Aggregates Manager Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/91809
Martin Marietta Materials opened the gates of its Arrowood Quarry to AGG1 attendees in March. The Aguilar family didn't let starting out with nothing but a truck and a screen stop them from turning their small business into a prosperous company. by Kerry Clines, Senior Editor From Nothing…a T he small town of Socorro, N.M., just south of Albuquerque, is the home of A1 Quality Redi-Mix, Inc., owned by Canda and Pablo Aguilar, Sr. and operated by the family. It's a thriving company, consisting of a quarry, a ready-mix plant, and an asphalt plant, but it wasn't always like that. It was quite different in the beginning. Humble beginnings Canda and Pablo started out with nothing but a small dump truck back in 1953. Canda would hold a screen in the back of the dump truck to screen the sand, and Pablo would haul the screened material to people in the area. "Over the next eight years, they purchased two more trucks to haul manganese from the Black Canyon Mine located in the Socorro area," says Steven Aguilar, one of Canda and Pablo's sons. In 1967, when the Black Canyon 26 AGGREGATES MANAGER November 2012 Mine closed down, the Aguilars bought their first diesel dump truck, which they used to de- liver products to other companies. In 1969, the Aguilars bought their first screening plant and started providing sand and gravel to two concrete plants in Socorro and one in Belen. After hauling product to a lum- beryard in Belen one day, the truck driver, Can- da's brother, mentioned that the lumberyard had purchased a new concrete batch plant and that its old plant was no longer in use. Pablo made arrangements to purchase it. "They picked up and delivered the plant and cement silo on a Saturday," Steven says. "The concrete batch plant was set up immediately, but the cement silo was not, due to the fact they needed a crane, and funding was limited." The Aguilars also bought a cement truck from the lumberyard that needed work. Once the truck was repaired, they began selling con-