome.

Jeremy Perkins 24:29
That's awesome. Actually, I was thinking about it. I don't know if it's cheesy or not, but one thing that you know I haven't seen is everything we do, for the most part, there's some schooling, but like, it's all on the job training. Like there is no school or university for for paving and asphalt or even concrete work or whatever that might be a future endeavor. You could be a professor one day. We've

Bill Stanley 24:53
we've got some things working. Oh, that's

Speaker 3 24:55
cool. Yeah, things working. Oh, we won't talk about blacktop Academy. Yeah, they go,

Bill Stanley 25:01
no. I mean, not, not to monetize from it, but we, we would love and everything. Every time someone sticks the camera in my face, if, if I can give my knowledge to the next gen, I'm all in.

Jeremy Perkins 25:12
I mean, I mean, think about that, you know, as we were talking about who's the one to push the buttons on the first piece of equipment. Imagine if you had that upfront knowledge as you're stepping into the industry, whether or not you're going to, you know, hop on, you know, a 10 Wheeler, right off the bat, at least you've seen it, you've drove it, you know, you got a basic understanding for how it works, even, I mean, greasing. You guys have no mechanics here. Everybody kind of pitches in. Everybody's mechanically inclined, which is insane. I mean, I'm surprised you guys don't have a full time mechanic, yeah, but that's awesome that you guys can, you know, service the equipment yourself from the million grease fittings, which I get anxiety over, and you can't skip one like that. One is the one that'll be over on the That's exactly it. So, you know, just being able to have a basic understanding for how things work. Grading, you know, shooting, grade

skills. Yeah, absolutely skills, yep.

Bill Stanley 26:07
When you buy your first house and you hire a plumber, and he tells you that the pipes got to go like this up the wall, and it's gonna cost you 27,000 you scratch your head and go, I don't think I'm talking to the right guy, because, you know, correct,

Jeremy Perkins 26:19
right, yep, yeah, you know, I've had buddies, you know, that went off to college. And, you know, I won't mention their names, but, you know, have had me over to put a toilet paper holder on there on their wall. And it's things like, you know, I didn't learn how to put a toilet paper holder on the wall. I've learned life skills through the trades

Bill Stanley 26:38
story that stuck in my head I were at a $3 million house, and a young fellow your age comes out, and I said, I need to get the water faucet so we could hook up the hose. And he wasn't sure if his house had one. Oh, sure, yeah. He didn't know where they said. I said, Every house has two. I said, I just wanted to let you know that I was walking around the back of your house. I didn't want to walk behind the guy's house. And there was a man in a man in a $3 million house, and he didn't know where his water spigot, yeah, and I don't want to be there net near that, living near that guy during the California Fire.

Jeremy Perkins 27:09
I'm gonna give you. I'm gonna one up you here. Be living near that, next door. I will one up you here, because this is actually a funny story. So we go to an Airbnb, and a friend of ours had rented it, and the hot tub was low, right? So before I got there, she had hooked up the hose to a water spigot and started to fill up the hot tub, but it didn't fill up. There was no water coming out of the hose. She had put it to the forced hot water drains in the basement. So you know, off the furnace, you have all the piping for the force hot water. And they have all the they have all the drain fittings, hooked it right up, opened it up. Well now, now your force hot water system is air bound.

Jesus, she tried. No,

the Airbnb we laughed

Bill Stanley 28:04
the crew I hang around with, but go down and catch base and get the water out of the catch base with a bucket

Jeremy Perkins 28:10
trying to Crick. That's cool. That's cool. So, I mean, we were talking about, like, some of the biggest projects you've done. And I think, you know, while paving an entire city or town is, is a major feat I was, I wanted to dig deeper, like, what was the like, hardest, most challenging job that you guys have done outside of just like, run of the mill, you know, pay, you know, long days paving streets. So,

Bill Stanley 28:39
unlike a lot of the industry builders, site guys, you know, they're on the projects a year, two years, and they go on for months, paving, you know, we'll take a sizable project, and in three or four days we're out of there, yep, you know, we'll take a parking lot this size, and one day we're in and out. Yeah. So I can't put my finger on any one job that really, I mean, we've done some monster projects, but for us, it's, you know, for us, it's the pace, you know, we'll, we will literally install a parking lot here in Danbury on Monday, Tuesday, we'll be doing a road over In New York. Wednesday, we're paving behind the shopping center in Massachusetts and and so on. So for us, it's the pace, yeah, and it's the moving Yeah, and it's every day, yeah. And we're, and anyone will tell you, in our industry, and this is, I'm not blowing any smoke here, paving is fast paced, yeah, which what I really enjoy about it is, I'm not see I always tell the other contractors on the job. I say, you marry these guys. I said, I only date them. We're in and out in two days. You're here for a year.

Jeremy Perkins 29:50
So it's, it's less the actual task

Bill Stanley 29:53
when we do it, when we take a road in Danbury, Tuesday. Morning, paved Monday the equipment's got to be delivered Monday morning, Tuesday morning, the fuel, the water, the guys by Tuesday afternoon, by 430 that's got to all be broke down. Not only did you complete the task, that Job has to be broke down, all that equipment's got to be done the next and you're going to be lined up for the next jobs tomorrow. Yeah. So that's pretty adventurous.

Jeremy Perkins 30:18
Now you now you guys usually run you had said two crews, sometimes three, sometimes three, and now you have one crew in one phase, probably finishing up, while the other ones using the equipment to start breaking down the street to get it ready for paving again. Oh yeah. So you guys are just constantly

Bill Stanley 30:34
we're not even done these guys. That's that's a lot of my job. But these guys are three quarters of the way done, and I'm already moving equipment to the next show, you know, lining up, picking up, cleaning up. You know, the cones that were set up this morning are already getting loaded on the truck, getting ready for the last for the next job.

Jeremy Perkins 30:51
So get a little bit more into family, which is, you know, you guys obviously work well together, and have been doing a great job of that this year. But is it challenging to work alongside your brothers? I mean, you know, if, like, honestly, me and my sister, if we work together, even when, even my business with my wife, it is like there are certain points where we're, we're butting heads, not necessarily getting into the fist fight that you guys had earlier, but more so along the lines like, how do you deal with, you know, a the hierarchy of being the youngest the oldest. It seems like you guys have kind of took to each aspect of the business

Unknown Speaker 31:31
these guys. Yeah, go ahead. No,

Bill Stanley 31:33
let him. These guys are grown ass men. Now, we had a bit when they were younger, you know. But they're grown men, you know. They got families, yeah? This is their career, yeah, you know. And obviously they see the that there's an advantage to it, yeah? So the rest of it, they could tell you, don't

Jack Stanley 31:48
fight that much like we've we have our moments where it's 100 degrees out and something goes wrong. We yell at each other for a minute, but, I mean, it's nothing, yeah, it's

Matt Stanley 31:59
It's nothing. It's usually a blow up, and then it's over. Yeah, it has to be over. Yeah. It has to be well,

Jack Stanley 32:06
like, I've always say, like, I'm I'm never with them really, yeah, like, they're paving, I'm prepping. So

Jeremy Perkins 32:13
you're the one that's hard to deal with, yeah,

Jack Stanley 32:16
yeah. But so like, I don't, you know, we're never really with each other.

Yeah, I think we Jeremy, a big thing that I never realized I had someone tell me that is like, obviously, there's a lot going on here, right? Yeah, it's good to have. We need the help, right? Yeah, I need to two dudes right here that are rowing in the same direction, but we also, like, for the most part, we match each other's intensity. Yeah, because that's a big thing on jobs, is, like, when you're really stressed out, and, you know, maybe your employees, they're not really even

Matt Stanley 32:50
picking up on the picking up on

Jeremy Perkins 32:52
the urgency, you guys are elevating each other's Reading Room. Yeah,

Jack Stanley 32:54
you know that reading room, let's go, you know? And yeah. So that's a big thing. But then also, like, I always use the analogy in basketball, like there's days where Josh has to go score 40 points and all I have to do is rebound and play defense, yep, and vice versa, and having a free flow kind of relationship like that. Yeah, that's a real part that we take for granted, I guess, yeah.

Jeremy Perkins 33:18
And obviously speaks to your level of professionalism, too. What, you know, whatever you guys are dealing with, whether you guys deal with it or not, is, you know, behind closed doors and like, you guys got a team to lead, and that's, that's awesome, you know. So if you guys are out there bickering, I've been on those job sites where you're out there bickering and fighting, and then the customers, yeah, so your wife works with you. You have a nephew that works here. And then you spoke this actually hit home for me. I said, Did you have any other family members here that worked with you? And you spoke to your longtime employees who aren't blood related, but the fact that they've been with you for, you know, 30 plus 27, plus years, and that really struck a chord with me. Because, you know, as I went from the trades to brunt, I know people talk about fostering a family, and I know it kind of seems shallow. Sometimes it's like trying to build that team mentality, but when everybody goes home, they don't give a about each other. But like that, that's an amazing trait to have that that you actually look out for these guys as if they were your

Bill Stanley 34:24
next opinion, well, they, they do spend more time here than they do at home. Yeah, I've watched these guys this. I got some. I have one kid. His uncle worked for me. His father worked for me. They were from Mexico, yeah. He came here at 17 old. Paco, now 40. He's been here 23 years. He got here on a Wednesday at 17 years old. His father said to me, my son's coming. Can he come to work? I said. Bring him to work on Thursday he started, and he's been here ever since, wow. So now this kid's been with me since he was 17. He's married, he's got a home, got kids. Yeah, he's family, yeah, that's amazing, yeah. And, I mean, and everything that goes on in his not everything, but being a try to be a thinking boss. If he has a nice home, a nice car and sleeps well and makes a good living when he comes into work Monday morning, he's going to be fresh, right? Yeah, right. And I need a fresh guy Monday, yeah, right. So the thicker his quilt, the better off I am. That's awesome, you know? I mean, you might, I might be deep in the woods here, but this is, I'm talking 30 year employee, right, you know, if, if he has to live well also. So it is a, it is something on my mind, yeah. I mean, the reality. I mean, I can't just be the guy in the room, right? Yeah. And

Jeremy Perkins 35:58
that's crazy, too, because, you know, nowadays, I mean, whether it's a good term or bad term, I like it as a good term. Being a company, man, I've, you know, I've always tried to be, you know, where I go is where I want to stay. You know, I thought my last job was where I was going to stay. The industry changed. I had this new opportunity to further, you know, bolstering up the trades and the trades gap and and kind of taking it to the next level. So I don't actually think it was a, you know, I quit because I went to go chase another dollar. I quit because I was going on to to better help out the the industry. But, you know, the reality was, is, like I was at that job for, you know, 10 years. And you know, that was essentially right out of the military. I never quit a job up until that point. And that's the same with Brian. I'm, you know, I'm hoping to be here until I retire, and you just don't see that anymore. Guys are going from one job to the next to get that next dollar or two, or the overtime hours the athletes,

Jack Stanley 36:55
right? Yeah, like LeBron, if, yeah,

Bill Stanley 36:59
stayed in Cleveland, he would have been an icon. Yeah,

Jack Stanley 37:03
exactly. If he's in, he's in LA, right now, if somebody offered him a billion dollar contract, he's leaving, yeah, he's leaving, right?

Jeremy Perkins 37:11
So, I mean, I don't really have anything else, like we've literally, yeah, let's talk about the trucks. So by the way, where'd the red come from?

Bill Stanley 37:29
First truck we bought was red. It's

Jeremy Perkins 37:31
as simple as that. Simple as that. It's a semi, and it's stuck, and it's stuck

Bill Stanley 37:35
and back. Believe it or not, you can even find a red truck. Ford's not even making a red pickup anymore, talking about but when, when I back in the day, Red was the color in the construction industry, you'd see two colors on the on a lot, it would be red and green. You bought a red one or a green one. Not, not pickup trucks, so much, dump trucks, vans and stuff like that, yeah? But you'd see 10 of these on on a park, on a lot, yeah, yeah. Construction

Jeremy Perkins 38:02
color. And that's when, that's when it was funny, there were so many red cars on the road that you started seeing these fire trucks going to that that yellow because they were being mistaken for, for, for emergency vehicles. And I wonder if that's, yeah, that's what you're saying about the fire you, I mean, you've guys seen it, like Enfield and a whole bunch of other towns had that, like, that lime green, yellow truck, and that kind of that was something in like, the late 90s, early

Bill Stanley 38:26
2000s not to interrupt you, but I think what he was, maybe, what he was getting at when he asked about the trucks was, you know, your truck, no, why did they keep him? I think what he was getting at was, you know, your trucks being so clean. Oh, yeah, right. And it's a thing with us, but pride and professionalism. Okay, so you answered it. There you go. So people, when they see, when people, when you pull up, when in a clean truck, people know you're serious about your business, Oh,

Jeremy Perkins 38:51
absolutely. I mean, we, we used to see it all the time in the garage. Guys would show up and, you know, their box truck, and you're like, Oh my gosh. Guys like, you know, believe it

Bill Stanley 39:01
or not, when I hire, when I get it, whenever someone comes in to be a truck driver, yeah, first thing I do, I don't let them know it, but I walk out and check out their car. There you go. I want to see if there's a bunch of crap in the back seat. He's probably not my guy. I never,

Jeremy Perkins 39:14
I never understood why my boss, in the middle of a snow storm, somebody would rack, you know, back into a tree or whatever. He'd go and have it fixed the next day and back out on the road. I'm like, why don't you wait till I go? Why don't you wait until the end of the season? He goes, No. He goes, I keep my trucks mint. That's the way it's the way

Jack Stanley 39:29
we go. These are our billboards. You get a lot

Speaker 2 39:32
of work from this truck. Yeah, yeah. And where that was the first marketing scheme you ever

Jeremy Perkins 39:36
did? Well, and that was another question that came to mind is, why not Stanley and sons? Like, believe

Bill Stanley 39:43
it or not, American pavement. This was pre internet, years ago that you stand you may remember he doesn't Yellow Pages, okay? And if your name had an A in it, you'd be first, okay. Oh. It went yeah. It went by alphabetical. Well, then it was size. But if you went on a when you advertise that you'd be the first one in

Speaker 3 40:03
the, I didn't even think about that. The usernames available, right? Yeah, that's crazy, yeah.

Bill Stanley 40:09
So it was a thing. You'd see, a one, you know, a plus, you know, and back you said Stanley, and sons, it would have been a Stanley. And, yeah,

Jeremy Perkins 40:16
no, that's Wow, yeah, that's true. That's That's crazy. So, yeah, no. And you know, you guys constantly grow, and you guys are constantly getting better. I don't know. I guess at this, yeah, thrive,

Bill Stanley 40:33
drive 2025 right? That's it, all right,

Jeremy Perkins 40:40
so, but I want to, I want to give you the chance to, you know, speak about race on blacktop, where they can find you. You know what you guys are doing, how they can find you?

Jack Stanley 40:51
Yeah, so we're pretty much on all platforms. At America payment, at raised on blacktop, we do have a YouTube channel, which is YouTube's hard to get content out there consistently, but it's fun stuff. It's pretty cool. Yeah, it's pretty bad

Jeremy Perkins 41:04
on shots and like that. Music's meant,

Jack Stanley 41:06
yeah. So that's actually how we gain the big following, too, was our YouTube page. So that's something fun. If we get an interesting job or anything like that, we'll have a videographer come out and shoot a YouTube video. Yeah. What's cool is we just give that old school feeling, but it's new. It looks new school, you know, with the drones and the good music and all that. Yeah, the at America payment raised on blacktop. The merch store is raised on blacktop.com. So hats, hoodies, and then we work manufacturers a lot to do these machine collaborations. Yeah, who are some of your sponsors? John Deere is a big sponsor of American pavement, yeah. And then raised on blacktop, we work with Lee boy. They're a paving manufacturer. Malden, they're also a paving manufacturer. Shoulder Master is a company out of Australia that we work with that all came from social media. Ex broom, I feel like a NASCAR driver.

Jeremy Perkins 42:03
Like to thank my mom.

Jack Stanley 42:05
Yeah, X broom. They're the sweeping. They build the road sweeper. Yeah? Peter bill, hopefully will be the next one. Yeah, yeah. And then our asphalt recycler, we we advertise for them too. So at then anyone in paving that's watching this at the end of March, I don't know if this will be out by then, we're going down to St Louis for the world of asphalt, which is a big deal for us. We work with world of asphalt to promote the show. They give us a booth space, and I sell merch at the trade show, like one of the only people selling something there that's tangible that they can take home with them. So we do really well there. And we have beer in the booth every day, and I bring models, and it's good time. That's awesome. We do a kickoff party. So this year, on March 24 we rented out Cardinal Stadium, and we're gonna be doing a party in the suite at Cardinal Stadium. It's two days before opening day, so we couldn't do it on the field, yeah, but we have sponsors for the party, and we throw like a legit, good party. It's not some corporate tight party. There's a band open bar, and we let our hair down.

Jeremy Perkins 43:04
You guys are from Connecticut, I wouldn't expect,

Jack Stanley 43:09
so we're looking forward to all of that.

Jeremy Perkins 43:11
I'd like to thank you guys for, I mean, for those that that are listening and don't realize where we're at, literally work going on. It's a Tuesday, you guys are taking the time to sit down and share your story. You guys could be working. You guys could be so we took time out of your day. Hopefully, you know, somebody gained something from this. And I really appreciate, you know, all the sacrifice you did for today. Thank you.

Jack Stanley 43:33
Thank you. We appreciate you guys. Appreciate it. Front work boots.