HoIn their 40th year in business, Sunland Asphalt & Construction, Inc. won two prestigious recognitions: Contractor of the Year and Project of the Year. These awards were bestowed by the esteemed industry resource, Pavement Maintenance & Reconstruction magazine. Sunland was chosen from among hundreds of applicants across the nation.
The Phoenix-based company won Project of the Year in the Paving category for their construction of Apex Motor Club's racetrack and Contractor of the Year for their strategic planning, core values, and focus on employees.
"Though we've been in business for decades, we just recently began branching out into specialty work, and our collaboration with Apex was the first time we built a racetrack," Founder & CEO of Sunland Asphalt Doug DeClusin says. "To receive national recognition for this project, in addition to being named Contractor of the Year, is the icing on the cake for our 40th-anniversary celebration."
Project of the Year:
The Apex Motor Club in Maricopa, Arizona, opened a world-class private racetrack featuring luxury car condos, country-club amenities, and exclusive racing events for motorsports enthusiasts. The club wanted to create an award-winning track for drivers of all skill levels. Sunland Asphalt was selected to build a 2.3-mile circuit, which featured a 3,400-foot straightaway and a helicopter landing pad.
The company, and its subsidiary, Solterra Materials, had a crew of 47 employees that used 16,000 tons of specialty asphalt, 45,000 tons of recycled concrete base, three pavers, 50 dump trucks, and 20 rollers to create the subgrade. Echelon paving, using paving machines operating side by side, was used to ensure the smoothest roadway. The project required paving in one continuous, non-stop circuit that lasted from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
“This had to be a continuous pave. If at any point the paving stopped, we would have had to mill the entire top layer of asphalt off of the track and start all over,” Michael Baer, Sunland’s national account division manager, told Pavement Maintenance & Reconstruction.
Contractor of the Year:
Sunland Asphalt also was awarded the magazine’s Contractor of the Year. The company started as an asphalt maintenance business in 1979 and has transformed into a $200 million, full-service general contractor with offices in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico, operating across the U.S.
"The growth…is the result of strategic planning, well-defined core values, and company mission, and an employee-ownership culture that has enabled Sunland to find and retain employees who buy into and carry out the Sunland vision or being the best place to work,” noted the magazine’s editors. “None of those elements alone would enable Sunland to succeed at such a large size, but together they form one of the most successful operations in the Southwest.”
"The construction industry can often have high turnover, and our employee-owned structure has not only helped instill our mission and values within every team member but has truly given them ownership and pride in every project we do," DeClusin says. “It’s an honor for our entire team to be recognized in this manner, especially when everyone truly has a stake in its success.”
This article originally appeared in the bimonthly Arizona Contractor & Community magazine, July/Aug 2020 issue, Vol. 9, No.4.
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