ForConstructionPros.com

When Mark Yeager was a little kid, he would pass his summer days by going to work with his dad, who was in the asphalt business. In 1978, when Yeager was a junior in high school, his dad suggested that he start a business of his own.

"I borrowed $900 from my pastor, got a pick-up truck, my dad talked to a couple sealer manufacturers he knew and I bought sealer from them, and I went ahead and started knocking on doors," explains Yeager.

Yeager Asphalt, Saginaw, MI, quickly expanded from a two-person sealcoat operation into a full-service driveway and parking lot maintenance provider. Yeager says that he added services over the years as his customers demanded them and as they became practical for the company. He added driveway and parking lot paving in 1980 because at that time there weren't many paving companies in his area that were willing to do small jobs. He says striping was an easy service to bring on board because it gave him the ability to control where and when striping would take place, instead of having to be at the mercy of a subcontractor's schedule. Today the company has 22 employees, a sealcoat manufacturing plant, and offers sealcoating and cracksealing, paving, snowplowing, and StreetPrint, which turned out to be a great addition for Yeager Asphalt.

"When I first started doing StreetPrint, that helped my normal operations grow a little bit more than what it already was because now I could put in a brick border or an address at the end of a driveway, something that no one else could do, and it wasn't that much more expensive for the customer," he explains.

Yeager says he doesn't do any more marketing than anyone else in his area but is always busy. He says while the black and lime green color scheme on Yeager Asphalt's trucks and equipment makes his company highly recognizable to potential customers, his heavy work load is attributable to his reputation as a quality contractor.