Longtime Valley gravel pit changes hands, keeps same philosophy

PALMER — A longtime Valley gravel pit has changed hands, and the new owners hope to remain on friendly terms with the neighborhood the pit’s operated in for more than two decades.

Central Gravel Products has been a fixture off Bogard Road for 25 years. With that history behind them, new owners Jade Laughlin and his wife Kelly Heck say that the homeowner in need of a pickup load or the contractor who needs a few thousand yards of gravel will get the same attention to customer service.

Laughlin and Heck finalized the deal March 6 with former Central Gravel owner Nickie Jordan, who started and ran the business — for many years by herself — for those two decades. She decided to retire in December, Laughlin said.

“Apart from the usual paperwork, it was pretty much a handshake deal,” Laughlin said Friday. “We had been working with Nickie and her husband Mark for years with our trucking business and have felt blessed to get this opportunity.”

Laughlin, a Fairbanks native who has worked for and run trucking businesses in Washington state and the Interior, moved to the Mat-Su in 2007 and started JK&K Trucking in 2008.

Laughlin said the 140-acre pit has been at the center of several Valley transportation projects over the years, and most recently was part of the Seldon Road extension.

“It also has been part of several borough projects and we provide the winter sand for the borough as well,” Laughlin said. “This pit has a good 25 years left on it and the quality of the gravel is just great. It has run around 57,000 yards a year for a 15-year average, but we will probably be more in the 65,000-yard range this year.”

Laughlin said so far for this year’s road construction season, Central Gravel has an agreement with Granite Construction Co. for the Glenn Highway Mile 49 realignment project. They also have submitted bids for a few Anchorage and other Glenn Highway projects.

Big projects aside, Laughlin said quite a bit of Central’s business comes from small contractors, homebuilders and the do-it-yourself homeowner.

“It just blew me away how many pickups were being loaded,” Laughlin said of the do-it-yourself crowd. “It’s awesome, and Nickie really nurtured that part of the business. She had some great customer loyalty.”

To that end, Laughlin will have a small Bobcat loader on hand this summer to handle the small-load traffic.

“It’s much easier to load a pickup with a Bobcat,” he said.

Central Gravel offers sand along with pit-run gravel, septic rock, “3/4 minus” driveway topping and other grades of gravel. Upgrades to the screening plant in recent years have increased productivity, Laughlin said.

The business has partnered with Anchorage’s Western Construction to set up a rock crushing plant at the pit, Laughlin said, which will enable the production of “D1” gravel and what he called “3/4 chips.”

“D1 gravel is pretty popular so we’re excited to be able to offer that,” he said.

Future plans call for a topsoil screening plant as well.

“We really are working to make this place a one-stop shop,” Laughlin said. “Whether it’s topsoil, equipment or trucking resources, or just helping someone find a contractor to put in a septic system.

“People don’t need to shop the Yellow Pages,” he added. “Just ask us and we can find what or who is needed. ”

While the pit still has years of life remaining, Laughlin said his goal for reclaiming the property with grading and soil was going to be a systematic approach.

“We plan to square up the pit, work a small section, then move on and reclaim those areas,” he said. “I want to be a good neighbor.”

He said that philosophy extended to the neighboring subdivision to the south, adding that much of the pit’s future advance would go more to the east.

“We aren’t working near there and it will be 10 years before we even get anywhere close to the subdivision,” Laughlin said. “Even then I plan on leaving a large buffer of trees.”

In the shorter term, he said the rock crusher would be on an 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. schedule.

“I wouldn’t want to listen to that very first thing in the morning,” he said.

Laughlin said that along with the small-business feel that Jordan fostered, he is holding on to another tradition.

“She kept 25 years of daily journals of everything that went on here,” he said. “We’re keeping that.”

For more information on Central Gravel Products, call 745-4044.

Contact reporter Steven Merritt at 352-2269 or steven.merritt@frontiersman.com