Firm finds recycling rock materials can be profitable and good for the environment

Published 5:00 pm Friday, June 30, 2006

Since March, North Creek Recycling LLC of Scappoose has been turning recycled concrete and asphalt into “gold,” while at the same time helping the environment.

North Creek Recycling, located at 53829 West Lane Road in Scappoose, is paid by contractors to remove concrete from the remnants of former buildings and road asphalt that has been replaced. The company then grinds up the material and re-sells it as rock, gravel and sand.

Owner and general manager Herb Bailey and his wife Kristal, the business office manager, started the company in March after purchasing the 27-acre parcel of industrial property from Heckman Trucking Co., which ran a smaller crusher operation on the site.

The former owner’s son, Chuck Heckman, is a partner with Bailey in the new venture and is North Creek Recycling’s operations manager.

Herb Bailey said he never expected to find himself operating a business such as North Creek Recycling, much less owning one.

“My dad was in the construction business, and I’ve always had the drive” to have a business, Bailey told Coast River Business Journal.

He said he especially enjoys the fact that his company is able to recycle material that would otherwise end up in a landfill.

Bailey, 39, spent seven years working for Heineken Beer, where he was manager of the company’s Northwest territory, serving more than 65 distributors. Bailey said the job provided him with a solid background in marketing, structuring a business plan and following through with the plan.

“It was the best business education you could get,” he said.

After spending so much time on the road traveling for the company throughout northwest U.S. and Canada, Bailey said he was ready for a change. Then came the opportunity to purchase Heckman’s business – and the rest, as they say, is history.

With Bailey’s business background and Chuck Heckman’s knowledge of the rock crushing industry, in three short months North Creek Recycling has already developed a list of more than 80 contractors it serves throughout Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

The company, which has 13 employees, operates a portable crusher/screener that can grind giant concrete boulders into any of three sizes of rocks within seconds. The equipment’s portability allows the company to recycle materials on the site where buildings are being dismantled, eliminating the need for Bailey or the contractor to haul the concrete to North Creek’s facility.

“That gives us a leg up on most of our competitors,” Bailey said. “It allows us to be very versatile. We can process the material here or at the construction site.”

The company has also purchased a concrete processor that can remove rebar and steel from a giant pile of concrete boulders in a fraction of the time it used to take workers to perform the same task. The rebar and steel also are recycled.

North Creek Recycling has five of its own trucks that haul concrete and asphalt to the company’s yard and transport the converted rock, gravel and sand to other construction sites. For larger projects, the company has the ability to contract for additional trucks through its association with CLT Trucking, owned by Charles Templin, which shares part of North Creek Recycling’s headquarters and maintenance shop.

Unlike many operators the size of North Creek Recycling, the company employs an in-house mechanic. Bailey said this allows him to schedule regular preventative maintenance on all the vehicles and to respond immediately to emergency breakdowns, thus reducing the time equipment is out of service.

“Having our own mechanic already has paid for itself,” he said.

While the company currently operates a single shift five days a week, Bailey is already looking ahead to the day when the operation may add a second shift, and as many as two more portable crushers.

“The need is there,” he said, adding, “our priority is to meet our customers’ needs.”