Competitive spirit: Kitty Hoyle takes her family business in new directions

Concrete Producer, The, April, 2005 by Rick Yelton

Every so often, Kitty Hoyle likes to take a drive down memory lane. Fortunately for Hoyle, it's about a 30-minute drive to a bridge near her concrete plant. The structure resembles one of a number of indistinguishable bridges built to North Carolina DOT's specification.

But for Hoyle, it's a monument to her competitive spirit. "Every time I drive across the bridge, I remember just how hard we had to work to prove that a woman-owned producer could do the work as well as anyone else," says Hoyle.

A few weeks after Wellington Hamrick, Hoyle's ready-mixed company, won the bid, Hoyle drove out to meet the job superintendent. On the way to the site, she conducted her normal pre-job review. She double-checked drive times, mileage, and potential load limit restrictions. She knew she had to know all about the potential problems before the meeting to coordinate the upcoming pours on the bridge deck.

Hoyle's biggest potential problem was at the site. She could instantly tell from the superintendent's body language that he really didn't want a woman in charge of supplying the concrete. "Here I had worked so hard to convince the contractor that my company could do the work, only to discover the challenge was only starting," recalls Hoyle. "I knew right then and there, this was the challenge that would settle once for all whether we could compete with the big producers in our area."

In hindsight, Hoyle admits the challenge was personal. Following the site meeting, she just went back to her team and told them she expected their normal good job. "We go about our job professionally," says Hoyle. The pour went off without a hitch, despite the challenge of meeting the tight air requirements that spring season when ambient temperatures fluctuated greatly.

When the job was over, the project manager wrote Hoyle a letter, thanking her for her company's outstanding effort. The letter has become one of her treasured correspondences. "I think this was the job where I was able to show my competitive spirit in proving to that job superintendent that women can produce good concrete," says Hoyle.

Hoyle's success at owning and operating a concrete plant in a man's world is noteworthy. She is one of the very few women who is the president of a concrete producing operation. But what is even more newsworthy about Hoyle's success is that her firm is an independent company in a market dominated by large producers, and she's winning by doing things her way.

Hoyle's competitive spirit serves as a model of success to our industry's next generation of female leaders. And just as important, Hoyle's success has entailed more than pouring good concrete on time and within specification. She's committed to doing the whole job right.

Holye has managed a small operation and expanded her operations in a rural area hardest hit by the loss of textile manufacturing and job losses to China and Mexico. She has grown her family business tenfold in 10 years.

As further proof of her company's success, the Small Business Council of the Cleveland County Chamber awarded Wellington Hamrick the Chamber's February 2005 Small Business of the Month award.

A legacy of innovation

Hoyle didn't start her professional life wanting to be a concrete producer. After high school, she dreamed of being an artist, and went to college to develop her skills. It was an experience that Hoyle describes as eye-opening. "I didn't realize how competitive the art world was," says Hoyle. "I quickly found out I didn't have the type of back-biting personality needed to thrive in the subjective art business."

Returning home, Hoyle quickly turned her energy to an industry where hard work and attitude meant something. "Construction and concrete was in our family's blood," she says. Hoyle is Wellington Hamrick's youngest of three daughters, and the only one to follow in her father's concrete business.

Hamrick is a sort of construction legend in his own right. Hoyle's describes her father, who died several years ago, as a concrete renaissance man. He began a small backhoe operating business that expanded into septic tank production.

His ingenuity was proven when, in the 1950s and 1960s, Hamrick patented two successful products. One patent was for a boring attachment for a backhoe.

It was Hamrick's other patent that helped determine Hoyle's future. Hamrick devised a septic tank design that increased the tank's operating efficiency using a change in the baffle design. With his new design, Hamrick not only became one the area's largest tank installers, but soon switched into the producer mold. The company's precast plant in Boiling Springs, N.C., still is a major provider of septic tanks in the central portion of the state.

Hoyle credits her father as her source of ingenuity, inspiration, and competitive spirit. "Dad didn't really want me to be self-employed," says Hoyle. "In the 1970s you went to work for a company, and retired there."

But when Hamrick saw Hoyle's determination to be in concrete, he was supportive. "He suggested the ready-mix business," Hoyle says.