Business View Magazine | December 2019

129 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2019 www.americanconcrete.com New England's Best PRECAST CONCRETE 982 Minot Ave. Auburn, ME 04210 (207)-784-1388 1717 Stillwater Ave. Veazie, ME 04401 (207)-947-8334 Since 1957 American has been producing high quality pre-cast concrete products. American Concrete now delivers pre-cast concrete products throughout Maine and northern New England. A I T BR IDGES increased aging and deterioration of bridges are going to open up a huge market for all of us. So, there couldn’t be a better time for introducing an alternative way of building bridges.” Indeed, if anything, Svoboda actually wishes to drive his competitors to “up their game” and then, work with them: “It’s not a matter of driving them out of business. If they can up their performance level, we’ll all be on a level playing field. I think it’s good for the whole industry and good for the whole country. Steel guys can produce longer-lasting steel - it costs more, but they can improve their performance level. So can the pre-cast concrete guys by using GRP (fiber-reinforced) rebar, or CFRP (carbon fiber reinforced polymer) type of products that would not corrode inside the concrete. So, we think there are complementary opportunities to work with the steel industry and the concrete industry and work with better reinforcement materials. “Our arches are 99 percent concrete; it’s trained technicians and engineers to bid and chase that kind of work,” Svoboda says. “They don’t come to you; you have to go out and bid them up. They’re out there, and now we need the sales force to go with the momentum that has evolved over the last six or seven years with demonstration models in multiple states and attending conferences, lunch-and-learns, trade shows, and so on, to educate the market that this project is available, and how, when, and where to use it. Then, we have to sell, individually, to these customers. Bridges coming up for bid – the sales cycle is 18-24, sometimes 30 months from start to finish.” And even though AIT will be bidding against the larger legacy industries of steel and concrete, Svoboda neither expects, nor wants, to drive the competition out of the marketplace. “We’re just looking to pick up our fair share of composite industry market,” he states. “There’s going to be a huge market increase over these next ten, twenty, or thirty years. Increased spending and