Paving the State

Paving the State

TriCircle Pavers' business is down, but that doesn't mean it's out. Its owners are plotting

to pave the rest of the state.

Bill de Deugd doesn't act like a man whose business is down nearly 50% from its peak.

The gregarious Dutch-born entrepreneur enjoys sipping red wine at lunch and talks eagerly about the 10-day fishing trip he's planning to take with his son to Brazil later this month.

But de Deugd is no Nero. This is a good time for his company, Fort Myers-based TriCircle Pavers, to get in better fiscal shape and plot expansion strategies, he says. Already, the company is the largest manufacturer of cement pavers in the region.

The real estate boom put such a strain on the company that it was running six months behind schedule, though it quietly had set aside one paving machine to complete jobs for preferred customers more quickly.

Labor was so tight that de Deugd once hired employees from the bank that loaned him money. "We just hired people off the street," de Deugd recalls.

But the real estate bust has brought annual revenues from $16 million in 2006 to a projected $9 million this year. The result is that he's had to lay off some of his crews and reduced the workweek to four ten-hour days. Although it's difficult to lay people off, de Deugd acknowledges that the effort let him cull the weak performers.

"There was so much fat in the company," de Deugd says. He's cut expense accounts and told drivers to turn their truck engines off while loading or unloading pavers to save on fuel.

But that doesn't mean de Deugd isn't rewarding employees who work hard. He's known to surprise good performers by taking them out for an impromptu round of golf during the workday. He's also devising a system of financial rewards and prizes for employees who make valuable suggestions that save the company money.

De Deugd says once the company grows to a certain size you have to delegate, something this hands-on entrepreneur says was the hardest thing for him to learn. "You get to a point where they don't tell you anything," he chuckles. "The people who work for you know more."

Together with his 33-year-old son Daniel, Bill, 62, is eyeing statewide expansion. In January, de Deugd bought 40 acres with a 46,000-square-foot building in Bartow for $1.1 million. Bartow is in Polk County, between Tampa and Orlando, and is centrally located.

De Deugd is also scouting sites in Jacksonville. That port city has benefited from increased maritime trade. De Deugd expects Florida's economy to begin its recovery in late 2009 and return to its normal growth rate in 2016.

De Deugd says his company's debt load is relatively low. He hasn't taken out a substantial loan since he bought a paver-making machine in 2005 for $4.5 million. "I've paid most of my loans off," he says. TriCircle also stands to benefit because its biggest competitor, Cemex, recently abandoned the Fort Myers area, he says.

If he's worried about the future, de Deugd certainly doesn't show it. He's not afraid of risk. When he bought a cement company in Fort Myers in 1983, de Deugd used all his savings. "We put everything on the line," he says. "It's a free-spirit thing," he explains. "I wasn't anxious."

When a thief stole cement molds to make birdbaths and tables a few years after he bought the business, de Deugd took it as an opportunity to focus on cement pavers. He refused to buy new birdbath and table molds, calling it "sissy" stuff. "I always try new things," de Deugd says.

Cheers to that.

-Jean Gruss