What Does ‘Concrete Contractor’ Mean? – Concrete Contractor March/April 2025 Editors Letter

Join me here as I attempt to navigate my way through what “concrete contractor” means. I don’t mean this brand. I mean your job. Even though you may work on a different type of project, do you think your job is the same as another reader? Aside from the fact that working with concrete in some form or fashion puts food on the table, where’s the intersection of the Venn diagram of hundreds of differences of “concrete contractor?” What does that look like?

There’s a lot of difference in this community. 

I’d like to draw your attention to ForConstructionPros.com/22933356 where share the story of the concrete group of the construction company, Tarlton Corp. In it we briefly profile two projects that couldn’t be more different. They tell me that they were pulled into one mass concrete project placing 25-ft. thick walls of concrete deep underground. Another project was a building that featured massive columns, an odd shape, and tight constraints for space.

Then, ForConstructionPros.com/22932535 features the voices of three professionals within the concrete industry: Dr. Marisa Juenger, vice president of the American Concrete Institute; Lizabeth Howard, P.E., senior project manager at Superior Construction; and Kilah Engelke, the business manager of the Operative Plasterers’ & Cement Masons’ International Association Local 599. From I could determine, only about 14 percent of all construction jobs overall are employed by women. And only 19.9 percent of jobs of “poured concrete foundation and structure contractors are women. Although these three professionals represent such different worlds, they each found there way here and discovered something they love.

Even though the team at Tarlton and each of the “women in concrete” are in a vastly different “job,” they represent the range and varying degree of people this industry has. That’s only this issue. Consider the contractors that specialize in stamping (see ForConstructionPros.com/22928286 by the way), the finishers, the polishers, the pumpers, etc. Like I said, there’s a lot of difference in this community.

What’s great is that difference of jobs doesn’t separate the industry from itself. That’s truly remarkable.

I think that’s something all concrete contractors from the foundation and up can be proud of. 

Alright, that’s enough from me. Thank you for reading.