Resilience Paves the Way for Asphalt Solutions’ Success

BOARDMAN, Ohio – Adversity is no stranger to Bob Roth Jr.

In 2015, he and his business partner, Justin Bishop, were enjoying a growing slate of clients with their sealing and paving company, Asphalt Solutions Inc. – located at that time on Market Street just south of downtown.

Then, everything changed in an instant. In March of that year, a fire swept through the building the company leased, destroying more than $1 million worth of equipment, tools and materials.

“We got about $30,000 from the insurance company,” Roth recalled. The incident forced the small company to streamline the business and take on debt as it spent the next seven years rebuilding while leasing other sites from which to operate.

Then, two years ago, the company found a perfect location – a 14,000-square-foot building tucked away at 8469 Southern Blvd.  

“We’ve been bounced around a lot, so we wanted to buy it,” Roth said. “We wanted a corporate headquarters.”

The new site befits Asphalt Solution’s continued growth into new markets across the country, Roth said. “Everything comes out of this location,” he said. “We do everything on our own.”

On a recent Tuesday morning, his crew was preparing to load paving equipment onto the company’s flatbed and stock its maintenance vehicle for a job in Elkhart, Ind. This job entails paving and striping a new parking lot for one of Asphalt Solution’s biggest customers, Dollar General. “They’re one of our major clients,” he said. “We do between $3 million and $4 million with them every year.”

Isai Martin said he’s worked for the company for five years. “I’m originally from Puerto Rico, and this has been a great opportunity for me,” he said, as he prepared for the Elkhart job. Two weeks from now, the company will move on to a paving job in Huntington, W.Va.

Today, the company boasts sales of more than $6 million annually, Roth said. Asphalt Solutions employs 15.

Roth started the company in 2000 as a driveway sealing service, he recalled, and as a means to earn extra money to repay student loans. The company made approximately $30,000 its first year, he said.

During its second year in business, as Roth was working at an insurance company and pursuing graduate studies, he happened to run into an acquaintance that was also a commercial property manager.

“He said he could help us out,” Roth said. “In a blink, we started doing commercial properties in Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, New York. We quadrupled what we did our first year, just sealing.”

The momentum inspired Roth to approach corporate clients such as Walgreen’s, Home Depot, Kmart and FedEx to handle their regional locations. “We were handling three states for Home Depot and started doing work all over the eastern United States for FedEx,” he said. “We did jobs regionally for these companies for five or six years.”

However, the industry became saturated with larger, national companies who began bidding the work for the same corporate clients, offering package deals through subcontractors that could provide service for locations across the country.  “So all my regional people were now out. It hurt us, so I had to pivot again.”

It compelled the company to diversify and take on smaller, more regional paving jobs, Roth said.  “A lot of people didn’t want to seal, but they needed repairs. We started with very local paving jobs and learned as we went. We got better.”

As that business increased, the company invested in more sophisticated equipment, a semi-truck and an asphalt-paving machine that is top of the line, he said.  

Then came what Roth described as the “hardest day of my business career,” and it wasn’t the blaze that ripped through the company in 2015.

Two of Asphalt Solutions’ employees were killed in 2018 when the company’s truck hydroplaned during a driving rainstorm. The incident shook Roth so much that he considered walking away from the business for good.

But the company stayed the course, and by 2020 it was well on its way to retiring the debt incurred after the fire, Roth noted.

“Then Covid hit,” he said. As he watched business plummet, Roth turned to the national market to cultivate more business. “We went to one of our friends, a salesman, and we were able to convince him to come work for us.’

The decision proved a turning point, Roth said, as new markets across the country opened up.  “Now, we have a national salesman based out of Georgia.”

Since Covid, the business has increased sales from just shy of $3 million in annual sales to more than $6 million, Roth said. “We’ve doubled our sales and doubled our territory.”

Today, the company also incorporates concrete services through subcontracting partners.  Moreover, Asphalt Solutions is expanding its outreach through national trade shows, where the company has received positive feedback.

This exposure has helped, since many corporate clients have shifted from national asphalt companies to self-performing firms such as Asphalt Solutions, Roth said. At present, the company has approximately $25 million worth of bids on work across the country. “There’s a lot of opportunity.”

None of it has been easy, including the hard work that comes with the asphalt business, Roth said.

“We’ve had these obstacles, and we have learned to survive,” he said. “I credit that to our business and to this area. I don’t know many businesses that have gone through what we’ve gone through and succeeded.”

Pictured at top: Bob Roth Jr., owner of Asphalt Solutions.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.