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Hey there. This is Laura for Iron Times. This month we are in Vista, California, here to
check out WYROC Materials. We’re going to be chatting a bit with WYROC President, Jeff
Halloran.
So, I was wondering – why WYROC? What's the story behind that name?
My father was a cement salesman. One of his clients was Wiley Bros. Transit Mix. One of
the brothers passed away, and the other brother wanted to sell. So my dad bought the company
and went out of the cement business and went to the ready-mix concrete business. He shortened
the name to Wiley Transit Mix, and then found that he’d have more opportunities and better
market if he got out of the ready-mix business and focused just on supplying rock and gravel,
and shortened the name to Wiley Rock, and eventually shortened that to WYROC. He kept
the goodwill from Wiley over all the years, plus it was kind of a tradition back then
that a lot of the competitors and rock suppliers had some kind of abbreviated word and then
“rock.” As the company changed, we differentiated because we took the K off it. So we’re W-Y-R-O-C.
I was looking at your website. The most unique thing that stood out to me is that you work
with recycled materials. So it’s not the *** rock. It’s not the native rock. You
seem to be one of the few companies that does that.
We transitioned into that over the years. I think we were one of the first in Southern
California. The last time they did a measure, we were number three in the nation in recycling.
To put a little bit of a scope to it, if you look at curbside recycling, we would recycle,
back in the day, probably twice the amount that they would do to curbside recycling from
North LA to the border of Mexico and on the west, the Pacific and the East, the border
of California. So we significantly diverted material from the landfill into a building
product.
It’s no secret that in the past 10 years or so have been difficult for this industry
and with municipalities having less money in their budgets to build new infrastructure,
it’s been tough on material suppliers and the construction industry. How have you learned
from that? Have you adapted your company to meet different needs?
We’ve had to change on several levels. First, geographically, there are areas that we serviced
that are just completely dead. So, we have closed those operations. We no longer supply
to them, because they don't have a need. What we’re also doing is expanding our offering.
Our offering before and traditionally, and continues to be, a bulk product sold in the
big 18-wheel trucks you see on the road. We’re also looking at different ways to package
it in polybags or what they call super sacks, which are one-ton sacks they can put in the
back of a pickup truck. What that does is it gives the consumer access to a recycled
green product that they never had before. So that is a new niche.
We were talking a little bit about the mantra or the guiding principles behind your business.
You have these eight core values, which is pretty neat. You wouldn’t expect that I
guess. At least I wouldn’t expect that from a business like this. Can you sum up the values?
The overlying thing is, we want to be known as passionately innovative. I think that’s
been our tradition. Being the first one to recycle and now being into these new markets.
Everything with our values not only supports that, but also insists on a civility between
each other and our customers. That is a core thing – be responsive and react appropriately,
and solve their problems.
Do you see things improving at all? Or maybe with the new tactics that you’re taking,
have things improved?
I see for us, the expectations are not much of an improvement in the bulk market. That’s
probably going to remain slow for some time. And we’re seeing some matching by the government
with different measures and programs. Those probably will not trickle down – at least
in any immediate way – to the consumer and the home-builder. That will put public employees
to work, but it isn’t going to affect the private industry probably that much.
Do you have any piece advice for someone who has their own business? Not necessarily in
the same industry, but someone who had their own business – maybe a family business – and
something you could share with them?
The thing that I’ve taken out of going through this change in this economy is I define myself
pretty narrowly as kind of a quirky industry. You know – Fred Flintstone, mining, every
time you talk about it, people just shake their head. You start getting a mindset that
maybe you’re not special, but you’re unique, and your problems are unique. What I’ve
discovered through networking and discussions is there are core problems that exist across
all industries. They’re just flavored a little bit different. There are solutions
that you can reach to. You just have to tweak it a little bit to make it on point for yourself.
So, don’t think you’re so special that you can't pick up a good business book and
get principles out of it that you can apply.
Thank you! Thanks so much for having us.
Thank you for you the pleasure of meeting you and doing this. It’s been a good experience
and fun.
Same here. Thanks!
If you could meet someone who’s living or dead; who would it be?
Joshua Chamberlain.
Who’s that?
He was a Colonel at Gettysburg. He was in charge of holding one of the flanks. He was
from Maine. He was basically given the charge, “You hold this line. If you don’t, we
will lose.” He had 200 men to start with. He was down to 80 and no ammunition. The Confederates
were re-mounting for a charge, and he told his men, “Fix bayonets – charge!” with
no ammo. They couldn’t believe the order, but they did it. When the Confederates saw
that, they surrendered, and he saved the day.