Industry Leader of the Year Herb Slavens - management

Masonry Construction, July, 2002

Apprentice. Journeyman. Foreman. Estimator. President. Consultant. Teacher. Jesse H. (Herb) Slavens, Dallas, has done it all in a masonry industry career that stretches beyond 50 years. His father, three brothers, and several cousins were masons, and his son and several nephews are currently masons. Laying brick is obviously a key ingredient in the Slavens' family lineage.

Reflecting on his long career and the many roads that it has traveled, Slavens said, "Masonry has given me and my family a good living and a good life. I am now devoting most of my time giving something back to the trade that has been so good to me by teaching what I have learned to others. If you don't return your gifts to your industry, you are doing it a great disservice."

Even now, though retired, the personable and outgoing Slavens continues to work in and for the industry he loves.

Business career

MASONRY CONSTRUCTION magazine's "Industry Leader of the Year" spent his early years in Springfield, Mo. While in high school in the late 1940s, Slavens worked summers with his father, who was a stonemason and bricklayer. At the same time, he was participating in the high school diversified education program that included 3 hours a day of schooling and 4 hours of work with a masonry firm. He ultimately became an indentured apprentice to his uncle.

After a 3-year stint in the Marines with stops in San Diego, Japan, and Korea, he returned to Missouri in 1954. Work was scarce so he decided to join his brother in Dallas. He went to work as an apprentice for a small union contractor for about a year before moving to Dee Brown Masonry in 1955 as an apprentice and then a journeyman. (Dee Brown Masonry had about 20 employees in 1955, but the current company--Dee Brown Inc.--is one of the five largest masonry contractors in the country.)

Slavens received his union bricklayer card, learned blueprint reading, and began doing takeoffs at night after laying brick all day. He soon put his trowel away and moved into the office full time as an estimator, although he still spent some time in the field serving as a project manager on a number of jobs. "This job change looked to be an excellent road for advancement within the company," he remembered. It proved to be true because in 1969, Slavens became a company vice president and the unofficial "problem solver" in the organization.

The advent of the 1980s brought a significant change to the Dallas construction market. Nonunion shops began springing up and taking business away from the traditional contractor. Noticing these fluctuating market conditions, Dee Brown formed a second company to take advantage of this new opportunity. Slavens was named president of the open shop company--Masonry Technology Inc.--in 1981. Masonry Technology eventually grew into a nearly $10 million business doing smaller commercial jobs in brick and block during its 10-year life.

In 1991, Dee Brown shut down Dee Brown Masonry and used Masonry Technology until he formed Dee Brown Inc., an open shop contractor. Three years later, Slavens was executive vice president of this company in charge of all estimating and marketing.

Slavens was also quite active in local association activities during his working career. He served as president of the Dallas/Fort Worth Chapter of the American Subcontractors Association and United Masonry Contractors Association. He also spent several years on the board of directors of each association.

In 1998, at age 65 and after over 40 years with Dee Brown, Slavens retired. But not really.

Another career

The new retiree began spending more time at his great stress reliever--a 52-acre farm where he grew hay and raised livestock. He also worked hard on his golf game, caught countless fish, and tackled the ever-common "honey-do" list. However, the urge of the industry and his desire to continue serving it continually tugged at him.

Slavens started a masonry consulting business upon retirement and assisted several contractors as they opened up their new businesses. He also did some take-offs and estimating for a couple of other companies and served as a problem solver for several contractors. But teaching the trade is what he enjoys most.

Chance brought Slavens into the formal teaching arena in 1977. The apprentice board lost its instructor and asked Slavens to take over the class of apprentice masons at Skyline High School in Dallas. He taught the class until 1981. (He holds a vocational industrial education teachers certificate from Texas A&M University.) Until then, the only training he had performed was on-the-job training with Dee Brown apprentices.

"Finding the masons of the future is a monumental problem," said Slavens. "We tried advertising in the paper and participating in high school career days with minimal success. Most of the participants in our current training programs are former jobsite laborers and operators looking for advancement possibilities. These people are used to hard work and know what being a mason entails. The financial rewards for completing the program are substantial."