Andrew "AJ" Fox is the type who does whatever he sets out to do. For example, when he decided, after spending 20 years of his career in landscaping, to jump into a new industry, he set his sights on concrete and landed at Colorado Hardscapes in Denver. "An opportunity presented itself to work at Colorado Hardscapes," he explains of the move. "I knew it was a great company with a great reputation, and it all launched from there."

Fox is the current chief operating officer of Colorado Hardscapes and the company's new president. A former vice president of TruGreen Companies, Fox brought 20 years of green industry management experience with him to Denver, where he currently directs the implementation of a Western Slope Branch of Colorado Hardscapes.

The branch has a mountain-based crew in the Carbondale area that began working in April 2005. The Western Slope Branch serves the commercial and custom home construction markets in Aspen, Carbondale, Glenwood Springs, Vail, and the surrounding areas.

Fox also brings a national vision to Colorado Hardscapes with the formation of a new entity for work outside of Colorado called Concrete Design Group. Concrete Design Group will expand the knowledge, craftsmanship and designer support that is the hallmark of Colorado Hardscapes in Colorado throughout the United States.

Regarding the recent expansion, Fox says, "We see a real need in several other regional markets for an industry leader in architectural-grade concrete for retail, large commercial and custom home projects. There is a need for the kind of innovator Colorado Hardscapes has been in Colorado in other regions around the U.S.—a leader who has experience in managing large projects, working with designers, and producing a superior and honest product. I'm very excited about the opportunities and strategic partnerships we are creating and will create throughout the next few years."

Fox also oversees operations, business development, marketing, production, sales, estimating, and systems for Colorado Hardscapes, in addition to being very involved with the company's development on a national level. "That's where Concrete Design Group comes in," Fox adds. "It's an expansion of the company regionally and nationally."

"Over the last six months we've formed strategic alliances with national suppliers, vendors and clients in an effort to provide our customers with a one-stop-shopping source for all their decorative concrete needs," Fox continues.

"For our clients who operate on a national basis, they will now have a service provider who can reproduce a consistent look from store to store, for example," Fox explains.

"We've also been working with designers and architects in an effort to take the decorative concrete business out of the shadows of gray concrete into recognizing it as an artistic design feature," he adds. "That's what we're doing with our website, which has specifications and case studies designers can use, as well as a Virtual Design Center—we're giving the community a resource they can tap into to better understand the artistry available with concrete."

As for the industry as a whole, Fox says it's currently very immature, adding, "There's a natural maturation [process], and I foresee substantial growth...A greater use of decorative concrete in buildings and concrete products."

He adds that concrete's bound to become mainstream due to its environmentally-friendly nature, which he also says can be made even more so, as well as the fact that concrete's long lasting and durable.

"We're going to see more and more designers creating with concrete as more products are offered," Fox explains. "[Like] our product, Ground Solutions, which is pervious paving that can increase land use, so a parking lot can also become a detention pond, allowing the land owner to use his space to greater advantage."

As for where Fox gets his motivation, he credits Colorado Hardscapes. "I'm driven by the opportunity to work with a company that has a tremendous reputation as an industry leader, and also I'm able to look at the industry as a whole and see an underdeveloped market," he says. "With patience, creativity and a great team, it can be developed into a large market with unlimited potential."

Return to "Industry Leaders" index