‘Records are Never Boring’
Chairman and CEO Ward Nye Reflects on Martin Marietta’s Exceptional Year
Chairman and CEO Ward Nye is relaxed as he sits down in his office on a quiet Friday
afternoon. Earlier in the week, he led Martin Marietta’s third-quarter 2019 earnings call,
sharing the company’s most recent successes with Wall Street. Results exceeded expectations.
It’s a pleasant day in Raleigh – generally, a pleasant day anywhere if you’re a member of the
Martin Marietta team – and though Nye has set aside 30 minutes to discuss highlights of the
year with The Conveyor, he easily talks for twice that length. The year was just that good.
Q: Ward, whenever we discuss
Martin Marietta, we start with safety.
Where does the company stand
moving into 2020?
A: Safety, year over year, looks improved.
In most respects, the company had a
record year last year and we should have
an even better 2019. If we look at our
former Bluegrass operations, their
performance has been extraordinary.
Their numbers weren’t bad before, but
they weren’t equal to our heritage
business. Now, in many respects, their
numbers are better. What I like about
this story, in particular, is that it shows
us what’s possible with the right training,
the right culture and the right expectations.
With safety, our aim is continuous
improvement and that’s what we’ve seen
this year. We’re achieving numbers across
the company that many thought were
unattainable 20 years ago. That brings us
to the notion of zero. Years ago, people
thought zero was unattainable, but
increasingly, we see that it can be reached.
We still have work to do, but our safety
performance is something we should all
be proud of.
Q: Where do you think we need
to focus to keep our safety
performance on the right track?
A: Safety is behavior driven. People often
incur an incident because they believe
they’re doing the right thing for the
company. They think, ‘This task is
something I can do. And while I could
get some help, it’s something I can
probably do alone and it will be faster.’
They’re making that quick decision in an
10 November/December 2019 2019 The Conveyor | www.martinmarietta.com
eptional uiet Friday
9 ded mber the
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Chairman and
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altruistic way because they’re intending
to do the best thing for the company. But
the best thing for the company, truly, is
for them to make a safe decision and not
get hurt. The best thing for the company
is for them to take more time with the
task and get someone to help. What we
all have to do is stop and analyze both
the benefits and burdens of any task and
then make the right decision. At later
points during the year, that becomes
more challenging. We’re tired. We’ve lost
a bit of focus. But in the fall – September,
October and November – that’s when we
really need to be highly focused on what
we need to do to stay safe.
Q: Moving beyond safety, what is
the general status of Martin Marietta?
A: We are safer and more profitable than
ever. Those are powerful sentiments. But
here’s what’s so important to remember:
We’re not selling more product than
we’ve ever sold before. That alone says
several things. It says we’re appropriately
focused on keeping people safe and our
production costs in line. It says our teams
are performing their functions with skill
and efficiency in all the right ways. And
it says we’re focused on getting the right
value for our products. There are very
few industries that could experience the
decline in tonnage that we experienced
in the Great Recession and still have
pricing power. But we’ve done just that,
proving that ours is not a commodity
business. All that said, the primary thing
we’ve done is maintain our culture while
positioning ourselves in markets where
we can be #1 or #2. What 2019
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