Precast Inc. - May/June 2008 - (Page 39) Courtesy of Vaughn Concrete Products early. In fact, few other precasters claim to have sleepers on their trucks. With two other precast plants in Cheyenne, Wyo., and Amarillo, Texas, his operation is spread fairly wide, and VCP products often have to spend a little more time on the road than those of most other precasters. But distance isn’t the only driving factor to leave the plant early with a delivery. VCP wants to have the product on site and ready to unload before the contractor’s workers arrive. “Our trucks hit the road the night before or at 2 or 3 in the morning,” said Vaughn. “We’re there when (the contractors) show up to work.” By doing this, VCP trucks are the first to get unloaded. “If we show up at 9 or 10 o’clock, first off it disrupts the contractor’s production, and second it takes us a lot longer to get unloaded.” With the Cheyenne plant about 90 miles to the north, the Amarillo plant about 435 miles to the south-southeast, plus factoring in the wide-open spaces of the West and the long distances company trucks often drive, VCP’s trucks may conceivably be 1,500 miles apart on a given day. Yet VCP employees communicate with the office so everyone stays informed and on top of all the operations so that they can be assured the Vaughn name is living up to its promises. Rolling office Vaughn is not one to sit in his office all day, unless you consider his truck a mobile office. He is a hands-on kind of guy who has no hesitancy to jump inside his own truck to make a delivery or crawl under it for a little maintenance. The outside of the Kenworth semi brandishes his name on the door; the inside is equipped with a laptop with a satellite internet connection (the cell phone with a fax machine attachment were put out of service at the end of 2007). This is the environment in which he learned the precast trade. While growing up, he would help out on the family farm and in the plant. “When I turned 16 and was old enough to drive, I was a delivery person, because I could make deliveries and still come back and work,” he said. At 17 years of age when high school let out for the three months in summer, he hit the road. “I would easily put 50,000 miles on a semi truck. And that was good experience.” Those were the years when Vaughn also learned his mechanical skills. A small company such as VCP owns only so MAY/JUNE 2008 | WWW.PRECAST.ORG 39 http://www.precast.org
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