Professional Pavement Products Increases Staff, Enhances Training
Professional Pavement Products is enhancing its campaign to put more profit in your pocket by hiring some top-notch employees and training them to increasingly high standards. Adding two new staff members and enhancing the duties of another shows the company's determination to provide the best service in the industry. These changes allow Professional Pavement Products to better assist in product selection, project complications, and other special needs of their customers.
“Finally I have found an organization that gets who I am and how I think,” said Driskell in a subsequent interview. He is president of Jacksonville-based Professional Pavement Products. The company is a leading provider of roadway construction and maintenance products.
“Every hire we make impacts customer service,” said Greg Driskell, president of Professional Pavement Products, the Jacksonville-based provider of roadway pavement products.
Jentson Beasley, the new manager of the Charlotte Regional Distribution Center brings to the company a background in construction, management and sales. This new opportunity combines all of his past experience to serve Professional Pavement Products which he describes as “above the standard in this industry.”
“This is a great opportunity,” said Beasley.
“I feel blessed to join a company with such a concern for its employees, its customers and its vendors.”
Driskell says Beasley was the obvious choice for the position. “The first time I met Jentson I immediately thought 'this is our man for Charlotte'. I'm looking forward to proving that I can still pick 'em.”
Beasley says Charlotte is ripe for growth. As the community and economy grows, so does the need for roadways and parking areas. Likewise Professional Pavement Products in Charlotte is an important part of that growth and is among the company's family of now seven facilities. “We're not competing with other branches. We're all working together,” he said.
Young new talent, from left: Jentson Beasley, Gabe Leavitt (trainer), John Milton
Young Talent Added
Also joining the company is Vice President Glenn Milton's son John. “I think we have one of the best employee training programs,” said Glenn. “If you can learn our systems you will be successful. I just don't think there's a better place to work that emphasizes the same high values.”
John, a recent graduate of Florida State University, studied business and economics and will be working in inside sales.
“We are excited about having John Milton come on board,” said Driskell. “He is young and eager and he comes from 'good stock'.”
New Training Program
The man given the chief responsibility for the highly lauded training of these new hires is Gabe Leavitt, Orlando Branch Manager. Now also the new Training Specialist, his mission is to help raise the already high bar even higher for Professional Pavement Products employees.
According to Driskell, Leavitt “gets it.”
He's no stranger to training, having worked as a high school coach and a personal trainer. And he likes the high standards set by Driskell. ”He's not afraid to ask for everything and then some, but he really cares about people,” said Leavitt.
New sales and management employees undertake a four week training regime at several of the company's locations.
“From accounting to sales, every hire impacts customer service, That's why our training is very intense.” -said Greg
Employee Knowledge Guide
The company uses an Employee Knowledge Guide with 350 questions that each staffer is tested on within their first 120 days of employment.
“As an EKG measures the level of efficiency of the heart, so also our EKG measures our staff's level of efficiency in providing quality customer service -- the heart of our company. The EKG process improves the overall ability to provide the level of expertise we promise our employees,” said Driskell. This intense training does not stop after the initiation of employees.
Also central to this effective training are periodic training sessions, called Open Line Training, using the latest technology to hold conferences with staffers countrywide. And, last year Driskell took all his managers to Las Vegas for the National Pavement Expo West for serious study (tempered only slightly by entertainment).
Expansion Always in Mind
“Professional Pavement Products can go from decision to doors open in 70 days”, said Driskell. To be poised for such growth requires procedures for hiring and training the best people in the business. But that doesn't exclude those creative outsiders.
“I like hiring people from outside the industry,” Driskell said. “Fresh people with fresh ideas significantly contribute to our advanced means of doing business. However, this comes with great cost and effort in training them.”
Driskell is also always on the lookout for young talent.
“We like to invest in the future, fulfill both today and tomorrow's needs.”
Professional Pavement Products with its commitment to products, service and knowledge is a leading provider of maintenance and construction products for the improvement of safety and effectiveness of our roadways and parking areas. The 14-year-old company provides 700 products through six outlets in the southeast and Texas.
President Greg Driskell has spent nearly 20 years in the industry as both a contractor in the early days and supplier for the past 16 years. He owns industry-related management and manufacturing companies.
