Pavement reconstruction and maintenance is one of the largest spending categories for commercial property owners in terms of yearly maintenance. Owning a big market share in this industry in the Colorado market, DACS Asphalt and Paving, one of the largest and fastest growing pavement reconstruction and maintenance firms serving the state’s front range. A selectee for the 2020 Titan 100, its President, Jason Dunn leads from the front and invests a lot in continuously improving himself so that he can lead by example. In this conversation with Bob Roark and TITAN CEO Founder, Jaime Zawmon, Jason discusses what he believes are the marks of a true industry leader in a highly-specific niche. A humble leader and a team player, Jason is a good example that other leaders in blue collar industries should look up to.
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Watch the episode here:
[embed]https://youtu.be/bAHA-ivD6ho[/embed]
Leading From The Front With Guest Jason Dunn, President Of DACS Asphalt And Paving, And Co-Host Jaime Zawmon, Founder Of TITAN CEO
We have quite a treat. I have my co-host, Jaime Zawmon. She is the Founder and President of Titan CEO. Our guest is Jason Dunn. He's the President of DACS Asphalt and Concrete. Thank you, Jaime. Thank you, Jason, for being on the show. Jason, tell us a little bit about your company and who you serve.
DACS Asphalt and Concrete is one of the largest and fastest-growing pavement reconstruction and maintenance firms serving the front range of Colorado. We serve commercial property owners and commercial property managers across the front range, all things pavement. That's one of the largest spending categories they have per year in terms of maintenance items. Whether it's us having to repave an entire apartment complex parking lot or take care of a single broken piece of curb and gutter from a snowplow, we take care of that for our customers.
In the parking lot out here, there's a pothole and periodically the crew shows up. That's an interesting niche paving market. What drove you to that particular niche?
A few things are special about this market. One is it's a good business itself. I was a business analyst for many years. I'm accustomed to looking for characteristics and businesses that make them great, sustainable, generators of free cashflow, but one of the things that attracted me to this business too is it's a low bar industry. This is blue-collar world where my competitors oftentimes work growing up in concrete and asphalt and then doing their best as business owners once they grew an attractive firm. If you bring business sophistication, especially from outside of this industry into this world, it gives you an ability to easily differentiate for the customer. If the customer recognizes it, that makes it an exciting opportunity for us.
For you, when you say front range, what's the furthest north you go? what's the furthest south that you go?
It's a little bit nebulous, but it's Colorado Springs to Fort Collins. We’ll go down as far south as Pueblo if needed. My team finished with an overnight, nearly camping trip through the mountains because we were serving some convenience stores that seventeen of this same brand of the store needed work throughout the mountain area. We packed up the crews, overnighted them and got that work done. We can be moving around, but it's Colorado Springs to Fort Collins.