Case 10: Luck Companies: Igniting Human Potential C-113The company’s operations were all in Virginia and, like
many small businesses, the management style was “top-
down”. The industry had experienced little consolidation
and was primarily filled with family-owned businesses.
Built on a “we care” attitude that emphasized integrity
and treating people right, Luck Companies became a
leader in customer service. By the late 1990s Luck Stone
was known as a technology leader in its industry and
was nationally ranked as one of the top 15 crushed-stone
producers in the United States. A given was that the cul-
ture that had proven so successful would not change, but
most everything else was changing.
The new millennium brought with it growing
consolidation in the industry and fiercer competition.
There was tremendous expansion in the markets, cre-
ating faster growth rates, a much larger company, and
increased debt to finance the growth. In the mid ‘90s,
Charlie and his leadership team realized that the “top
down” management style at Luck Companies was not
ideal for meeting the needs of customers or employees.
After much deliberation, they determined that there was
a need for management decisions to be made closer to
the customer. The organizational structure was decen-
tralized and associate duties and responsibilities were
changed to enable the company to better handle the
growing complexity of sales opportunities.
The company continued to grow under Charlie’s
leadership, but he understood that he was in a mature
industry and therefore needed to diversify. Recognizing
the increasing uniqueness of each of the business units,
the leadership chose to separate the company into four
businesses with distinct brand identities. There was an
expectation through the strategic planning process for
each to uniquely meet the needs of the marketplace,
which resulted in specific strategies, brands and business
plans for each business unit.
Thinking back to his father and grandfather’s suc-
cess, Charlie wondered what the future held for Luck
Companies. He challenged his management team to
operate the company in a manner that not only excelled
the company financially but also positively impacted the
lives of its customers and associates. He was convinced
that the company was well positioned to become even
more successful in the future.
Luck Companies and Industry
Overview
Luck Stone, founded in 1923 by Charles Luck, Jr., is
the largest family owned and operated construction
aggregate company in the United States. Over the lastcentury, the Luck family has turned a single quarry in
the West End of Richmond, Virginia, into one of the top
20 largest producers of aggregate in the United States.
Luck Companies operate under four separate business
units or SBU’s; Luck Stone, Luck Stone Center, Har-Tru,
and Luck Development Partners. Although the Luck
Companies business portfolio is divided into four SBUs,
each business unit operates under Luck Companies’
values-based leadership system. A map of the Luck Stone
business locations in 2015 is located below.Luck Stone
Luck Stone, the largest business unit of Luck Companies,
operates fifteen crushed stone plants, one sand and
gravel plant, one specialty products operation and four
distribution yards in the mid-Atlantic region. Luck Stone
supplies a wide range of crushed stone, sand, gravel, and
specialty stone; collectively called aggregate. The aggre-
gate industry is further broken down into two main pro-
duction segments; 1) Crushed Stone and 2) Sand and
Gravel. Luck Stone primarily mines and sells crushed
stone. Thirteen years ago Luck Stone started producing
some sand and gravel. Defined geographically, due to
the various sources, weights, sizes, and shipping costs
associated with aggregates, the industry is significantly
fragmented with about 1,550 companies operating 4,000
quarries in the United States.^1 Luck Stone’s operations
are located in the Mid-Atlantic Region of the United
States, Virginia in particular. In 2014 the production
of aggregates in the US totaled 2.17 billion metric tons
that had a value of $20.3 billion dollars. Approximately
100,000 people were employed in the US aggregates
industry in 2014.^2
Aggregates are mined from various quarries and serve
as inputs for the construction industry. The prosperity of
the aggregate industry is directly correlated to the growth
and economic stability of the construction industry, con-
sisting of both private and public construction. These
segments are further broken down into residential and
nonresidential construction segments. Private residen-
tial and nonresidential construction spending in the U.S.
during 2014 was roughly $349 billion and $337 billion,
respectively.^3 Total public construction spending in the
U.S. during 2014 was roughly $273 billion.^4 While private
construction accounts for the majority of construction
spending, historically it has been highly volatile. This
volatility has had a crippling impact on the aggregate
industry during the recent recession. The public seg-
ment, primarily funded by local, state, and federal gov-
ernment organizations, is considerably more stable than
the private segment.