Operations reorganize as Capital Aggregates

The Ozark Quarry, located in the Springfield, Missouri, area, is one of 12 quarries that makes up Capital Materials, now part of Capital Aggregates. Photo: Capital Aggregates

The first few months of 2023 have been fruitful for Jamie Jones.

Jones, formerly the vice president of operations at Missouri-based Capital Quarries, says a mild winter and strong state Department of Transportation funding led to a busy January and February for all of the company’s operations.

Along with Capital Quarries, three other Capital companies had a strong 2022 and are off to a hot start this year – Capital Sand, Capital Materials and Hedger Aggregates. Last year, the four companies combined to produce 10.6 million tons of material.

That success led to what is the next step forward for the companies – combining as one new entity: Capital Aggregates. All four companies will continue to operate with their original names under the rebranding.

Capital also has several other companies that will continue to operate outside of Capital Aggregates. Capital CPC Midsouth, Capital Paving and Capital Hauling round out Capital’s companies, according to Capital’s website.

Jones, who now takes over as COO of Capital Aggregates, says the move cements the company as the aggregate arm of Farmer Companies, Capital’s parent company.

“In the past, we’ve kind of been siloed off,” Jones says. “In the last couple of years, we’ve united under one leadership group and have tried to figure out this vision of pulling all of the best employees together and running this as one unit instead of everybody being a jack-of-all-trades.”

Capital Aggregates took who it considered to be the best employees from each company in areas such as environmental, quality control and safety, among others, to help oversee and bring together each company under one name.

One benefit of this restructuring, according to Jones, will be Capital Aggregates’ total yearly tonnage moving forward. Last year, Capital Materials and Capital Quarries each produced 3.5 million tons of material. Capital Sand produced 3.2 million tons, and Hedger totaled 400,000 tons.

“Instead of all these smaller companies, it’s one company that is doing 10 million-plus tons a year,” Jones says. “From the outside, it’s a much bigger operation. We want to let people know that we are a rapidly growing company. We’re seeing what we’re capable of doing.”

Strong staffing

Capital Quarries, one of four companies that recently reorganized as Capital Aggregates, produced 3.5 million tons of material last year. Photo: Capital Aggregates

Jones has been with Capital since the summer of 1999 when he was 18 years old. He spent his first 20 years with Capital Quarries. In 2019, he spent six months with Capital Sand.

It was at that time that Jones – and Capital as a whole – realized that working interdependently rather than independently of each other would offer some benefits. From there, Jones began to oversee all of Capital’s aggregate operations. That two-year process culminated in this rebranding.

“As we started pulling team members together – the best pieces from each one of the companies – we started to see how this thing unfolded,” Jones says. “We added some great pieces like Chris (Williams). He came from the outside, and he’s been a big part over this last year and a half to help pull this together. It’s really been cool getting to watch this come together and how the guys are reacting to it.”

Williams, who serves as vice president of operations at Capital Aggregates, isn’t the only addition Capital made of late. Ericka Baxter, now operations manager at Capital Materials, joined the company in January after more than 20 years with Conco Quarries.

“Exciting things are happening here,” Jones says. “We’re a very rapidly growing company, and we can still have fun along the way.”

« Prev Page 1 2 Next Page »