ForConstructionPros.com

A good reputation is more valuable than money, Publilius Syrus once said. No matter what industry we work in, building a reputation - and a good one at that - is an essential part of what we do. For Jeff Schmitt and Kettle Moraine Asphalt Maintenance, building a good reputation has been a goal and a source of pride.

The beginning
Schmitt has been the owner of Kettle Moraine Asphalt Maintenance, North Prairie, WI, since he first started the company 25 years ago. Schmitt, whose father worked for an asphalt company, learned his trade early. As a child, he would sealcoat his 850-foot-long driveway every other year. Eventually, Schmitt started to sealcoat his neighbors' driveways, and when he graduated from high school he started his own company.

"I had the niche to do it, and there weren't a lot of people around doing it," Schmitt says of starting a sealcoating company. Plus, since he had grown up sealcoating he already had plenty of experience under his belt.

In the beginning it was just Schmitt, a pickup truck, and a 300-gallon sealcoating tank. Twenty-five years later, Kettle Moraine has a crew of five employees and a name for itself in the southern Wisconsin market.

Sealcoating has always been Schmitt's core business, comprising 75% of his work, he says. But Kettle Moraine offers other pavement maintenance services, too. "As far as the maintenance part, it all goes hand in hand - the patching (both regular and infrared), crack filling, and sealcoating," Schmitt says. He doesn't see patching and crack filling as an extension of his services but as a necessary part of what he does.