A vacation serves as a revelation to a couple of teens about our industry’s value.
Driving home with my family from vacation in South Dakota’s Black Hills, a road construction sign diverted me across the median into the westbound lanes heading east.
This four-lane stretch of Interstate 90 temporarily became two – one westbound, and one eastbound. I reduced speed to the new 45-mph limit and navigated through the construction.
My teenagers, visibly annoyed, asked me why we had to change lanes and slow down. I explained that a contractor was repairing the lanes up ahead, adding some unsolicited commentary about how poorly deteriorated many of our highways had become and how badly we needed more of this type of road construction.
Immediately, I realized my kids had stopped listening to my sermon, evidenced by the earbuds they reinserted.
As we drove east, I saw a piece of yellow equipment equipped with a hydraulic hammer breaking up the concrete of the westbound lane. I nudged my son, pulling his attention from the matrix, and pointed across the median at the machine.
“See,” I told him. “They are breaking up the road and getting ready to replace it.” He shrugged, unimpressed.
Memorable moment
A mile or two later, my son’s excited voice pierced the silence. “Look, Dad! There is one of your machines!”
I took inventory of my surroundings and saw one of my employer’s track-mounted impact crushers crushing the broken concrete. An excavator was picking up the pieces of broken concrete and feeding the hopper of one of our mobile closed-circuit HSI plants. The material was being crushed and screened to size on the plant, and was discharging clean, crushed recycled concrete out the side of the plant with a conveyor.
The pile of crushed material extended as a windrow for the next three miles behind the plant. At the end of the windrow were a couple of scrapers that were prepping new grade. Following the scrapers were some graders and other earthmoving equipment, which releveled the new sub-base. Finally, pavers were laying down a fresh road.
The discussion that followed is the point of this story. Upon seeing “dad’s machine,” our teenagers took an interest in the work. My teenage daughter – the one with the purple hair – took to the environmental benefits of recycling the material. “That is cool, Dad,” she said, adding that our industry is “more progressive” than she thought. My wife added how great it was that the process was eliminating the need for more truck traffic to haul material away.
After the construction ended and the two lanes were restored to four, we were allowed to re-enter the new concrete pavement. We all marveled at how smooth and quiet the new road surface felt compared to the one we had been on for the previous three hours.
I regurgitated many of the talking points I had heard from the late Don Brock. I tried to educate my kids on how smoother roads reduce driver fatigue, how improved fuel efficiency of a healthy road system reduces the carbon footprint and, most importantly, how new, healthy roads were safer than old, rutted and potholed roads. They soaked it up with enthusiasm.
My son was suddenly very interested in how our crusher worked. My daughter wanted to know if South Dakota was doing something unique, or if this kind of process was being used all over the country, or even elsewhere in the world.
I enjoyed getting to answer these questions, because I knew the people asking them were truly interested. At least they weren’t talking about getting home to their video games. I felt a sense of renewed pride working in this industry, driven by the work we all do being validated by a couple of teenagers with smartphones.
Still, I knew the moment would not last. I felt a small sense of disappointment when the discussion faded and my kids reinserted their earbuds. Another moment of silence passed as they began looking at their phones again.
But then, suddenly, I heard my son’s voice pierce the silence. “Hey Dad! I found one of your recycle crushers on YouTube!”
Paul Smith is international marketing manager for Astec’s Aggregate and Mining Group.