This month we are pleased to feature Colorado Precast Concrete Inc. as part of our Meet a Precaster blog series. Answers were provided by K. Scott Hayward, vice president and general manager.
Don’t forget to check out all of our Meet a Precaster blog posts and if you’re an NPCA producer member and would like to be featured in a future Meet a Precaster post, please send an email to NPCA’s internal communication and web manager, Sara Geer.
Q: Where are you located?
A: Loveland, Colorado
Q: How did your company get its start?
A: Harry Hayward started Colorado Precast Concrete when he was released from another precast company. He liked the industry and with a few dollars, and lots of family support, the company was started.
Q: What value does NPCA bring to your company and to the industry?
A: NPCA provides the latest education, specifications, equipment and supplies at The Precast Show. We exchange ideas in meetings and plant visits. Colorado Precast Concrete enjoys sharing innovative techniques and improvements with other precasters.
Q: How have the relationships you’ve developed through NPCA membership impacted your business?
A: We have built many relationships with suppliers and other precasters to enable Colorado Precast Concrete to expand the business and product lines.
Q: What are the top advantages of utilizing precast concrete products?
A: Precast provides speed and safety. While a contractor is working on other parts of a project, we are able to build the precast product under factory conditions to make a better product. And safety is hard to put a dollar on, but precast allows the contractor to not have excavation open for a long period of time. It also limits the amount of time employees have to work in somewhat unsafe conditions.
Q: What’s the most interesting or unique precast project you’ve worked on?
A: Colorado Precast Concrete has had the opportunity to work on many challenging and unique projects, on underground products, architectural products and shipping precast to China.
Colorado Precast Concrete Inc. manufactured 27 eggs to promote fossil heritage for a nearby dinosaur park.
Q: What drives you and your employees to produce quality precast concrete products?
A: We like to produce quality products. Colorado Precast Concrete has never hired a sales person to make calls to contractors. Our quality products sell themselves to our customers. Thus, if we have bad quality product then we have no business.
Q: Tell us about a time when you changed a spec to precast on a project and why the change was made.
A: Colorado Precast Concrete has changed fiberglass specifications to concrete. We also redesigned a concrete tank with Helix fibers instead of using rebar.
Q: How do you see the precast concrete industry – and your company in particular – evolving in the future?
A: Precast today versus years ago has seen many changes. For example, the introduction of self consolidating concrete. Chemicals and cement are also superior today compared to even 15 years ago. It has allowed the precaster to speed up his operation with faster-setting cement and chemicals and yields to higher strengths earlier. The precast industry, Colorado Precast Concrete and other precasters will expand with the development of uses of concrete. The more we look at poured-in-place projects, the more ideas we can make using precast to save time, money and safety for our customers.
The opinions expressed in this blog post are solely those of the member, and not of NPCA or any of its employees.
Are you Scott Hayward, formerly of Havre, Mt? Remember the drive of 89? Dave Wehr?