In 1946, C.W. Matthews returned from World War II looking for work. While the company's humble beginnings may have started with grading farm ponds, they have grown exponentially, and now complete grading, excavating, concrete and bridge work throughout the state of Georgia.
In 1957, the company began to make hot mix asphalt and never looked back. Today, the company operates 27 asphalt plants throughout the state, adding three new in the last year alone. The company broke into a competitive market to better serve their customers and worked with the team at Astec to do so.
“Astec has been a great partner for us,” Lee Smith, senior vice president of asphalt plant operations for C.W. Matthews says. “The reliability of the equipment, their proximity to our location and the strength of their engineering and sales teams have solidified our relationship with them over the years."
Investing in the Future
2020 was a year that will go down in history for many reasons. For C.W. Matthews, they will remember it as the year they continued their growth with the purchase of three new Astec Double Barrel plants, installing one in a brand new market for the company - Savannah.
“We saw an opportunity to grow in Savannah after we were approached by a contractor in the area to do some asphalt paving on the I-16/I-95 job,” Smith says. “There was good potential there for us.”
When it came time to install the new plant at the new location, C.W. Matthews encountered a few challenges.
“Savannah was a unique location and we had a few hurdles to go through,” Smith says. “We were in a seismic zone. We were in a flood zone being next to the coast. Then the plant location was right at the approach of a major international airport so we had some things to contend with on the building of that plant.”
Astec engineers were onsite to assist the C.W. Matthews team in choosing the best options given the site circumstances.
“They showed us what obstacles we were facing and gave us different avenues that we could choose from,” Smith says. “We were given several choices for options at the plant that we could choose based on what they came up with.”
In Savannah, C.W. Matthews installed three 200 ton silos, versus the 300-ton, because of the height requirements they were up against near the airport. The seismic zone also contributed to the decision.
“If we wanted to go with larger silos, we would have had to change our foundation and make some structural steel changes as well,” Smith adds.
Two Existing Locations, Two New Plants
After the Savannah plant was up and running, C.W. Matthews made the decision to install two other plants in their existing locations to better serve their customers.
The work was completed in phases with the install in Villa Rica happening first.
“We had an existing facility there that dated probably to the late 90s, an old Gencor plant,” Smith said. “We completely tore it down and built a 100% new Astec plant.”
Then the install team moved to the Macon location. In Macon, C.W. Matthews had recently acquired a business who was operating a 1970’s model batch plant. Again, they went in, cleared the site, put in foundations and installed a completely new Astec plant.
In Macon, the install team was up against a time crunch to get the plant running.
“In the Macon location, we had planned on an upgrade and we were fortunate to be the low bidder on a large interstate project in the area,” Smith said. “That ramped up the need to speed up the process of preparing the site and putting the plant in. Astec really stepped it up on the manufacturing of the equipment, and the shipping and installation, so we could meet our project deadlines.”
Reliability to Depend On
C.W. Matthews knew they could count on Astec to move these projects forward because of their long shared history.
“On top of the reliability they offer, we've had just a great working relationship with Astec for many years,” Smith says. “We know we can call our sales representative, Jonathan Brown, at any time and he will talk internally with his team, and they will provide us with some different scenarios until we all find what we feel good with.”
At the end of the day, C.W. Matthews invested in these installs to better serve their customers.
“When our customers use our facilities, if you have any breakdowns or delays, it not only costs us as the producer, but there’s a tremendous cost on the customer as well for their truck times, their job times and their schedules,” Smith says. “So for us to upgrade our facilities and give reliable asphalt plants for all of our customers, it's just a tremendous benefit.”
And C.W. Matthews has no plans to stop making upgrades for their customers. They are currently upgrading their Dalton facility to better serve their customers in that location while continuing to plan for future growth.
