Pit & Quarry, October 2017

DOUG LAMBERT With a career spanning four decades Doug Lambert has experienced the aggregate industry from the standpoints of a producer a manufacturer and a dealer Family ties brought Lambert into the industry and his various experiences have provided him with a unique perspective thats served him well in addition to the customers hes served over a period of nearly 40 years What can you tell us about your familys history as an aggregate producer My grandfather and several of his brothers started back in the mid 1930s and at some point in the 1940s they formed Lambert Brothers Crushed Stone As far as I know they were the largest crushed stone company in the United States in the early 1950s They were mainly in Tennessee and Virginia and did a lot of Gypsy camp kind of crushing for dams and road projects In 1956 talks with Vulcan Materials Co started with my great uncles They organized a very complicated merger with several other crushed stone companies in the Southeast That led to the Vulcan we know today or the construction aggregate part of it at least How did your start at Vulcan Materials come about Through family history because my dad worked for Vulcan from the time the company was officially Vulcan He worked for Lambert Brothers and he worked at Vulcan from the beginning Thats all we ever knew We were born with limestone in our blood I started working there Sales and Applications Engineer Superior Industries I learned teamwork in college Swimming is a lot like tennis or golf in that youre swimming as an individual yet supporting a team fresh out of college in 1980 I worked in engineering The way I tell people about my start is that I held the dummy end of the tape with the survey crew I held the prism or the rod while others did the math Between 1980 and early 1995 I did quality control plant operations ready mix concrete stone sales We learned that you were on a championship college swimming team How did the experience prepare you for a career in our industry I learned teamwork Swimming is a lot like tennis or golf in that youre swimming as an individual yet supporting a team Also a college athlete in any sport is typically not afraid to work hard In swimming youre working out four hours a day and covering 15000 to 20000 yd per day You get a lot of repetition and opportunities to do it l s a right In our industry you unfortunately dont have that many opportunities to get it right Visit PITANDQUARRY COM DOUGLAMBERT for our full conversation with Doug Lambert and check out additional photos from Lambert Brothers Crushed Stone in this months A Look Back section page 64 FIVE THINGS FIRST JOBS Baling hay during the summer on a relatives farm and mowing the lawn at Vulcan Materials Midsouth Division office TOP TRAVEL SPOT Almost any mountain cabin and Hilton Head Island HOBBIES Photography and hiking SPORTS TEAMS University of Tennessee swimming football BOOKS Military history or biographies Phantom Warrior by Forrest Bryant Johnson The Red Circle by Brandon Webb and Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand 66 PIT QUARRY October 2017 pitandquarry com PHOTOS COURTESY OF DOUG LAMBERT