Stay the Course

A conversation during the recent World of Asphalt (WOA) trade show March 25-27, combined with the release of researchers from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) the week after, convinced me to update this note.

Federal and non-elected agencies are undergoing audits and checks-and-balances in this early part of 2025. Redundancies and inefficiencies—to be kind about it—are being reduced or eliminated. Without getting into the weeds, I’ll acknowledge that temporary funding “holds” versus full-stop cuts have left the public bouncing between news sites that report with whatever bias their overlords tell them to use. For our purposes, I want to encourage asphalt professionals to stay the course.

Ours is an industry of doers.

We get the job done. We build escalators into long-term projects, when allowed, and we know how to plan for short-term materials price spikes until in-country manufacturing levels out. Savvy businessmen and women in our industry can see three and four moves ahead and can adjust for those moves.

What I found of interest from my private conversation during WOA, and from a public statement bemoaning the loss of researchers from NIOSH, is the lack of confidence some entities have in our industry’s willingness to do the right thing without regulation. I can understand from where this stems. The Apostle Paul wrote 2,000 years ago, “For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” (KJV, Romans 7:18-19)

Of course, Paul was struggling with sin, not with paying a fair wage to legal workers, installing emissions control devices around an asphalt plant or terminal, sharing environmental product declaration (EPD) data for the betterment of his region’s EPD collection, or offering a mental health wellness app within his company’s larger safety program. These modern-day aspects of running an asphalt company take—among other key indicators—monetary investment. If I listened to the naysayers, I would believe the CEOs among us won’t do the right thing unless forced to do so.

But I have faith in our industry to do good, even when good isn’t mandated by a non-elected agency demanding we staple money to the clouds. I have faith in our industry to do the right thing, even when the right thing is difficult or takes an investment of time, energy, personnel and so on.

Call me naive if you like, but I know human beings in the asphalt industry who place people ahead of profits. It works out in the long run because a healthy, happy, well-cared-for workforce in a healthy, sustainably sound environment can’t help but prosper.

Investing in the workforce as well as the environment is something the asphalt industry has been doing since I started reporting on it in 1998. I’ve seen success stories that make me proud to be part of the asphalt family. Let me be self-serving for just a moment to say I’ve shared a couple of those stories in an inspirational and motivational business book titled “Capture Your Dream: Stack Real-World Goals, Develop Your Dragons, Thrive Beyond the 9-5,” which is available wherever print books are sold online. It’s my twenty-first book, but first under the category of business. I humbly invite you to check it out. And I humbly encourage you to stay the course, investing in our good industry.

Stay Safe,

Sandy Lender