Things weren't looking so good for the Road Reclamation division of Slurry Pavers. Just three years after they started doing road reclamation, Slurry was considering selling its equipment and getting out of the business. The company planned on dumping the division that was losing some $300,000 a year and focusing on its established, profitable divisions.

As a last-ditch attempt to salvage what they thought could be a profitable line of work, Slurry Pavers moved Larry Roberts into the manager's position of the Reclamation division in August, 2001. Within two years the division turned a profit. In October 2006 Slurry started work on its biggest job to date, the new 4th Runway construction project at Washington Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. The expanded Road Reclamation and Soil Stabilization division now accounts for 14 percent of Slurry's revenue.

Secrets to Success
The keys to this amazing turn-around? Roberts cites three. First, Slurry had to expand its vision. "We were doing only full-depth reclamation." With FDR a machine passes over a pavement section, pulverizing the existing asphalt and underlying materials in place. This material is then mixed together in place with cement, lime, or asphalt emulsion to form a stabilized base material for pavement. It's a quick, cost-effective way of rebuilding a pavement section by using the in-place materials, which reduces the impact on our environment and eliminates the damage to existing roads due to the hauling of materials

"But there wasn't enough FDR work to keep our crews busy consistently. With low utilization rates for our equipment, we weren't getting an acceptable return on investment." The solution was to move into soil stabilization, where cement (or lime, in wet conditions) is mixed with soil to form a solid base for roads.

Second, Slurry had to get inventive when they couldn't find the equipment they needed. Roberts designed a spreader that lays down cement for soil stabilization because nothing on the market did a satisfactory job. The cement must be laid down evenly and at a specific rate. On the Dulles project, for example, the rate is 45 pounds per square yard. Tolerance is +6 pounds, -0.