ASSOCIATE MEMBER PROFILE
IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME
The Aggregate Technologies story
Submitted by Aggregate Technologies
Thousands of concrete piles jutted
uniformly through the brown
Texas soil. The Motiva CEP
Expansion Project in Port Arthur, Texas, was
a huge job and laborers were hard at work
attempting to cut piles as quickly as possible.
Quietly taking in the scene while parked
in their truck, two men observed and considered
the massive job site at hand. Ronnie
Wills and Dave Rogers, both from Aggregate
Technologies, saw more than just future
work – they saw an opportunity.
They were looking at a job site that they
wanted very badly to participate in but
had not been hired for – there were other
concrete sawing subcontractors already on
the job. They watched as the piles were cut.
Their eyes steadied on a few crews working
together. Typical of a safety conscious
project, these men were methodically cutting
each pile… two men on a saw and one
man in an excavator.
Anyone could see that this job presented
some challenges. The concrete they were
cutting was heavy and the loose sections
created risks for the men on the ground. At
each section, the workers cutting the piles
relied on the man in the excavator to move
the piles away without putting them in danger.
Wills knew that there was a better way
to cut these piles. He could see the machine
they needed in his head.
Still, the solution he visualized didn’t
exist yet. They’d have to create it.
Wills asked Rogers about fabricating a
machine that could speed up the process of
cutting concrete piles, but that would also
remove the need for workers on the ground,
keeping them out of potential harm. His
idea included an operator in a cab, with a
robotic arm that caught the pile cut-offs to
place them carefully to the side.
Aggregate Technologies got to work,
creating a pile cutting machine for a job
they wanted.
Left to right: Dave Rogers (VP) and Ronnie Wills (CEO)
Photos courtesy of Aggregate Technologies
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