This week, host Taylor White of Ken White Construction sits down with Julie Evans Sanders, Chief of Operations at H. W. Tucker Co. in Arkansas, and fourth-generation construction business owner, to discuss the unique challenges and rewards of leading a family-owned company in the dynamic world of construction. Julie shares her invaluable insights on bridging generational divides, fostering employee loyalty, and thriving in a competitive market.
Running a successful multi-generational business is a dream for many, but adapting to a changing workforce while upholding core values can be a delicate balancing act. Julie’s journey, as shared here today, offers valuable lessons in navigating these complexities and building an enduring legacy. This episode is essential listening for anyone in construction, but especially those involved in family businesses.
Topics:
- Getting a degree - when is it worth getting advanced education?
- The importance of high school trade programs, internships, and apprenticeships
- Bridging the generational gap in the construction workforce
- Finding a work-life balance
- Making equipment investments at the right time
- Innovations in rock crushing and material reuse
- Preserving the family legacy, while adapting to the modern workforce
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Episode transcript:
Taylor White: Julie, thanks for coming on. How about you tell us a little bit about your family business and how you're a fourth generation?
Julie Evans Sanders: My great grandfather started the company in 1953. What kind of started out mostly as concrete work. Then my grandfather married my great grandfather's daughter, and then they had my dad, so that when my dad got involved, we kind of geared more towards excavation, and then they added in underground utility work towards, I'd say, the ‘90s. And then I got involved in 2015.
Taylor White: Wow.
Julie Evans Sanders: Now, I'm fourth generation and it's a whole lot of fun.
Taylor White: So did you know that you were always going to kind of go this path? Because for me it was like, I'm third generation as well too, so I can kind of relate. And growing up, for me, I actually had this conversation with one of our sales guys the other day. He was like, “Did you always think you wanted to do this?” And for me, since day one, this was it. Was that kind of the same with you or not at all?
Julie Evans Sanders: For me, no. So when I was really little, I wanted to be a forensic pathologist. I loved crime shows and I just thought that's what I want to do. And then when I graduated from high school in 2012, I was going to go to Fayetteville, the University of Arkansas, and I actually enrolled in the ROTC program. I wanted to be a pilot, and I thought that's what I wanted to do. The first semester there, I realized, nope, I want to be home. I miss my family. Like, I love y'all. I need to be with y'all all the time. And then that's really how I got deciding that that was what I wanted to do when I moved to Fayetteville and I got away from everybody.
Taylor White: But you did, you went to college and you got a master's degree in construction management In the University of Arkansas, Little Rock?
Julie Evans Sanders: Yes. So actually I went to the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and I got a bachelor's degree in education first.
Taylor White: Wow.
Julie Evans Sanders: Yes. So when I graduated high school, it was kind of in the time where everybody was pressuring you, you have to have a degree if you're going to be successful.
Taylor White: Classic.
Julie Evans Sanders: So my grandfather said, “Hey, just go get a degree and something you can fall back on and I'll pay for it.” Nobody in my family had ever gone to college. So I decided that's what I was going to do in education. And I graduated. I got up there. I graduated in three years. Like I said, I knew I wanted to be home. I was cramming every class that I could cram, taking summer courses. What do I have to do to graduate and get home? Spring break, fall break, anything. I was at home working. We had a big, huge project going on. So I was driving an off road dump truck for most of the time that I was at Fayetteville.
Taylor White: And like a 735, 740 like a rock truck?
Julie Evans Sanders: Yeah. We had two Terexes and 250 Cat haul truck.
Taylor White: Bouncing around on your time off. Yeah, I like it.
Julie Evans Sanders: If I was there, I had the Cat truck and the other guys had to have the Terex trucks. That was the rule.
Taylor White: I like that.
Julie Evans Sanders: And when I graduated in 2015, I came back and started working full time in the office with my grandfather. And then he would teach me how to do takeoffs and estimates and things like that. And he was like, “Why don't you go take some construction classes?” I instantly had hesitations. I'm like, “I'm done with college. I don't want to do that.” And then I looked into the program at University of Arkansas, Little Rock, and I really liked the courses that were offered and decided that I was going to enroll and do a non-traditional master's program.
Taylor White: Nice. That's really cool. You said something interesting and I really wanted to ask you. You're kind of like my family who were kind of like, “Hey, you got to go to college or else you won't be successful.” Do you agree with that? Do you think you need– If you have had kids or having kids, are you going to put it in their brains that you need to go to college to be successful? Because I'm in the same boat. I have young children. I'm having my third soon. And it's like constantly thinking about it in my head. You don't want to be like the only parent that's telling their kids, “It's fine. Just work your ass off, you're good.” But I don't know.
Julie Evans Sanders: So that's a tricky question because I think it depends on what you want to do in the construction industry. For example, when I look at my two children, my daughter's seven and she's like me, she's a math whiz. And if she wants to work in a family business, no, I don't think she has to. If she wanted to go work for some big wig construction company, they're going to want that college degree. If my son wants to, he already loves equipment, focus on that, no, don't go to college. Just set into work.
Taylor White: I like that. Yeah, I totally agree with that. But even outside of construction, I think there's a lot of courses, well, especially up here in Canada that people take. It's like, “Really? That's a course that you can pay tens of thousands of dollars to take.” I could see lawyer, doctor, teacher, all that stuff. That's for sure. But some of the stuff now is just crazy. Which was interesting. So I guess maybe traditionally for us, opportunity, especially with your kids. Your kids are going to have an opportunity that you had. My kids have an opportunity. And there's lots of people that are listening right now that are in a family business as well. But what would you recommend, I guess, for students or they're in high school and they're about to make the transition into their life after high school. Do you think that they should be looking at some college courses to get in construction or just get out there and start working?
Julie Evans Sanders: I think get out there and start working. Since you mentioned high school students, this is something that I think other areas in the country besides my hometown should work on. But Vilonia High School actually opened up a program called Vilonia Pathways Academy. And it is for students that know college is not for them. And when they are in 9th and 10th grade, they go to class just like a normal student would. But they have industry partners, our business, along with a whole lot of other construction companies in the area. And they take field trips to these jobs, they show the kids, here's dirt work, here's utilities.
Taylor White: That’s so cool.
Julie Evans Sanders: It's awesome. And then when they are 11th and 12th grade, they go to school part time and actually do an internship with businesses. So it's just allowing them to “Hey, college isn't for me, but I don't know what's out there.”
Taylor White: You know, they need more of that. And like we do something here called co-op. I don't know if they have something like that, but like the local high school that I went to, even the co-op teacher that I had, she's still there and she gives us probably two or three kids a year. They just come on and it's non-paid work until they reach the hours and then we pay them. There's no better way to decide whether you want to be blue collar than actually work in blue collar. And we have a string of employees that have been here since the very start of their working career because they were in co-op with us and carried on that through. So I think programs like that like the one that you're talking about are kind of super important. But staying on the topic of like students and stuff, I think it's really interesting because we're both young for the construction industry and I always find it interesting, especially you being fourth generation, I mean your business has probably changed. Not even just size or growth or whatever, but I'm talking like culture and dynamic and beliefs and mission statements. I mean, obviously, stuff remains core. But is there anything you think that a young, fresher mind kind of brings to the table that we should be changing not only for ourselves, but for the industry as a whole?
Julie Evans Sanders: I think just something at our age that we bring to the table is just bridging the gap. I mean our company specifically, we have employees that have been there five years to, let's see, Eunice has been there 59 years this year.
Taylor White: No way.
Julie Evans Sanders: We have an 88-year-old concrete finisher that comes to work every day.
Taylor White: Yeah, that's awesome. I love that dude. That guy. I'd love to talk to him. He probably–
Julie Evans Sanders: He will outwork everybody else, I promise.
Taylor White: Oh, he’s probably the first one there.
Julie Evans Sanders: He is. But it's just bridging that gap because when you do have so many employees that are more old school, and then you bring in these young employees that are the GPS and all kinds of stuff, we bridge that gap really well in continuing the company.
Taylor White: I like this conversation because I grew up old school. My father is very old school and my grandfather was very old school. So inherently, I kind of am as well too. And what I struggle with is exactly what you just said. And we need more of that. I'd love to know what you're doing to kind of help bridge that gap. But I struggle with it as well. Just with the new workforce. I'll say an example this morning, and hopefully, my employees are listening. It's not too often that I go and start off a job site in the morning, but this morning we were stitching job sites. We're about three weeks away from Christmas shutdown, so we're doing a bunch of these small projects just to get us through to that until new ones are firing up. And I said, “Well, I'll meet you guys on site this morning.” So back in the day, my dad would leave home at 6:00 in the morning to be on site early. And he'd be like, “Go, grease the machine, do this.” But the guys, they take a little bit longer now. So I'm like, “Okay. I'll leave home at like 6:20 to get to the site at like 6:40.” My wife was like, “Why are you still home right now having a coffee?” I'm just downstairs waiting. I'm like, “These guys, I show up at 6:40, no one's there. 6:50, no one's there. 7:00, no one's there.” I sent a text to my foreman. I said, “Dude, your boss is beating you to the job site, that's not impressive. Come on.” And then they get there and it's like my father I could hear him being like, “Don't hound the guys.” Because sometimes I can be hard on our guys. But I think that that's a perfect example of just how I was raised and how it is now. And I'm not saying they're right or wrong. Obviously, being late is not okay, but there was no urgency or anxiety in them. Like if I woke up after my father when I was a kid and was at the job site after him, the internal anxiety is freaking out of me being like “Holy, get my gear on.” And I'm like 100 miles an hour just to get to the job site. I feel like it's kind of gone. I'm not saying out of everybody, but anyways, that was my long tangent story to basically say how are you bridging that gap? What do you see in the new generation and how do we kind of maybe work around that stuff from a yousef to the new guys?
Julie Evans Sanders: I totally agree with you. We tell our guys time starts at 7:00. And we have an office in North Little Rock that a lot of employees come out of, our concrete crew does. But then our excavation and utility projects, they just meet on site and at 7:00 they're pulling in, 6:59 running, clock in, or 10 minutes late and they're just like, “I don't care.” And so yes, I completely see that problem. I just think incentives are the only way to really work with a new– If you give them a reason to show up early, they're going to, but if you don't, they're not going to.
Taylor White: Yeah, I totally agree. You need to have incentives for them or else– And it's hard because you don't want to sit here and rag on them and say like the next generation isn't– Because trust me, we have an awesome crew and our crew's very young and we got some good workers. I just think that, I don't know, I just feel like more than not of the other generation kind of have a more nonchalant about their job, now I sound like the old guy, more of a self entitlement of like you're lucky to have me versus the other way around. When I was going out in Alberta working the pipeline, I busted my ass to get a job for four weeks showing up to this guy's office every day with a double, double coffee. And I remember him telling me, “You got this job Taylor, based on persistence because you showed up every single day and bugged me to the point I have job interviews now, Julie. And they walk away and go all right, well I'll let you know.
Julie Evans Sanders: Wow.
Taylor White: And I'm like, “What? You're going to let me know? How does that work?” Do you find that now? Do you find that the power even during COVID times, I feel like though the power shifted because it was like there everybody needed laborers. So it was like you needed to make it look like you had this rainbows and ice cream place to work and be like, “We give everybody $100 just for showing up every day.” And it's like, what the heck.
Julie Evans Sanders: I completely agree. I think that, yes, we sound like our parents and grandparents.
Taylor White: But it's interesting, how is your dynamic in being a fourth generation? So is it you? Do you have other siblings that are in the business as well?
Julie Evans Sanders: It's just myself and my twin sister. My family also has a farm and she chose to focus on the farm and I do the construction business.
Taylor White: Cattle or cash crop?
Julie Evans Sanders: Both. We're farming just under 4,000 acres total. And then I want to say she would tell me that we have about 400 mama cows.
Taylor White: Cool.
Julie Evans Sanders: And then they grow crop rice, beans, wheat and corn.
Taylor White: Nice. That's really cool. So what's it like? I guess it's kind of like the other question, but more specifically, what's it like being– Because I knew what it was like growing up in the third generation and I'm not even a woman. It was like a silver spoon fed. I had to earn my respect out there. And I have, but it took a lot. And I still get those comments at 31, I'm like, “Dude, I got three kids. I got my own kids now. How can I still be this entitled kid?” But how do a fourth generation woman, 31 years old, doing construction, telling guys what to do?
Julie Evans Sanders: I think it just came over time. At first, if I asked somebody to do something, they would call my dad, “Hey, Julie's asking for this.” And it’s like, okay.
Taylor White: I hate when they undermine you.
Julie Evans Sanders: Yes. And then now if I ask somebody to do something, I've earned their respect and I've earned their trust. And I think it comes through them realizing that if something's wrong or they need something in the office, or just realizing, okay, she is running the show, she's got it.
Taylor White: I like that. Yeah, it's a tough dynamic. And when they undermine you, that is the worst. But like you said, it comes down to just kind of your personality and making sure that you can handle those kinds of tough conversations. Do you think that it's hard kind of maintaining being fourth generation like staying true to your family's legacies? And like I was saying before, the core values of the business, but also kind of creating your own path.
Julie Evans Sanders: I don't really look at work as how can I make a name for Julie with H.W. Tucker? I still look at every day as what can I do to make H.W. tucker better? And I feel like within that my name and my path will be there. I think our legacy is built on honesty, quality work. My grandfather's still a handshake is as good as a contract.
Taylor White: I like that.
Julie Evans Sanders: And most of our customers we've had for 50 years and they don't call other people, they call us. We rarely bid for work anymore. I would say I love that less than 10% of our annual work we bid. And that is what my great grandfather and my grandfather have established over so many years. So I just think as long as we stick to our values and quality work, that's really all we can do.
Taylor White: That's awesome. That's a huge flex. That's awesome.That shows a lot about your business and what you do. What is your favorite thing, I guess, part of the business? What's your favorite part of the business that you do? Is it earth moving, utilities, concrete? What is it?
Julie Evans Sanders: So I don't get to work out on a job site anymore. When I was out of college, I was able to work on the job site and it was actually our largest excavation project. We had utilities on the job too, but we brought in about 300,000 yards of material at the Bass Pro in Little Rock, Arkansas where the outlet malls are. And I think excavation became my favorite just because of that. It was a swamp. And here I am in an off road dump truck. All summer long, it was in phases, but all summer long, spring break, Christmas break. And I would definitely say excavation is my favorite just because it's completely different from day one to when you're done. And anybody that drives down that street for the next 50 years is not going to have any idea how much work actually went into it.
Taylor White: Yeah, that is cool. I like driving around and being like, “We did that, we did that.” It is a really cool, pride moment. What's your everyday look like then within the business? Are you overseeing stuff like CFO or controller stuff or more project management?
Julie Evans Sanders: I don't do it all, but I pretty much. There's not one thing that goes through the business that doesn't go through me. I get there 30 minutes before everybody gets there. I say that there's two other people that are there with me. And I handle sending out bids. I don't do the estimating, but I do type out our estimates, get them sent over. I handle all of our contracts and billing. I oversee payroll. I oversee just about everything.
Taylor White: You have your finger on the pulse.
Julie Evans Sanders: I do.
Taylor White: How do you do all this and manage? You said that you had kids as well too, and especially being a mom too. How do you manage to do all that and be a mom?
Julie Evans Sanders: It's a lot. And this past year has really been my most challenging year. I get to work early, so I start at 6:30 and I get off work at 2:00. That allows me to go pick my kids up from school.
Taylor White: Nice.
Julie Evans Sanders: And go home and I have the afternoon with my kids. But I still answer my phone, check emails, all hours of the day, all hours of the night. So I'm still working. But it, it is nice that I can leave the office and still be with my family in the afternoon.
Taylor White: How did you come to figure out that work life balance? And thinking of just leaving the office is just like, oh, man good for you for doing that because I'm sure you had to force yourself to do that.
Julie Evans Sanders: I definitely have to force myself to leave. And there's times where I'm pushing it. I'm 15 minutes late to school. It took me a long time to get to the point that I know it's okay, it can be here tomorrow.
Taylor White: Other business owners listening and hearing that. I mean, you're so right. It's hard because there's times you'll see an email at 7:00 or 8:00 at night and you're like messaging my estimator, my coordinator, being like, “I need answers on this now.” But if you have the mindset of like, “Okay. It could be answered tomorrow.” Because there's so many times that my night gets ruined. Like this week, we were doing this change order on this commercial site and this guy was me off and he's trying to get us to throw in free work. And I'm like, “No.” And he's like texting me this. And I hate texting this stuff. I'm like, “Call me.” “Sorry, I can't call you. I'm at home with my kids.” And I'm like, “Stop being a–. When you're at home with your kids and just call me.” But it ruined my night. And my wife was like, “Just put your phone away. Stop responding to them.” And I'm like, “I can't, I can't do it.” So kudos to you. I'm not saying that you don't do that, but I'm saying it sounds like you honestly have a way better grasp on the work life kind of balance than I have managed to find myself.
Julie Evans Sanders: Yeah. And like I said, it took me a long time to get there. And I'm not saying that when I leave at 2:00, I'm not done with work. A lot of our employees are like family. So we do all text. It may be 9:00 at night and plans change for tomorrow, so everybody's texting each other, “Hey, we're going to do this.” But if it can wait, it can wait.
Taylor White: Yeah, it's almost harder to do than say, but I really respect that you can actually do that. I would like to know what motivates you working in construction. Is it family legacy? Is it chasing that next big project? Is it growth?
Julie Evans Sanders: It doesn't motivate me to be a woman in construction. I can say that because I don't look at myself as, “Oh, I'm a woman in construction.” I'm no different than anybody else. I think what motivates me every day is our employees. I know earlier we discussed that we have an employee that's 88 and he's been with us for 59 years. But in the last 10 years, I have heard so many of our employees talk about what my dad, my grandfather, and my great grandfather have done for their families over the years. So I just know that they're relying on us. So I need to make sure that I'm doing the best I can so that our employees have everything they can have for their families.
Taylor White: That was a perfect answer. That's what I would have thought of afterwards to say if somebody asked me that. That is awesome. You're so dedicated to your employees and everything like that. And I really like that that's like the first thing that comes to your mind. I love that. I am interested, though. Tell me a little bit about your great grandfather. Did you ever get to meet your great grandfather?
Julie Evans Sanders: So my great grandfather passed away, maybe I was 9 months old. He passed away before I turned one year old. And so everything that I know about him is more so stories that I've been told over the years.
Taylor White: I love history, and I love construction history. Are there any cool stories from when he was getting started up? Or do you guys have any old cool machinery that he had when he was back in the day? I love that stuff.
Julie Evans Sanders: We do. The way the business first came about, there was a construction company that had, I guess, a contract for the concrete work at the Air Force base in Little Rock. And that company went under, so he, I guess bought out or took over that company, and that's how it turned into H.W. Tucker. And he performed all of the concrete work on the Little Rock Air Force base.
Taylor White: And this would have been ‘40s, ‘50s.
Julie Evans Sanders: Beginning of 50s. That's how we actually got started. Equipment. We do have a very old motor grader that sits at the entrance to our farm.
Taylor White: I knew it. I knew you guys had something in the lawn ornament sitting there. I could just tell.
Julie Evans Sanders: We do.
Taylor White: I love that. I mean, the history and stuff is so cool and unique. I guess if I had some secret hobby, it would be watching on YouTube. If I have time to sit there and watch stuff, old construction videos or just old projects and stuff. And I just love the history. I collect old construction machines. My wife says I'm a hoarder, but I like old because I like old farm tractors and stuff. Old farm all and stuff. So I love hearing that. Fourth generation. How many years has H.W. Tucker been in business then?
Julie Evans Sanders: This coming year will be 72.
Taylor White: What's the plan going forward with it? Do you want to grow this thing massive? Do you want to stay what you are?
Julie Evans Sanders: No. So we have been in a sweet spot for 10, 15 years, and right now we have 49 employees. I don't see us ever bridging that 50 because it's just a whole new ballgame when you get to 50 employees. But to have 49 employees, we're still really small. I just hired one extra helper, so there's only three of us in the office.
Taylor White: You’ve managed 49 people with three office staff. Wow.
Julie Evans Sanders: It's a lot.
Taylor White: Low overhead. That's impressive. Good for you. I have five office staff and we have 21 people.
Julie Evans Sanders: And there's nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that at all.
Taylor White: Now, I'm like, “Okay. I'm way too top heavy. That's great. Everybody's fired.” So you're in a sweet spot and I was asking about growth. Do you want to continue that or or stay in that sweet spot and just manage it and just continue to make your business a really good business to work at and be at?
Julie Evans Sanders: No, I think we will stay right below 49 employees because if we do bridge that 50 gap, we will have to have more help just because HR, everything is a complete new ballgame once you get to 50 employees. So naturally, more overhead, it's going to take more everything to balance that out. So I think we'll just stay where we're at and just focus on making it the best we can.
Taylor White: You guys have equal parts, earth moving, concrete, or is concrete like the biggest part of your business?
Julie Evans Sanders: No. So years ago, concrete was the biggest part. Now excavation and utility work is the majority of what we do. And then concrete, I would say maybe 30%.
Taylor White: Now, is that because of lack of work for that or is it because maybe, like you mentioned, you really enjoy this other stuff more?
Julie Evans Sanders: I think it has to do with the size of the projects we pick up. So we can pick up one or two dirt projects for the whole year. And naturally, the bigger the job, the more money.
Taylor White: Yeah, 100%. So you're on some big mass earth moving projects.
Julie Evans Sanders: Correct.
Taylor White: So tell me the lineup. Tell me what you got. Do you have some scrapers? Do you have dozers, excavators?
Julie Evans Sanders: We do.
Taylor White: You got rock trucks?
Julie Evans Sanders: We currently only have one haul truck because we moved two to the boneyard. We have maybe three or four motor graders, maybe seven bulldozers, D3 up to D8. We have a D8 in. We have 312, 320, 322, three 336s and a 345 trackhoe.
Taylor White: Nice. You got a lot of iron.
Julie Evans Sanders: We do. We like to be able to have equipment sitting because you blow a line or something and it takes all day to go get on that other machine. That's something that my dad and my grandfather actually really disagreed on for a long time. Because my grandfather sees equipment as assets you don't need. And my dad sees it as no, because it's going to cost us a lot of money to be broke down for a day. And my grandpa's very old school and he got it from my great grandfather. But my grandpa doesn't believe in debt and he's like, “If you can't buy something, you don't need it.” So it's taken all three of us to come up with a brand new excavator and it's taken all three of us to really grasp, “Okay. Are we going to finance this? Because we can leave this money in the bank and draw interest on it for 36 months, 0% interest. Why would you not leave that money in the bank?” But my grandpa's like, “No, no debt. Pay it off.”
Taylor White: Crazy.
Julie Evans Sanders: Yeah, it's different.
Taylor White:
Awesome. I'm saying crazy like that's crazy for me. I'm the opposite.During COVID, interest rates were low. We bought $7 or $8 million worth of machinery all at 0% or 1.9%. And I'm like, “I'll keep my money to float ourselves.” Up here, we're super seasonal. Are you guys seasonal work? Do you shut down in the winter?
Julie Evans Sanders: We don't shut down in the winter. Naturally, if it rains for two weeks straight, yeah, you're done. But no, we don't shut down.
Taylor White: You guys aren't frosting up minus 40? Well, that's Celsius, I guess, minus 35 Fahrenheit or anything.
Julie Evans Sanders: We can't pour concrete, but that's it.
Taylor White: Yeah. See, with us it's super seasonal. So basically we have six months to make enough revenue to carry ourselves through the winter to sit. There's projects and we have stuff going, but generally up here it's big. Winter layoff is a big thing. So over leveraging yourself is pretty scary. We leveraged ourselves hard when the money was good and it paid off because now we have a bunch of paid off assets and we went into a bit of a, I don't know, maybe a slower year, but I'm not sure yet what it's going to be like. But it's just interesting hearing that because I'm in the mindset that my cash is worth more to me to keep and help if it was bad down times or something. Finance, finance it. Go. And I love that mindset of debt's bad. It's such a good place to be.
Julie Evans Sanders: My dad and myself would agree with you that debt is okay.
Taylor White: Yeah.
Julie Evans Sanders: My grandpa, however, he's the one that says no.
Taylor White: So it must have been a huge deal then for you guys to be like, okay, we're thinking about financing something for 36 months, and it's $50,000. It's like, what?
Julie Evans Sanders: Yeah, my dad, he was like, “I just signed the biggest purchase order of my life.” And I was like, “Oh, my gosh.”
Taylor White: That's crazy. Yeah. So what's your iron like? You're either replacing parts or you're making payments. The difference when work slows up is the parts stop, payments don't. But downtime with the payments is very little versus when you have your replacing parts with older stuff. So do you guys have older stuff or have you been renewing your machinery?
Julie Evans Sanders: We have both. And I think with how much inventory we have as far as equipment goes, it makes sense that some stuff is– When we've spent too much money on it, my dad does really good at keeping up with how much work our mechanics are putting into things. We just take it to the boneyard and we get every last thing we can. It'll sit in the boneyard for 20 more years, and we may pull this off of it, pull that off of it. But we definitely have probably 50-50 as far as old stuff versus new stuff.
Taylor White: So when you said you took the terror axes to the boneyard, I thought you meant you took it to a scrapyard, scrapped it. You keep them? What’s your boneyard look like?
Julie Evans Sanders: It's a mess. And the mechanics don't want to go there in the summertime. They take like a whole case of wasp spray.
Taylor White: And ticks.
Julie Evans Sanders: Oh, yeah, it's rough.
Taylor White: Oh, man. Your boneyard's probably crazy. You probably have some crazy things in there.
Julie Evans Sanders: There's some ‘70 model pickups. Everything. We rarely sell anything.
Taylor White: Oh, man. There's a company around us that you guys remind me of. I love it. That's kind of my thinking as well. When I first came into the business six, seven years ago, we traded in some excavators that were in good condition. We traded them in order to upgrade to bigger, newer ones. And it's crazy how my mindset has changed in six months. And I would never do that ever again. I will run stuff until it rots, until the floorboard is out of it other than a personal pickup or something. I like my nice trucks. But machinery just runs it till it's dead. And I love that mindset. And you guys are like, you'll keep it and just pull parts off. Oh, we need a turbo. Or, oh, we need this part. Or, oh, we need this piece, this panel. That's so smart.
Julie Evans Sanders: And you may have a trackhoe that the motor blew up, but it has a brand new undercarriage on it. It's got value.
Taylor White: You call an excavator a trackhoe.
Julie Evans Sanders: Correct.
Taylor White: Okay So I like that. What other words? So when I say rock truck, you called that a what?
Julie Evans Sanders: A haul truck.
Taylor White: A haul truck. I guess we use the word haul truck. We call them rock trucks, though.
Julie Evans Sanders: Okay. What do you call a motor grader?
Taylor White: Yeah, just graders.
Julie Evans Sanders: Okay. And my grandpa calls them motor patrols.
Taylor White: Oh, really?
Julie Evans Sanders: That's apparently what they used to call them was motor patrols.
Taylor White: Okay. And then we say dozer. Like, “Go hop in that dozer over there.” You say dozer?
Julie Evans Sanders: Dozer, bulldozer. Yeah, interchangeably.
Taylor White: What else is there? What about like a triaxle dump truck?
Julie Evans Sanders: I just call it a dump truck.
Taylor White: Skid steer.
Julie Evans Sanders: Skid steer.
Taylor White: Loader.
Julie Evans Sanders: Loader.
Taylor White: Yeah. You don't say, “Oh, it's a wheeled loader or something like that.”
Julie Evans Sanders: No, I just call it a loader.
Taylor White: See, when you say trackhoe, though, I would think that you're saying– Because down south, and especially you guys will still use– Oh, man. My grandfather started our business with one. It's a bulldozer, but it's got a backhoe front end on a track. Why can't I think of it? You know what I'm saying?
Julie Evans Sanders: I do. I can see it.
Taylor White: I don’t have the word for it. I think that's what we call a track hoe. I can't believe the words out of my mind right now. I literally talk about buying one all the time. Cat still makes them, but they're not super popular. But they're bulldozers. But the front end is a bucket and it lifts up. Man, that's going to frustrate me. Do you guys use those? You know what I'm talking about?
Julie Evans Sanders: We do not. And I really don't know anybody around us that does. So maybe that's why everybody down south calls it a trackhoe.
Taylor White: Maybe. And then do you run scrapers?
Julie Evans Sanders: We do. We have several different scrapers. It just really depends on the material we're in. If you're in rock, it's not going to do any good.
Taylor White: Do you guys have rock down there?
Julie Evans Sanders: We do. And it depends on what side of the Arkansas rive we're working on.
Taylor White: What side of the Arkansas river. I love that, dude. One side is this the other side– See, with us, it's just like, no one has a scraper within 500 kilometers of us. I've actually never even seen a scraper being used in my life. I bought an old John Deere 8640 in 80s and it's to pull sand with a dump wagon at our sand pit. A lot of guys down there. You guys use tractors and quad tracks, pull scrapers. I have a buddy in Indiana that willpower, that's all he uses. And it's crazy, your soil. I just was always fascinated by it.So is one side just clay and one side is just whatever?
Julie Evans Sanders: One side's more sandy, and the other side, it just gets thick. It's like a gumbo.
Taylor White: And it rains. It's all like– Oh, yeah. Crazy. So what are some big projects that you're on right now that you're pretty proud of?
Julie Evans Sanders: We started a job in Cabot last year, and it's solid rock.
Taylor White: So do you hoe ram? Do you say hoe ram?
Julie Evans Sanders: We do not. We just say hammer.
Taylor White: Do you know what I mean when I said hoe ram?
Julie Evans Sanders: Yeah, we do put a hammer on the trackhoe. And we actually made the decision. My dad, it was his idea. And I had doubts at first, but now I'm completely on board. But we actually bought a crusher last year. A used crusher. It was not new.
Taylor White: What is it? A Powerscreen, Huski?
Julie Evans Sanders: It’s Powerscreen.
Taylor White: Chieftain?
Julie Evans Sanders: Yeah.
Taylor White: 1400, 1800?
Julie Evans Sanders: I honestly do not know.
Taylor White: I love it. I love it.
Julie Evans Sanders: I'd have to look up what the size is.
Taylor White: I’m so happy you got a Powerscreen. I got Powerscreen models here. I love Powerscreen. I got a Powerscreen Warrior 1400 for screening dirt. And I love their chieftains, their crushing plants. Great brand. Good buy.
Julie Evans Sanders: It's made us money, so that's all you can really ask for. But whenever we're hammering, instead of having to just find somewhere to go with all of it, you're able to reuse your materials. So we're just finding different ways to be green and save money.
Taylor White: That's awesome. So what are you making out of that rock? What kind of rock is it? Bedrock, limestone, granite?
Julie Evans Sanders: I would say it's more of a lime type stone.
Taylor White: Is your rock gray?
Julie Evans Sanders: Gray and white.
Taylor White: Really?
Julie Evans Sanders: And red. There's a lot of clay.
Taylor White: Wow. And so you're screening it. Do you know if I asked what kind of setup you're running on it? Are you making 2-inch, 4-inch, 3 quarter?
Julie Evans Sanders: That would be my dad. I know they can screen three different size materials out of it.
Taylor White: Nice. And you got conveyors coming off each one, stacking it up into piles. That's so sick. That's a really cool job.
Julie Evans Sanders: It's just neat to watch. I mean, I could sit there for half a day and just watch them crush.
Taylor White: Breaking that much rock and. And are you drilling and blasting any or just strictly hoe ramming?
Julie Evans Sanders: We are using a hammer and a ribber on the D8. That’s how we're breaking it up and pushing.
Taylor White: You rip the rock with a ripper. Do you go through any of the steel shanks? Do those just like pop off?
Julie Evans Sanders: No. You need to go to our Facebook page and watch a video of them ripping with the 8.
Taylor White: I will right after this.
Julie Evans Sanders: Nice. But we also crush our concrete, so a lot of the work we do, we tear out concrete. So why not reuse it and crush it?
Taylor White: You can sell it and I'm sure do other– Well, I guess you probably counted as an aggregate internally, but a lot of people, a lot of guys here, they'll sell crush concrete. And a lot of guys will use it for a substitute to save some money building a base for a haul road or something like that. Yep, it's a great product for that. That's really cool. That sounds really cool. Any other cool projects?
Julie Evans Sanders: We have so many projects. I'm trying to think of something a little different.
Taylor White: I guess you guys don't plow snow or anything like that because you don't get snow.
Julie Evans Sanders: No, we get ice. We don't get snow. We get ice.
Taylor White: So do you guys do any winter like kind of management of snow or ice if it does.
Julie Evans Sanders: Sometimes the county. Sometimes the county will reach out and ask us to help plow the roads, so we get our grader and plow the roads. We're doing a job in Conway right now that's a little bit different. It's a cold storage facility and it's huge. It's about a hundred thousand yard job. But we are digging that shell ourselves. And the haul is literally like 10 minutes down the road, maybe seven minutes down the road. So the closer the haul, the more trucks are involved. So, yeah, it's been cool just to watch this job really take shape so fast because of all the trucks we have hauling.
Taylor White: How are things looking down in Arkansas? And I guess all these jobs that you're saying, how far away from home base are these?
Julie Evans Sanders: The majority of our work is within 30 minutes of home base. Now, we do pick up work that's two hours all around the state of Arkansas. But we send a dirt crew up, we put them in a hotel for a couple weeks, and then we send the concrete crew up to do the concrete work. It's nothing that they have to stay out of town for long periods of time.
Taylor White: So do you actively try to bid work further? Well, I guess you're not really bidding much, but I know you are. So do you try to find stuff a little further away if you're like, ah, the money might be right in this, and maybe some other people can't bid on this so we will or try to stay local?
Julie Evans Sanders: No, so we stay local. The only work that we do outside of central Arkansas is for these contractors that we do all of their work for.
Taylor White: You follow the work with them.
Julie Evans Sanders: We will. It's mostly apartments, the government assisted living, things like that that they pop up everywhere we go, do their work.
Taylor White: I did a podcast with another guy from Arkansas once. Do you know Trebo? He's on Instagram.
Julie Evans Sanders: I don’t.
Taylor White: Trebo. You don't?
Julie Evans Sanders: No. I'll have to look him up.
Taylor White: Oh, man, he's a riot. He's from Pine Bluff.
Julie Evans Sanders: I know where Pine Bluff is. Is he like the really funny person?
Taylor White: He's like, “Hey, y'all.” He answered questions and he's always got a chew in his mouth. He's always wearing a Cat hat. He dresses like my grandpa dressed. And that's why I think I love him because he always got the collared shirt, the rolled up sleeves half up on his shoulder, and he's like, “Hey, y'all. I'm gonna talk to you today about the– “ And he just goes on talking about stuff.
Julie Evans Sanders: I may have seen his stuff.
Taylor White: Bohannan Dirt.
Julie Evans Sanders: Is he the one that was in front of a truck the other day on social media and one of the tires as slick as could be?
Taylor White: Yeah.
Julie Evans Sanders: Okay. I do. I do see his stuff.
Taylor White: Yeah, he's very interesting. And we were talking about the economy and stuff. I'm always here. I mean, it sounds like you guys are super busy, but what are things looking like down in Arkansas? And especially, I mean, you guys just had an election and stuff like that.
Julie Evans Sanders: We did. So for us, things are looking good. There's always hesitation anytime an election comes up
Taylor White: I think you're safe.
Julie Evans Sanders: Trump has a lot of ties to the construction industry, so I really don't see him wanting to do anything to really hurt the construction industry. There's a lot of interstate work in our area, and that's really what we're struggling with the most. One of the largest jobs ever been in Arkansas is right in our back door. And you can't get concrete because the highway gets concrete.
Taylor White: Crazy. That's wild. Yeah. I really think the outlook for you guys is going to be really good. I don't think the outlook for us in Canada is going to be really good because I think our Prime Minister just went down there and met with Trump. And I saw on Fox News that Trump told him, “Well, if you can't handle my 25% tariffs, then maybe you should just become the 51st state.” And that made– Have you seen that?
Julie Evans Sanders: I have not that's kind of concerning for y'all.
Taylor White: Yeah, I know. I'm like, dude, our prime minister is so weak. Let's go. Anyways, I'm excited for you guys. And I think you got a lot of cool things going on with your fourth generation business, Julie. And, yeah, I'm actually really excited to see where you guys are headed and what you kind of got going. But to be honest with you, it sounds like you have a lot of really cool things on the go, and I know that you understand that. So I want to thank you for coming on today and being on the CONEXPO podcast with us.
Julie Evans Sanders: Thank you. It's been a lot of fun.
Taylor White: Yeah, I appreciate it. All right, everybody. That is the podcast for today. Make sure to check us out everywhere that podcast is hosted. And thank you Julie for being on.
