ForConstructionPros.com

If one of the reasons to sealcoat a pavement is to improve its appearance, then Pam Darst is the right woman for the job. A former vice president of a cosmetology school, Darst, with assistance from her daughter, Nichole, runs Allied Asphalt, Decatur, IL, a sealcoating business that piggybacks on the name of its parent company, Allied Asphalt. And not surprisingly given her background, she insists the finished job look good.

"Our job is to make people's driveways last longer and look better," Darst says. "We take that seriously so we take some extra steps to make sure everything looks great when we're done."

Pam's husband, Kent, has been in the business himself for 39 years. He worked for his father as a chip seal contractor working throughout much of rural central Illinois and started Allied Asphalt almost 11 years ago. Pam, who started in the industry running a pneumatic roller for a chip seal operation, says Allied Asphalt regularly received calls to do sealcoating work but never pursued the market. Instead they looked at sealcoating almost as "a necessary nuisance" service they had to handle to keep customers happy.

But six years ago she took over the sealcoating part of the company and has transformed it into a steady, profitable part of the business. Allied Asphalt's sealcoating operation offers sealcoating, crack repair, and small-scale patching on residential driveways throughout a 45-mile radius from Decatur. Occasionally Allied also sealcoats commercial properties, but that work is minimal and she does it only as it comes up.

"I don't like to stay in one spot too long. We like to keep moving on," says Darst, who recently qualified for her CDL. "That's one reason we don't do too many commercial parking lots. I like the challenge of keeping things neat for the homeowner and every driveway has something different about it that makes it a little more interesting or more of a challenge."