When Kevin Heilman’s construction employer declined an urgent customer request to plow their parking lot following a blizzard, he’d had enough.
That wasn’t his definition of customer service.
Gathering a small crew and using rented equipment, Kevin pushed snow for 72 hours straight and got the customer’s food-service trucks rolling again.
Soon after, Kevin started All-Star Paving, inspired by his belief that his initial partners were construction all-stars. His partners quickly dropped out, however, leaving him as a solo entrepreneur.
No matter: the name still fits. “We have a bunch of all-stars here,” Kevin says. “They’re way overachievers.”
A Marine Corps veteran, Kevin was undeterred when his partners vanished; he simply faced forward and started doing whatever jobs came his way. Driveways quickly emerged as a primary focus. That start in asphalt paving laid the foundation for All-Star’s present emphasis on commercial paving and state and municipal road projects.
Watching his father’s company grow, Kevin’s son Steven knew early on he had an affinity for construction. “I was probably 10 or 11 years old when I figured out this is something I wanted to do,” Steven says. He turned down football college scholarships to join the company after high school. “Why put off what I want to do for four years?” he says. “I jumped in.”
Working his way up from laborer to paving crew leader to foreman, Steven is now vice president of All-Star, concentrating on field operations, including personnel scheduling, project managing and overseeing the company’s six-bay shop.
Equipment WorldIron Sharpens Iron
All-Star’s bread-and-butter is $500,000 to $1 million competitive-bid projects.
“We’re in an extremely tough market here and in competition with some of the biggest companies in the state,” Kevin says. “But when you fight hard, it makes you better. Iron sharpens iron.”
All-Star started to self-perform curb and gutter three years ago. It also added road treatment services and is now one of the few applicators certified by the Indiana Department of Transportation.
All-Star’s trajectory – currently at the $20 million mark and growing – is fueled by such diversification. “We want to position ourselves to be a one-stop shop, including landscaping, dirt work, curb and gutter, flat work and pavements,” Steven says. “We can do everything except buildings.”
All-Star is proud of its veteran-owned status; Indiana and the federal government have a 3% veteran goal.
“Goals are a good thing because it gives some diversity to your jobs,” Kevin says. “It also gives people the opportunity to work on larger contracts that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to do. You’re able to pick people and pull them up with you.”
Covid and a Re-Evaluation
Covid hit the company hard in the fall of 2020. It shut down several crews and put Kevin in the hospital for a month.
“It made both of us step back and re-evaluate where we were going and what the business needed,” Steven says.
This led to the hire of Gabe Gerth, the company controller. “I wanted a young guy who was a go-getter, someone I could lean on for the next 25 years,” Steven says. “He’s been a wonderful addition.”
“A Better Deal”
All-Star’s veteran status made it attractive to union GCs, and so Kevin became a union contractor around 2008.
He likes that his employees don’t lose benefits when the paving season ends. “Are there cheaper ways to do it? Most definitely,” Kevin says. “But I think the union is a better deal for the employees and the employer.”
Kevin and Steven agree that creating a successful firm comes down to the caliber of individuals involved. “I want people around that are smarter than me,” Kevin says. “And I can get wound up, so I want people who are calm and cool.”
“A lot of companies struggle with finding younger guys that they can train,” Steven adds. “We’ve got a young group of guys who I hope, as I get older, they’re going to be around for a while.”
But that’s not all. “We try to have a culture that everyone cares about what they’re doing and that they’re here to put out a quality product,” Steven says. “If you ask our paving crew, they lay the best asphalt around, hands down.”
Clients recognize this culture. “All-Star is known for their integrity,” says Adam McClish with MAC Construction.
“Their conduct and professionalism, particularly in supporting community projects and in their business operations, make them a clear candidate for industry recognition.”
Lead Players in the Fleet
Compact track loaders are key fleet members on All-Star’s crews, whether using milling attachments on paving jobs or moving stone on concrete projects. “It became kind of a no-brainer for us because you can do anything with a tracked machine,” Steven says.
Because the machines work on rough milled surfaces, the company goes through 20 to 25 sets of tracks a year. “But the cost is about the same as tires, and tracks are much more versatile,” Steven says.
Naturally, pavers, rollers and excavators are also lead players. “With us, it’s all about service,” Steven says. “All machines will break, but it depends on how your dealer reacts when they break.”
All-Star just added a Weiler commercial paver to its fleet, which will be used in commercial work. It will also be painted completely black.
“Everything you’re putting through it is black, oily and sticky, so my hope is that it will be easier to keep looking better longer,” Steven says.
These smaller pavers see heavy use. All-Star typically logs 1,700 hours on them annually, handling70,000 to 80,000 tons a year.
Because it runs them hard, All-Star puts its smaller pavers on a three-year lease, rotating them out.
But that lease program is more of an outlier, since Kevin and Steven like to own their equipment. “As we’ve seen during the past three years, the equipment might not be available to rent,” Steven says. “I also like to buy a used piece to test it out, and if it’s something we use a lot, we’ll buy it new.”
All-Star PavingFamily at the Core
Family is at the core of All-Star Paving. In addition to Steven, son-in-law Ryan Bustle serves as senior estimator and project manager; son Ryan Richard works on the paving crew; and brother-in-law Glen Richardson handles environmental, health and safety.
“People look at them and say, 'Oh they’re family, that’s why they’re in those positions,'” Kevin says with a shake of his head. “Truth is, I’m harder on them than anybody else because they have to be twice as good just to be recognized as good.”
And what about the father-and-son dynamic?
“We separate business from family as much as possible,” Steven says. “We’re both strong headed, but no matter how bad our workday has been we still try to separate that from being father and son.”
Growth Every Year
“Thanks to prayer and taking God’s lead on tough decisions, we’ve grown 10 to 15 percent every year since we started,” Kevin says. “One of my goals this year is to pray more with my crews.”
The company’s southern Indiana location also makes it well positioned for growth, giving it access to work in a 200-mile radius, including Kentucky and Ohio.
The company’s growth will probably prompt additional office space in the next few years, Steven says. It’s current 9-acre site, which the company moved into in 2013, is beginning to feel crowded.
“I want to grow as much as we possibly can, but I don’t want to lose the small-business atmosphere, where everyone knows and cares for each other,” Steven says. “I still want to know what’s going on.”
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