November 2007 Industry Leader:

For Jay Fangman, business development director of Colorado Hardscapes and council director of The Decorative Concrete Council, a specialty council of the American Society of Concrete Contractors, it's all about design.

"I live in the design community realm," he says of his work, which includes spending a lot of time in educational and consulting roles in the design community.

Fangman started spending time with concrete when he was in high school, working summers at a pre-cast plant in Clearlake, Iowa, making, among other things, bridge beams. He worked there through college as well, and along the way the company put him in charge of a production line for about five years, where every third work day he made 500 feet of beam.

In the mid-70s, Fangman dabbled in condominium management, and that's when he met a man who was starting concrete batch plants and Fangman says he jumped at the chance to get back into concrete.

"This was the middle of the winter in the mountains of Colorado, and I read everything I could get my hands on about concrete," Fangman recalls, adding that he read technical concrete journals all winter.

For many years, Fangman worked on the ready-mix side of the industry on the Western slope of Colorado. He says the company was primarily doing resort work, but also moving in the industrial direction, because large construction and industrial work often demanded on-site batch plants.

This experience gave him the perspective of both a producer and a technician, which helped Fangman make the next career move—to Denver.

"One of my potential customers was Van Heukelem Concrete," Fangman says, "and I visited their office in Denver. They had a wall of stamped concrete, and this was a whole side of concrete I'd never seen before."

Fangman says once they got to talking, it came out that Van Heukelem was looking to add someone to help grow the company and focus on sales, which was a perfect fit for him.

"When I started I was given leeway, and I suggested the design community to tap larger projects," he recalls. He also suggested changing the company name, which happened seven years ago.

"We were shifting into a larger market, because at first they were mostly residential, but we were expanding into commercial," he explains of the name change. "The key is the design community, and the family name was not indicative of what we did and where we did it. Hardscapes was still a new term, but it fit what we did, and when we put Colorado and hardscapes together, it worked. The name has helped from a marketing standpoint."

Fangman, who is active in AIA and ASLA, conducts many presentations and lunch and learns, giving audiences a general overview of the market, trends and new ideas, as well as customizes presentations to a particular project. This year, he expects to conduct 70 presentations (his goal is 50 to 70 per year).

He's also finding the company's Design Center is taking center stage more and more.

"Designers are expressing interesting in coming here, where we're walking and talking and looking at actual products--that's where we're getting the most beneficial feedback," he adds.

Fangman says that although the Design Center is just five years old, it's already on its third renovation.

"Things change so quickly in this industry and you have to keep up, keep it fresh, keep them coming back for more fresh new looks," he observes. "The designers expect that from us. We've made ourselves into major players in the concrete realm, and the design community had gotten behind us."

The design industry also plays a big part in the future of decorative concrete, according to Fangman.

"The design industry is driving where we go in the future," he comments. "Once designers understand what you can do, they start asking for more and challenging us to try new things--they are driving the market. They're also starting to really have fun, and they understand concrete like they didn't five years ago."

Fangman says another big driver in decorative concrete is the artistic element and the people it brings into concrete.

"Any time you get artists in a new medium, they take it where it's never been before. That challenges us as installers to bring that into the market on a larger scale," he notes.

Whether he's educating designers or admiring concrete artisans, Fangman says that being involved in a dynamic industry that brings diverse people together on a common product that is unrecognizable from 10 years ago is what he loves the most.

"I work with designers in major commercial projects, and I get involved in the conceptual stage, working with them and having a major impact on what's used in projects," he concludes. "I enjoy working with the design community, developers, general contractors and watching projects get built. And I get to walk on it when it's all done—to go back and remember the beginning. That's the big payoff."

www.coloradohardscapes.com