Starting from scratch

The story of Edward C. Levy Co., a construction materials supplier based in Detroit, begins during the Rust Belt’s rapid industrialization, which ushered in a booming automotive industry that set the stage for the company’s success.

Amid the city’s rampant growth, Edward Levy Sr. founded his namesake company in 1918 with only two trucks and a handful of city contracts.

“The company began with a simple but smart idea [of] recycling steel mill slag, … a byproduct of steelmaking, for use in construction [materials],” says Lori Speare, director of aggregate sales and marketing for Edward C. Levy. “So, instead of taking the slag and bringing it to the landfill, … Levy [Sr.] saw [its] potential as a valuable material to build roads and infrastructure.”

In 1922, a “handshake deal” with Henry Ford of Ford Motor Co. to haul slag from the Ford Rouge plant near Dearborn, Michigan, to be recycled and reused in cement production would help transform Edward C. Levy from a small, mom-and-pop operation to a leading provider of construction materials.

Throughout four generations, the company expanded its services through organic growth and acquisitions, developing a vertically integrated business model to control various aspects of production.

Today, Edward C. Levy has nearly 100 facilities in 12 countries and 14 states in the U.S. Its business lines include asphalt production and paving, concrete, sand and gravel and hard rock quarries, aggregate docks, flame technology, scrap metal management and recycling. The company also has a steel mill services group that generates construction materials from blast furnace, basic oxygen furnace and electric arc furnace (EAF) slag.

Filling a need

Katie Davis, project manager at Edward C. Levy, says the company’s focus always has been to find uses for materials that otherwise would be landfilled.

“A lot of our companies that we formed … were formed to support our original company,” she says. “For example, our asphalt and paving facilities use a lot of our byproducts from the steel mill industry. And then some of our other specialty companies, like torch cutting, [are] used to support our steel mill services.

“… It’s all about integrating companies within each other and building new companies to support our parent company,” Davis continues.

This natural progression into new industries also can be credited to Edward C. Levy’s dedication to its customers. Reuben Maxbauer, director of real estate and government relations, says the company’s overall business strategy, which he describes as “customer-obsessed,” is centered on how it can best address challenges.

“It started with an understanding [of] … Henry Ford’s challenge, and then we realized other steel mills have those challenges,” he says. “Then, as we worked with more steel mills, we saw more challenges across the mills and grew from there.”

Many of the company’s innovations have been inspired by its customers, Davis says, adding that new ideas and processing optimization constantly flow.

“I think what sets us apart is we’re not afraid to try something and see if it works. And if it doesn’t work, we’ll keep brainstorming until we find the key factor,” she says. “Then, we’ll spread it around to other locations. So, not everything’s successful, but some things are and continue to evolve for the next several years.”

In the U.S. alone, Edward C. Levy recycles more than 10 million tons of materials per year, with end markets ranging from local park projects to Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) jobs. According to Tom Green, the company’s director of environmental health and safety, the final use of processed aggregates depends on the facility’s location. In rural areas, materials often head to residential applications, whereas more centrally located operations sell materials for commercial or industrial uses.

Reclaimed materials are produced externally and internally, Maxbauer says, with steel scrap typically received from outside brokers and slag generated by Edward C. Levy’s internal customers.

Working with the market

With a fleet of front-end loaders, excavators and bull-dozers, as well as a variety of crushers, conveyors, screens and magnets, Edward C. Levy maintains efficient and consistent processing of its feedstocks.

To ensure users are getting superior performance from its products, Speare and her team work closely with various transportation departments and general contractors to establish ideal applications and specs.

“We’re in contact with MDOT, [and] our customers inform us [of] any changes that they see,” she says. “So, then, QC [quality control], operations and sales get together to try to get ahead of the game and determine what we need to do on our end to make a product that not only meets the new SIM [secondary ion mass spectrometer] analysis but exceeds it.”

In an environment where markets are ever-changing, Speare says it takes communication with all parties to find solutions for as many customers as possible.

“Because a lot of our product goes into the construction market, and because we have a large footprint in the northern half [of the country], … it’s all about making sure that the projects don’t stop,” Maxbauer adds. “Because the construction season is so short, … Lori and her team … source product in real time and get it delivered where it needs to be delivered so those projects continue.”

While Edward C. Levy has found great success in its operations, a challenge the company still seeks to overcome is the belief that recycled aggregate is inferior to virgin products, despite its high performance.

“Way too often, when given a choice of choosing a recycled product or a virgin product, people … gravitate toward the virgin product because it’s got to be better; it’s brand new,” Green says. “Where[as] the recycled product, it’s a greener solution, it’s got a lower carbon footprint, it’s sustainable, it’s more cost-effective and, in some cases, like the slag aggregate that we produce, it has better performance.”

In high-friction environments, including motorways or airplane runways, recycled slag aggregate provides more angularity and increased strength, Maxbauer says. To combat the skepticism of its products, the company operates a laboratory in Indiana that conducts performance testing of its aggregates.

“The science, the data, is used to overcome the stigmatism that it’s … somehow inferior,” Green says.

Being a good neighbor

At its core, Edward C. Levy is dedicated to sustainability, environmental health and solutions to reduce landfill waste and increase recycling. With a guiding ethos of “Treat others as you wish to be treated,” Green says the company prioritizes being a good neighbor.

Dust is a concern for any site making construction materials, he adds, noting that dust control is one of the company’s highest priorities.

“We have water trucks at every facility,” Green says. “We have water sprays, water controls, emission controls [and] baghouses, and all of our equipment [is designed] to minimize the potential for any fugitive emissions from within the property.”

Neighboring residents often will have more specific requests, such as adjusting a facility’s hours, changing backup alarms on equipment or planting trees to better obscure operations, which Edward C. Levy is open to discussing.

“It’s all about being involved and engaged with the community,” Maxbauer says.

On a grander scale, the company also looks for ways to be a good corporate citizen in the communities it serves, such as by supporting nonprofits, schools and other groups.

“Little things from us make a huge impact on the [neighborhoods we’re a part of],” Davis says.

Staying innovative

In a similar vein, Edward C. Levy has extensive safety initiatives to protect its nearly 3,000 employees, 2,000 of whom are based in the U.S. A side of the business that necessitates a large focus is safety within the work environment, Green says.

“One of the biggest safety issues when you look at a potential fatality is the interaction of people and heavy equipment,” he says. “Our [main] focus is trying to remove the individual out of the line of fire when it comes to heavy equipment we work on.”

The company couples traditional safety methods, such as morning toolbox talks, with more sophisticated tactics, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and cameras. Recently, Edward C. Levy adopted AI-enabled readers that alert crews to what personal protective equipment is needed in specific areas of a jobsite.

The company also is looking at ways to remove operators from various machines in pursuit of more automated options.

“We have removed the operator out of front-end loaders, and they’re sitting in an air-conditioned environment with a nice comfy chair that never jostles around. The same is true in some of our material handlers,” Maxbauer explains. “They’re operating it remotely using sensors and cameras.

“It’s all about making sure that our people are as safe when they walk out of the gate at the end of the day as when … they came in.”

When it comes to innovation, Edward C. Levy’s more than 100 years of history haven’t stopped the company from staying on the cutting edge of new technology. Rutgers University, with the help of a $5 million research grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, recently enlisted Edward C. Levy’s help to develop a cement substitute from EAF slag.

This initiative would build off the company’s Green Circle Cement, which uses blast furnace slag and grinds it to a fine powder for use in cement substitutes. According to Maxbauer, the supplementary cementitious product has 99 percent fewer carbon emissions than traditional Portland cement.

“As we look to the future, it’s more of this,” he says. “It’s how do we take what were historically challenging products, either to our customers or future customers, and how do we turn them into the green solutions of tomorrow as we continue to construct our built environment?”