Building B.J. Rees’s Enterprise
What do you do when you can’t find the size and type of aggregate you need?
Blaine Rees, owner and CEO of B.J. Rees’s Enterprise, answered that question by starting his own crushing company in 1978. Rees’ ambition and vision drove him to fabricate crushing equipment, and they’ve kept him in the crushing equipment industry for more than 40 years.
“I started my first business, welding fabrication, in 1974,” Rees says. “I did a lot of work in Utah and Wyoming oilfields. That company is now known as B.J. Rees’s Enterprise.”
In 1978, Rees acquired property in Wyoming where he wanted to develop mobile home and single-family dwelling lots. His property’s remote location put it miles from any aggregate and asphalt supply, so Rees located a gravel pit where he set up his own crushing and asphalt business.
“I bought my first crusher in 1979,” he says. “Since I knew the fabrication business, I was able to design and build my own conveyors and portable crushing plants. Once I had the product I needed for my own project, I started producing aggregate and asphalt for others.”
Rees’ timing for establishing his Wyoming crushing company coincided with an oil boom there that ran from about 1979 through 1981. When the boom died back, he moved some of his equipment to the Laredo, Texas, area to produce aggregate for a highway project.
Despite fewer opportunities in aggregate production during this economic slowdown, his fabrication business continued to grow due to work acquired with local Utah companies.
“There was also a lot of repair work for local farmers,” Rees says. “In 1997, the fabrication shop size doubled. This year, the shop and office areas will double again.”
A love for crushing
From the beginning, Rees found himself intrigued with the crushing business. Working for himself, Rees discovered an innate ability to quickly configure a crushing plant based on individual crushing goals. While he continued to oversee his fabrication business, Rees focused mainly on crushing opportunities.
“I’ve always stuck with portable crushing, and traveled wherever I found opportunities,” he says
As a young man, Rees was no stranger to hard times. The experience of pulling himself out of financial hardship through hard work and innovative strategy drove him to organize as many as eight portable crushing operations he moved to various locations, working primarily as a crushing subcontractor.
“Subcontracting is risky because you don’t hold the purse strings,” he says. “If the material doesn’t meet specifications, you don’t get paid. I’ve worked with some big companies as far away as North Dakota, Texas and Hawaii. I’ve also done work closer to home in Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Arizona and California.”
Learning to work quickly and take personal responsibility to make spec material for each project are principles that have served Rees well over the years. Before he had machines to do it, he shook rock samples by hand in gravel pits where he planned to crush. The practice allowed him to identify any issues he might have to deal with as he produced a product.
At times, Rees had all eight of his portable operations in place simultaneously. Key to the success of those operations is skilled, reliable employees who keep everything running smoothly.
“Some of my employees have been with me 40 years,” Rees says. “Bill Wilde has always been my fabrication shop manager. My controller, Chuck Olson, came on about the same time as Bill. We’ve worked together to grow the company.”
Some jobs lasted just a few months. At other locations, Rees provided crushing services for 15 years. He says his “calling cards” are an eye for identifying the most effective crushing configuration in each location and the ability to make specification materials others couldn’t produce at those locations.
“I’ve worked in so many different locations that I can usually see what setup works in a specific pit,” Rees says. “If we configure a plant one way and have trouble, we can quickly figure out what needs to be changed.”
Rees’ ability to quickly fix or fabricate equipment through his fabrication shop gave him an advantage in early years. As he learned the crushing trade, Rees was able to control equipment design, building equipment suited to his individual needs.
“We could put our equipment in the field and observe how it functioned,” Rees says. “If we needed to, we made design changes to improve it. Over the years, we’ve improved on some other manufacturer designs and evolved our own.”
The enterprise’s evolution
As time went on, Rees produced equipment for both himself and other crushing operations. Since he had frontline experience with equipment and his own fabrication business, he was able to manufacture customized equipment. Projects ranged from one-day builds to bigger developments that required several months to design, build and bring into operation.
On several occasions, Rees organized and built complete turnkey operations that started with the evaluation of available material at a customer’s location. Based on the desired end product, Rees proposed a crushing plant design that he then built and installed.
Following installation, Rees produced an agreed-upon minimum tonnage of specification material on a cost-per-ton basis. After proving the plant capability through this process, the customer had the option to purchase the plant or allow Rees to own it and produce material at a fixed cost per ton. The customer also had the option of having Rees remove the plant from his property.
“As of this date, it has never resulted in the third option,” Rees says.
One of the unique items Rees designed and has sold in volume is a heavy-duty belt feeder built to handle heavy 12-in. river rock material. The feeder has an extra-heavy-duty hydraulic dumped, remote-controlled grizzly on the feed hopper. Rees designed and built this feeder because he couldn’t find one with a strong enough grizzly to withstand the heavy rock feed from the larger wheel loaders.
“If you’re trying to feed 12-in. minus rock to your crusher, in many cases, you are dealing with some amount of 2-, 3- and 4-ft. oversize rock that produces shock loads that the grizzly and hopper structure has to withstand,” Rees says. “It is capable of feeding 1,000 tph, and it is very effective under all material moisture conditions.”
Working in close support with Rees’ customer crushing operation over the years, the fabrication business has developed a good knowledge of product support. It utilizes knowledge to expand the business of assisting other companies with support needs for parts and service, conveying equipment components, and crushing and screening wear parts and materials.
In addition to concentrating on equipment tied to aggregate production, B.J. Rees’s Enterprise fabrication business has completed many projects in the mining process, communication and utility industry, airline and travel support, farming and food processing, and hotel and recreation industries.
Although Rees has concentrated primarily on portable crushing, he has operated a commercial operation, High-Tech Aggregates in Mesquite, Nevada, for many years. This sand and gravel operation serves customers in Nevada, Utah and Arizona, providing aggregate for asphalt and concrete, state-specification road base, riprap, U.S. Golf Association-specification sand, and other products for golf course construction and maintenance.
“Over the years, I’ve had offers to sell either the crushing or fabrication facet of our business,” Rees says. “But we find it all works together so well that I’ve kept it together. We have quick access to fabrication when we need it, we’re able to rebuild older equipment, and [we] keep all of our equipment looking new and in good repair.”