|
|
|
 |
Paving the Way
He Paved a Long Road to Retirement
The Herald-Mail ONLINE Having grown up as one of 11 children in rural North Carolina during the Great Depression, Ollen Craig remembers hard times. His family didn't have electricity, heat, shoes or much to eat besides what they could get from their land, Craig, 75, recalls. Given his humble beginnings, the Hagerstown entrepreneur-turned-missionary said it amazes him how fortunate he's been in the years since leaving North Carolina in search of carpentry work. He credits a higher power for the success of his business, for his wife, Stutzie, for having his children and grandchildren around him, and for the health to be able to travel to faraway lands preaching God's message. "I'm one that believes firmly that there is a God in Heaven and He is concerned and interested in our welfare," said Craig, who started Craig Paving Inc. on a shoestring in 1956. "Looking back, it seems God has been especially good to me and my wife." Booming business Under Craig's management, and later that of his first-born son, Roger Craig, the blacktop and paving company has grown to 110 employees - including all six of Craig's children, three of their spouses and five grandchildren. It averages about $2 million in business a month. The area has been booming with construction projects, and Craig Paving has benefited in both the paving and blacktop sides of the business, father and son said. The company's current jobs include almost $1 million in paving for the Valley Mall expansion, more than $2 million in paving for the Centre at Hagerstown shopping center, and a multi-million-dollar resurfacing of Dual Highway from Cannon Avenue to Interstate 70. In 1998, the company's two Hump Road blacktop plants produced just under 300,000 tons of blacktop for its own and other pavers' use. "We are so loaded with work, we hardly know where to go or what to do," said Ollen Craig, who readily admits he didn't know what he was doing when he started. The early days Family and love led Craig to settle in the Hagerstown area after serving in World War II. In 1947, Craig came to visit his brother, Alvin Craig, who'd recently moved to Hagerstown to work on the Church of God (Universal) magazine published here. That year, Ollen Craig would become a Christian, meet and marry his brother's wife's first cousin, Stutzie, and find work in construction with a Waynesboro, Pa., contractor. Not long afterward, he decided to go into the building business himself. In the early 1950s, Craig was building homes in the Longmeadow area when an employee who'd come from the paving business tried to convince him to get into that line. Not knowing the first thing about paving, Craig said he was reluctant about the venture at first. He was persuaded to buy an old roller to do the paving needed at the homes he'd built. Because he didn't know the difference, he bought a dirt roller, not the used for paving. Still, he made $250 in one day - a lot of money for the time - and got a bug for the business. With the local housing market in a slump, Craig learned more about paving, bought a proper roller and started Craig Paving Inc. in 1956. The company had minimal equipment and had to rely on Hagerstown's only blacktop plant for the hot mix it used. With help, expansion In the late 1950s, business was beginning to build, and Craig was talked into buying a small blacktop plant in Zullinger, Pa. "It was just a piece of junk. I didn't know the difference," he said. The company operated the plant for a year or two, but it became clear it would either have to get something that worked or get out of blacktop business. Craig wanted to stay in the business - making his own blacktop would benefit the paving business - but he didn't have the money to go out and buy a new plant, he said. "I was stone broke, as the saying goes." Having worked with Hagerstown lawyer Vincent Groh on a case, Craig said he knew Groh had both confidence in his potential and the money to back him. He asked Groh to finance the setup of a plant that could produce one ton of blacktop per minute. Groh bought a small lot, near the future site of the Washington County Business Park, and paid for needed work on the site in return for a percentage of the business, Craig said. The new plant opened in April 1963 with the goal of producing 8,000 tons that season, he said. It made 9,600 tons the first year. By the second year, it had increased to more than 13,000 tons. By the third, it was more than 26,000 tons. When the plant got to the point it was making 45,000 tons a season, Craig went to upstate Pennsylvania, where he bought a larger plant second-hand. That plant is still being used alongside the much larger, technologically advanced plant the company added in 1990. Hard work pays off In the early days, before they had a machine to do it, Craig's crews had to shovel out and rake the hot mix by hand before rolling it. It was hard, hot work, said Craig, who remembers coming home dead tired and aching. But his hard work was finally paying off, he said. The Craig family wasn't scraping for grocery money any longer. Now the company has all kinds of equipment and a fleet of vehicles. There are 30 dump trucks, three tankers and seven other trucks as well as a large garage and crew of mechanics to keep them in order. In addition to its own staff, Craig Paving controls another 150 to 200 workers through subcontractors, Roger Craig said. While the company payroll is currently 110, employment is seasonal, Craig said. In the winter, it will drop down to 20 to 30 employees. Although still president of the company, Ollen Craig handed over the reins to Roger Craig, 50, who holds the vice president title, in the mid 1970s. When he first started in business, Ollen Craig said he promised to help the Lord in His work. By giving up day-to-day oversight of the company, he could devote more time to his missionary trips, he said. "I felt it was safe to hand it over. He knows the business inside and out," the elder Craig said. He remembers fondly that, as a little boy, Roger always wanted to go to work with Daddy. At age 12, Roger said he would run the company some day. "I thought it was child's talk," Ollen Craig said. He was wrong. Except for his military service in Vietnam, Roger Craig has always worked for the company. A family legacy "I like being around equipment," Roger Craig said. "I told Dad if he did something else, I wouldn't be here. I like being outside. I don't like being in one place." Ollen Craig said he couldn't have handled the company's strong, steady growth without his eldest son as his right-hand man. At age 28, Roger Craig started managing the business, which had only about 20 employees at the time. While he likes working with his family, being their boss isn't always easy, especially when he needs to come down on one of them or one of them won't listen to him, Roger Craig said. "It has its ups and downs," Craig said. Overall, things run pretty smoothly at the company, which does business in Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia and the District of Columbia, Roger Craig said. Craig Paving has built a reputation Roger Craig credits for landing the company its share, if not more, of the booming paving business. "We have a reputation for good work. We try to keep our word and do what we say we'll do," Roger Craig said
He paved a long road to retirement (top) By MARLO BARNHART A 35-year stint at one company isn't all that unusual, but few employees put in those years at the end of their careers like Kenneth "Mac" McSwain. Now 88, McSwain recently retired from Craig Paving Co., a Hagerstown firm he joined when he was 53. "I was hired as a carpenter but I actually have been making blacktop all these years," McSwain said. "Every day I thank God for the good life I've had." He came to work for Ollen Craig when the fledgling company was being formed on Hump Road. Indeed he moved his family into a house right across the road from the plant. "Mac started as a plant operator and that's what he was when he retired," said Robert Craig, grandson of the founder. "He actually makes the blacktop." While the plant has grown and modernized over the years, McSwain continued to operate the same small-batch blacktop plant at the site. "The newer plant has an air-conditioned office operated by men three times younger than Mac. ... Mac stayed at the old plant working outside in the heat," Robert Craig said. McSwain explained that crushed stone heated to 300 degrees is mixed with 15 gallons of liquid asphalt heated to a comparable temperature and stirred by two huge paddles going in different directions. The result is blacktop. "I could only make about a ton in each batch at my plant, but it would turn out a batch every minute or so," McSwain said. The trucks would pull up, get their loads and drive away. "It's hot work," McSwain said. "In the summer, I have an electric fan to keep cool but in the winter, I'm glad for the warmth." Ollen Craig's son, Roger Craig, recalled his favorite story about Mac and the time he got injured on the job in the mid-1960s. "Mac got his arm broken one morning and it was a problem because only Mac and my dad, Ollen, knew how to make blacktop then, and Dad was in Michigan," Roger Craig said. McSwain went home for lunch at noon, came back at 12:30 p.m. and finished his shift, broken arm and all. "He didn't get the arm set until that evening - on his own time," Roger Craig said. A native of Missouri, McSwain worked as a carpenter for more than 20 years before coming to Hagerstown. "My wife, Eeva, and I came here because we wanted our daughters to go to the Truth for Youth School," McSwain said. He said he learned of the school from a brochure that a friend had. So the McSwains came to Hagerstown and both girls, Jean and Janet, graduated from the school. Jean Madden is now an attorney with her own firm in Arkansas. Janet Brawner works in a law firm in Washington, D.C. The retirement party for the McSwains on Saturday at Doub's Woods Park attracted nearly 100 co-workers and their families. But even though the party made his retirement official, McSwain said he will still be interested in what goes on across the road from his home. A few years ago, McSwain put a new roof on the ticket office all by himself. In his spare time, he drywalled and painted it, too. "I have a garden I enjoy working in but I know I'll be going over to the company from time to time," McSwain said. "I usually go over to check the locks on the doors every night, anyway." (top)
|