Our Mission
L & L Asphalt's mission is to remain a growing business providing quality construction
services, safely and responsibly. Our integrity is not negotiable, we do what
we say and maintain the highest ethical standards. The vision focuses on service,
quality, add value and empowering others. Our long term success is about making
a contribution to others by providing service, quality and competitiveness, along
with our ability to complete a project on time. We focus on results, not excuses.
We go the extra distance to get the job done.
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Company History
As Seen in the October 2004 Issue of Equipment World Magazine
Growing an asphalt paving business
Success in any business often comes doewn to a few simple rules, but when you get in the details, almost every company takes slighly different route - even those in the same line of business.
This is the story of L & L Asphalt.
Arlyn Lawrence had 40 years of experience and successful asphalt paving business when in 1995 he and his wife Rita moved to Arizona to enjoy retirement in the sun. Six years later, through a bad investment, we lost all our retirement, all our income, “ Rita says.
The difficulty of their circumstances made the next decision inevitable. They decided to do what they knew best and started an asphalt paving company from scratch, only this time with Rita at the helm to take advantage of minority contractor status. “I had some construction knowledge, being married to Arlyn for 25 years, but my background was in retail.
Rita studied the books, took the tests, got the licenses and put the company in her name. But even then, given the high failure rate of construction companies in Arizona, the banks wouldn’t touch them. Undeterred, they remortgaged their house and cobbled together some savings. With the money they bought a new roller and paver and a used single-axle dump truck. They also took out a lease-purchase option on a skid steer, hired a crew of five and went to work.
L&L asphalt started our in 2001 filling potholes and paving parking lots, whatever small jobs they could get. But chronic breakdowns and problems with the paver cut into the company’s profits. Rita eventually convinced the manufacturer to replace the defective paver, but after six months the same problems came back to haunt them on the new machine.
“We were just about to go under, so I decided to look around and see what our competition was using. Everybody had a LeeBoy,” she said. The LeeBoy 8500 they bought turned out to be a dependable and productive which has allowed us to be more competitive. That saved us,” Rita says. “We liked the first one so well we bought a second and third this year.
With three various sized pavers up and running, L&L now has the ability to pave the largest to smallest jobs with self propelled laydown machines. The size of their jobs are increasing and recently they set a record, putting down 1,900 tons of asphalt in a day.
Unlike some husband-wife construction teams that put the wife in the office and the husband in the field, Rita is the driver at L&L. And although Arlyn brings invaluable knowledge and experience to the business, his role in L&L is primarily sales. “I call him our politician,” Rita says. “He goes out and networks with people, plays golf and takes them to lunch. He drums up the business.”
At the end of its first year L&L brought in about $700,000 in gross sales. After six years in business the company is on track to break the $3 million mark.
To handle the growing business, Rita expanded the fleet. The fleet now includes a 12’ grader, 2 skid loaders, an 8816 (25,000#) paver, an 8510 (17,000#) paver, a 5000 (11,000#) path paver, a Case backhoe, a wheel loader, 3 gannon compactors, a tandem-axle dump and two service trucks, “For my birthdays now I get a new piece of equipment,” jokes Rita.
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