R.C. & Sons Paving, a family owned business, makes an investment for the future.
AUBURN – When Mike and Claude Cloutier broke into the family paving business, they started at the end of a shovel. Now they’re overseeing the construction of a $700,000 asphalt plant that they hope will give their family-owned business a competitive edge.
The brothers and their parents were at the Hotel Road site of R.C. & Sons Paving on Monday, checking equipment and getting the plant’s air emission control machine ready.
Several other big pieces of machinery were already installed and waiting for the conveyor belts that will link the pieces into one continuous asphalt-making unit.
When finished, the plant will have the capacity to generate 120 tons of asphalt per hour.
“This will allow us to bid and compete in larger-scale projects, ” said Claude Cloutier, who at 36 is the older of the brothers. “We’re a local, family-owned business that wants to be a larger part of the paving picture.”
R.C.& Sons Paving was started in 1976 by Romeo and Gertrude Cloutier. Their son, Maurice, worked in the business and expanded it to include a trucking company.
“Now my sons can take it over and bring it to the next step. And my wife and I can happily retire to Florida,” Maurice added with a laugh.
The company already has had some high-profile customers. It’s currently paving the new Hilton hotel lot and just finished the new Shaw’s lot on Lewiston’s East Avenue – a project that took about 4,500 tons of asphalt.
By producing their own asphalt, the family will be able to bid more competitively on projects such as state highway contracts. It also will allow them to sell the asphalt to smaller paving companies.
“We expect to double our sales within the next few years,” Claude said.
Key to the company’s success is the quality of the asphalt it produces, which they’ve been testing with a private engineer. The Cloutiers now guard their recipe for asphalt the way Kentucky Fried Chicken and Bush beans guard theirs. It’s all in the proportion, they say.
Off to one side of the plant is a row of four mechanized bins. Called cold feed bins, each container has the capacity to hold 20 tons of aggregate, or crushed rock. Each bin holds a different-sized aggregate, ranging from coarse gravel to refined stone dust.
A computer determines the percentage of each aggregate needed for a particular asphalt mix. The appropriate amount of aggregate moves along a conveyor belt into a 36-foot drum that turns the aggregate. About three-quarters of the way through the drum, liquid asphalt from a 20,000-gallon tank is sprayed onto the aggregate.
A burner at one end of the drum heats the aggregate and liquid asphalt mixture until it’s the right texture. Then the asphalt mixture exits the drum onto a conveyor belt that brings it to a weigh batcher, a big container with a clam-shell opening. The weigh batcher is 12 feet off the ground to allow trucks to drive underneath it and get their loads of asphalt.
But the process isn’t finished. Dust from the mixing drum is sucked into a bag house, a 40-foot-tall box that houses 306 hanging filters. The filters collect the dust, some of which is reintroduced into the mixing drum. The remainder stays trapped in the filters.
“It’s a pretty impressive system,” said Claude of the operation.
It’s obvious that Maurice Cloutier is proud of the work his sons are doing to keep the business going.
The family has strong local roots: Maurice performed with the band The Country Sound that played at C&J Hall on Webster Street for 20 years; Claire, his wife, was a bookkeeper at Northwood Park IGA where Marden’s carpet store now operates.
The family will begin doing some test batches of asphalt next week when all the set-up work is complete.
At some point in the next few years, they might consider setting up their own laboratory to experiment with new mixes and materials – a $100,000 investment – to further enhance their competitive edge.
With five grandchildren, there’s plenty of incentive to keep the business viable for the fourth generation.
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