FEATURE THE BAKERS ARE BACK!
BLUEGRASS MATERIALS – A NEW COMPANY FORMED BY THE BAKER FAMILY OF FLORIDA ROCK FAME – RENOVATES A BOWLING GREEN, KY., PLANT FOR FUTURE GROWTH.
By Mark S. Kuhar CHALLENGE:
Renovate a quarry in operation since the 1950s.
SOLUTION:
A plant remake with a Lippman jaw crusher as the centerpiece.
TIP:
The company turns 100 percent of the material it extracts into product. There is no waste.
he name "Baker" is synonymous with successful stone production. Since 1929, when Thompson Baker founded the company that even‐ tually grew into Florida Rock, the fam‐ ily has been actively involved in the aggregates industry, on both the state and national level.
T
When Vulcan Materials purchased Florida Rock in 2007, the Baker family was still running the show. John D. Baker II, Thompson Baker's son, was president of the company, and took a seat on Vulcan's Board of Directors. His son Ted Baker – representing the third generation of the stone‐producing
20 ROCKproducts • AUGUST 2011
Baker family – stayed on with Vulcan after the acquisition to run its plants in Northern Florida.
Both Bakers left Vulcan Materials in 2009, and began looking for a capital partner to finance an acquisition, and more importantly, some high‐quality aggregates properties to acquire. Mind you this was in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
"Our pitch was, there are companies right now who are looking to divest in order to clean up their balance sheet," said Ted Baker, president of Bluegrass
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