Quick turnaround

"There's more to hot mix asphalt paving than just pulling a straight line. Your joints must be seamless and smooth. The paver must be maneuverable enough to work in very restricted areas and close against buildings. The paver must also be able to cut in street intersections, sewer inlets, and manholes," Gomez says.

As one of the larger asphalt paving companies in South Central Texas, Ramming Paving knows well that repeat customers are the backbone of profitability in the paving industry and how important it is to retain them. They are also well aware that quality workmanship is essential to project longevity, which is essential to retaining repeat customers. It also follows, as night follows day, that only a highly-skilled crew, using first class, well maintained, equipment can produce high-quality, long-lasting results.

Thomas Murdock, one of the contractor's HMA supervisors, says that's why company owner and founder John Ramming has assembled a reliable high-quality fleet.

Founded by John Ramming in 1992 in Austin, TX, the company operates a San Antonio branch and covers South Central Texas, from Dallas to the Gulf Coast and from Houston to El Paso. They run four paving crews from San Antonio and in Austin run two 500-ton-per-hour hot mix asphalt plants and a modern fleet of tri-axle 16-cu.-yd. and 22-cu.-yd. "belly dump" material transporters.

Because the company covers such a vast area and specializes in many forms, shapes, sizes, and quantities of hot mix asphalt paving projects in its service area, about the smallest job they will do would by a city street patch. Their largest project would be a single major state highway project involving 100,000 tons of HMA.

"One of the most important aspects of our overall operation lies in preventive maintenance and routine overhaul. In conjunction with that goes good dealer service and factory support when it's needed," Schneider says.

He says the company's mix of equipment enables it to handle paving work ranging from driveways to patching and paving industrial parking lots, full-width streets in new subdivisions, remote ranch roads, and aircraft landing strips.

"When you have hot mix asphalt to put down on the ground you have only a limited amount of time to do this," Schneider says. "And that calls for both dependability and reliability in a laydown machine."