You’ve probably heard of the Little Black Book – the book of secrets! But that’s not the only book named for a color. We’ve been hard at work requesting revisions to The Greenbook that designates our industry’s material product and specifications. First published in 1967, The Greebook was a product of a 400-person task force of the Southern California Chapter of the American Public Works Association and the Southern California Districts of the Associated General Contractors of California. Since then, the guide has gone through many updates, been adopted by more than 200 other California cities, counties, and agencies, and served as inspiration for other public works officials around the world. A new edition is published every three years. Bob Rivers, part of Polyco’s sales team, has been a key member of The Greenbook committee working to update viscosity recommendations to create an attainable specification for multiple suppliers.
Typically, changes take five to seven years, but this one took only two and half years from start to finish. This change is a big win because it levels the playing field. Asphalt producers can now use soluble rubber in combination with a hybrid serine, urethane serine, or polymer to make an easier-to-handle, more consistent product in the field.
The revised version of The Greenbook will be distributed electronically and in hard copy in January. Before then, there will be an addendum published in the next three or so weeks accepting the updated viscosity parameters.
Now that you know about our updated Greenbook, quiz yourself on other industries’ colorful books:
And a bonus! The TxDOT Specification Book, which can now be downloaded as a free PDF.
Born and raised in Fort Worth, Chris Reyna has been a critical part of our safety team at the plant in Cleburne, Texas for the past five years. We talked with Chris about his time at Polyco and what he loves doing outside of work.
What’s your role at Polyco?
I’m the Senior Shift Lead, so I ensure that everybody in the plant is working safely, including myself. I also make sure that all of our inbound and outbound trucks come in and go out on time, and that all of our asphalt is on specifications.
What do you like best about working at Polyco?
I work with great people. We’re always happy over here – laughing and joking just like family. I plan to retire here.
What do you do when you’re not at the plant?
I like spending time with my family. I have three kids ages five to one and a newborn. One girl and two boys! I like to take my kids fishing and to places like Chuck E. Cheese to have fun.
What’s your favorite food?
My wife’s homemade chile rellenos, especially her salsa!
John is truly one of a kind. A native of Ennis, Texas, he’s one of Polyco’s first employees — having worked with us for the past 13 years. Today, John is a technician in our Research and Development Lab, where he conducts research on polymers and asphalts, crosstrains new team members and more. We spoke with John about his long career and what he’s looking forward to doing in retirement.
What was it like to work for Polyco at the Ennis plant in the beginning?
I wore multiple hats – I cleaned, loaded trucks, made batches, everything. It was fun at the time. I’ve really seen it all!
How would you describe your job now?
My role is to assist with everything from getting materials and checking specifications to research, training and safety.
What has been your favorite part about working for Polyco?
I like supervising and teaching people. I liked the people who started with me, and I enjoy my colleagues now. In our lab, we have people who speak five different languages. I think that’s so cool. Polyco is also family-oriented. My son even works here!
What are you looking forward to once you retire?
I want to spend more time with my family and grandkids. I have three grandsons and a granddaughter — the youngest is 5 and the oldest is 25. Soon, my wife and I will be married for 45 years!
What’s your favorite food?
My wife’s homemade enchiladas, rice and beans. It’s the real deal.
Jenn has worked at Polyco for more than 13 years, and has held a variety of roles during her time with us. She has been responsible for answering our phones, fulfilling orders, coordinating logistics and customer service. Now, she serves as our accounts payable supervisor. We spoke with Jenn about her current role, her interests and what she likes about working at Polyco.
How would you describe your job at Polyco?
I make sure all documentation is accounted for and invoices get paid on time. I also field any questions regarding payments.
What do you like most about working at Polyco?
I love the flexibility and family feel. I’m surrounded by people who want to work hard and do a good job, but also, like to have fun and are friendly.
What do you like to do when you’re not at work?
I have five kids between the ages of 7 and 14, so I am usually really busy running them to their extracurriculars. When I’m not at my kids’ activities, my husband and I go to local baseball games or you can find me working on various DIY projects. I do some sewing and woodworking as well. Next, I’ll be building a cage for our four guinea pigs. We also have two dogs, two cats and a snake!
Where do you call home?
Reno. I work at the corporate office.
What’s your favorite meal?
Thai food. If I was on a deserted island, I would be craving a good panang curry.
Here at Polyco, we believe providing a culture of safety directly impacts the quality of the products we produce. The practices and standards we follow truly set us apart. I’ll explain further how we implement these principles to drive operational excellence every day.
Safety
Safety is of the utmost importance. I’m so proud of our record — no major safety incidents! We ensure this by doing a root cause analysis of safety issues or near misses. All of our employees are empowered to report near misses in order to prevent an actual safety incident from even happening. For example, if we don’t address a slow leak of hot oil, it could turn into a big problem and burn someone. Once a safety hazard is identified, we document it and, as a team, decide how best to address it — assigning a due date and responsible party who is accountable.
Culture
Our next focus is fostering our culture. We ensure our team has the resources they need to do a great job and feel safe and happy doing it. When employees feel engaged, they will perform better. While each of our plants has its own personality, they all value community. Covid slowed some of our community events, but we are getting back to it. We are hosting a BBQ cook-off this month and have other events that build connections. It’s not just our plant workers; Our leadership shows up! It’s not uncommon for our President & CEO to fly in from our corporate office in Reno at least once a month to check-in on our Texas locations. And, with the magic of video conferences, we get a lot more face time which keeps the lines of communication flowing.
Quality
Quality is of utmost importance to us. Not only do we do quality testing as part of production, we also have an entire quality assurance department that continuously tests raw materials and product retains, watching for data trends so we can react before anything is an issue. Our trending models show us if there is special cause variation or drifts in our processing. This allows us to pinpoint potential issues quickly and react before anything goes out of specification — all in service of delivering a quality product.
While we are constantly looking at ways to improve our operations, our four pillars of safety, culture, quality and customer service are always top of mind. A focus on high performance — from both our employees and products — is what drives us. And we’ll never stop.
Michael is a rising star at Polyco. After being with the company for just a year, he’s already being promoted — and will transition to his new role as Research Engineering Manager soon! We spoke with Michael about his most recent position as our Operations Manager, his interests and what he likes about working at Polyco.
How would you describe your job at Polyco?
I work at our Ennis, Texas plant to safely produce products to our customer’s specifications in a cost-efficient manner. I coordinate with all the cross functional teams — whether it’s R&D, logistics, maintenance or safety.
What do you like most about working at Polyco?
What I enjoy doing most is working with a team to solve the most challenging problems a business faces. Seeing something that was seemingly impossible and then come out victorious is a great feeling. Luckily at Polyco we’ve got a great team and I love working with them.
What do you like to do when you’re not at work?
I love to learn, so I am always reading or in school. I’m working on my MBA through West Texas A&M right now. For fun, I love playing sports. Polyco has a local softball team and we play pretty much year round, so that’s a lot of fun. And I like cycling, so a lot of times I can be found cruising the roads.
Where do you call home?
I live in Fort Worth right now, but I’ve been in Texas for five years. I’m originally from Connecticut, born and raised. I even went to college at the University of Connecticut.
What’s your favorite food?
Everything! But if I had to pick just one thing, it would be pizza. It’s just amazing. I love all toppings but the best, for me, is probably buffalo chicken.
As Women’s History Month winds down, we’re reminded of the importance of empowering women at our company and in our industry. This month, we celebrated this occasion by increasing our support of Women of Asphalt. As the year goes on, our commitment to empowering women will continue and we are proud to share what that looks like for Polyco.
Women of Asphalt Platinum Partner
This year, we became a Platinum Partner for the Women of Asphalt. With our contribution, we are supporting WofA’s mission to help promote, educate and empower women within the asphalt industry.
Additionally, an opportunity presented itself recently to further support the organization at the TXAPA MAPS Conference. We auctioned our basketball hoop display to attendees earlier this month to benefit the new Texas chapter of WofA. This raffle raised $2,400 for the organization and WofA Texas was able to keep the display, so keep an eye out for it at future events.
Polyco continued to uplift WofA’s presence at World of Asphalt through sponsorship of their video and social media content. And, leading up to the event, we helped them produce a series of sponsor highlights. Stay tuned to our Linkedin for updates from the conference. If you missed any of WofA’s sponsored events at World of Asphalt, you can catch replays on Facebook.
Empowering Women at Polyco
Closer to home, we’ve opened up our blog to more diverse voices at our company. This month, our Customer Service & Logistics Leader, Kaylea LaBee, discussed her role in maintaining successful customer relationships. Next month, we’ll hear from our Director of Operations, Shelley Locker, about how she keeps our company functioning like a well-oiled machine. We’ll hear from more of our female leaders throughout the year and look forward to seeing all women of asphalt excel.
In an industry that is hyper-focused on the product, maintaining solid customer relationships is vital to our success. Meeting and exceeding the expectations of every customer at every location is extremely important to our business. It takes all of us — from our sales and technical teams to operations — to ensure our material is delivered on time and in spec. How do we do it? It starts with trust.
Being transparent with our customers helps foster that accountability. When a customer service email is sent to Polyco, it not only goes to my department but also logistics, operations and the spec team. There’s a whole team to back me up to ensure our customers are taken care of. Once an order is placed, I follow up with our internal teams before confirming the order with our customer. Whether customers need a rush order or are stockpiling a month out, it’s our responsibility to be mindful of their unique ordering processes.
We are flexible and amenable to meet our customers’ needs, so there aren’t any surprises when we send a BOL or invoice. Being small (but mighty) has its advantages. We can more easily modify hours and personnel availability to accommodate receipt, offload and load times.
We also have great relationships with our carriers — some of them have worked with us since the company’s inception. Once we get a carrier nailed down, we follow up with our customer orders to confirm logistics. Weekly check-ins are vital to ensure orders stay on track. Once orders are shipped out, we stay in open communication with our carriers daily in an effort to avoid delays. The entire process is monitored all the way through delivery and invoicing.
It’s an honor to work alongside a great team to deliver amazing customer service. I look forward to helping Polyco continue to foster our customer relationships as we move the needle on sustainable performance asphalt products.
Here at Polyco, we consider everyone we align ourselves with a partner, including the organizations we support. In the past year, we’re proud to have expanded our affiliations to include organizations that are working to improve the asphalt industry for all. We’re excited to share how these relationships will take shape throughout the year.
Women of Asphalt
In 2022, we’re proud to support the Women of Asphalt as one of their Platinum Partners. With our contribution, we are supporting WofA’s mission to help promote, educate and empower women within the asphalt industry. Additionally, we’re excited to uplift WofA’s presence at next month’s World of Asphalt through sponsorship of their video and social media content. If you’re planning to attend the conference, we hope to see you there! If you can’t make it, stay tuned to our Linkedin for updates from the event.
Asphalt Institute Foundation
I am proud to be the Vice Chair of the Asphalt Institute Foundation and Chair of its Education Committee, which funds asphalt research, internships and scholarships through a variety of programs. In addition to my tenure, Polyco supports AIF’s distribution of educational materials to universities across the U.S. and Canada. In fact, this week we will deliver modules and support manuals to engineering students at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas. Engaging students with such close proximity to our Texas locations will hopefully spark an interest in the industry for soon-to-be graduates.
Asphalt Institute and Asphalt Pavement Alliance
Polyco is also deeply connected to AIF’s parent organization, the Asphalt Institute. Our Chief Operating Officer, Daniel DeJarnette, is part of AI’s Roofing Technical Committee — which is an important part of our business. I had the honor of serving one term as AI’s Vice President and continue my service to the organization as one of AI’s representatives at the Asphalt Pavement Alliance. Because APA is a coalition of the Asphalt Institute, National Asphalt Pavement Association and State Asphalt Pavement Associations, it’s a great way to keep a pulse on the most pressing needs of the industry.
National and State Asphalt Pavement Associations
As our footprint grows on the paving side of the asphalt industry, we’re proud to be members of NAPA, TXAPA, OAPA in Oklahoma and CalAPA. Aligning ourselves with these organizations in key markets helps to advance the science and use of asphalt on our roads. We look forward to engaging more with industry insiders throughout the year at members-only meetings.
I can’t wait to see what lies ahead for Polyco and look forward to strengthening our partnerships. It’s going to be a great year!
As we settle into the new year, I’m reminded of the challenges the asphalt industry faced in 2021 and how we’ve worked (and continue to work) to rise above them. From pandemic-related shutdowns and extreme weather in several of our markets to workforce retention and supply chain setbacks, we’ve watched our customers and partners pivot on a dime to adapt. And, we’ve adapted along with them. Last year gave us some valuable lessons that we will continue to carry with us as we look ahead.
Green Isn’t Going Away
Being sustainable is no longer a “nice to have.” More and more states are adopting sustainable practices, which has impacted both our roofing and paving customers. Many refineries have converted to renewable sources of energy in order to reduce their carbon output. And, on the paving side, states and municipalities are increasingly enthusiastic about adding more recycled materials (including recycled asphalt shingles) to their asphalt mix as a way to stretch their budgets. Additionally, as supply chain woes continue to impact raw materials sourcing, organizations throughout the industry are looking for more ways to draw down their reliance on imported resources.
Longer-lasting is the Way to Go
Extending the life cycle of pavements and shingles makes sense from both financial and sustainability standpoints. The longer they last, the longer before they need to be replaced, reducing waste. As roofing manufacturers are pushed to offer near-lifetime guarantees, they will inevitably look for ways that make them more resilient. In road construction, the industry has experimented with several ways to extend a pavement’s life — from additives and higher-quality mix formulations to the practice of “Perpetual Pavements.” The Asphalt Pavement Association has written at length about “Perpetual Pavements” and more local agencies have latched on to the concept. Perpetual pavements can resist structural fatigue distress for at least 50 years, which is significantly longer than traditional asphalt.
Polyco is Positioned to Perform
As the asphalt industry continues to adapt to meet the needs of the market, Polyco is poised to meet customers where they need to be. We understand that everyone’s needs are different. This is why everyone here — from our lab personnel to our operations team — pride themselves on customizing and delivering asphalt formulations that exceed customer expectations. Our Sigmabond product is an example of this innovative mindset. Sigmabond is a rubber modified asphalt that enhances the performance of asphalt products using end-of-life tires. In addition to our products and practices, the most important element we bring to the table is our people. Each and every one of us values a job well done and ensures that we take care of each other so that we can take care of our customers.
With our commitment to sustainability and innovation firmly in place, I’m looking forward to seeing what exciting developments lie ahead of us this year and beyond.