New Asphalt Plant - An Investment in the Future

When you own and operate a business that you and your four siblings are dedicated to grow in order to provide a comfortable life for your families, as well as the families of all your associates, investing in new equipment is the right thing to do.

So for Rodney Urbano and his brothers, investing a couple of million dollars in a new asphalt plant at a time many others in the construction business were reigning in their expenditures was essential to position Town and Country Paving for the future.

When Town and Country Paving brought its new Asphalt Drum Mixers Milemaker 225 on line in April 2009, it marked a significant milestone in the company's evolution.

The company was started in 1982 and quickly expanded its construction offering two years later when it purchased Babcock Paving, which operated an old batch plant facility.

Urbano, who is vice president and general manager for Town and Country Paving, says the ability to produce its own asphalt mix not only gave the paving contractor more control over the availability of quality mix, but also opened the doors for growth and building a solid reputation in the northwest Indiana counties of Jasper and Newton as a leading commercial and private paving contractor. Land developers and small municipalities quickly developed a trusting relationship with the folks at Town and Country.

Growth and success continued in the 1990s when the asphalt producer/contractor upgraded its production capabilities with a newer used Barber Green batch plant located about 40 miles from the company's main market area.

"It was located in a quarry owned by the Rogers Group, and it did allow us to produce more mix during the six years we operated the plant," Urbano notes. "As fuel and other trucking costs rose, we soon realized the plant location was really not ideal for our operation. Fortunately for us we found a piece of land and a used Cummers batch plant that was ideally located to serve the market we were interested in, and we're still at the same location. The batch plant served our needs from 1999 until we decided to purchase our new ADM plant."

Even though the Cummers batch plant provided a satisfactory quantity of quality mix, the decision to purchase a new counterflow plant was based on more than just future growth and the ability to increase production.

"We were looking at the issue of sustainability, how we could efficiently utilize the resources required to operate an asphalt production facility, and the old Cummers was dusty and not the most fuel-efficient facility," Urbano says. "We also wanted to operate a plant that complied with the Indiana Department of Transportation's certification standards and that required a plant that could supply a consistent mix that was produced without creating significant dust and other emissions to environment. The new ADM plant also has an INDOT certified lab. And, we wanted the plant capabilities to produce mix with recycled materials."

The plant

Town and Country's new ADM Milemaker MM225 plant is designed to meet the asphalt producer/contractor's growth objectives for many years to come. Included in the original plant purchase that was installed in 2009 included: