Jim Fair
Mark Ashmore, right, said the timing was right for the three-generation Ashmore Bros. to sell the company.
Jim Fair
Dave Rechter is the great-grandson of Rogers Group founder Ralph Rogers.
Jim Fair
The annual Ashmore Bros. picnic on Friday was bittersweet with Mark Ashmore making it official his partners agreed to sell the company founded in 1930.
Mark Ashmore, president of the 200-employee company, made the official announcement at Friday’s annual company picnic while introducing Rogers Group Chief Operating Officer Darin Matson and Dave Rechter, Divisional Vice President and the new Greer plant general manager. Rogers Group officials welcomed the employees into the company and traced the company’s heritage family tree.
Rechter is the great-grandson of company founder Ralph Rogers.
The sale price was not disclosed.
Mayor Rick Danner attended the picnic and stopped by the Chamber of Commerce’s First Friday luncheon where he informed other community leaders of the Ashmore Bros. sale.
“The Ashmore family and business are a legacy in our area so the announcement today that Ashmore Bros. has been acquired by the Rogers Group comes with surprise and sadness,” Danner wrote in an email to GreerToday.com.
“We’re a third-generation company and we really didn’t have all the people and family in place to go to a fourth generation,” Ashmore said. “With that being said, you better go out on top of your game than the bottom.”
Rechter said the company matched up with the Ashmore-run business. “When we first approached one another their core values, in regards to safety, employees and their involvement within the communities they serve, is very much in alignment with our core values at Rogers,” Rechter said.
“As a three generation, 85-year-old business, Ashmore’s roots and commitment to the Greer community run deep,” Danner stated. “Their personal commitments to various boards and organizations as well as their philanthropic efforts have had and will continue to have a profound impact on the Greer community. I can only hope that the Rogers Group will be as committed to the betterment of our community as the Ashmores have been.”
The Rogers Group human resources director met with Ashmore employees in late August to provide information on continued benefits and the transition of the company during the one-year transition.
“I’ll work with them for at least a year and then feel like it will continue on the way it’s been going,” Ashmore said.
Rechter said the Rogers Group identified South Carolina as a state it wanted to be in. The sale connects Rechter’s territory that also includes North Carolina and Virginia. Ashmore’s three asphalt plants will give the Rogers Group 43 spread over nine states.
“This is a natural progression for us,” Rechter said. “It’s a good state for us to expand into, especially the greater Greenville market. There’s a lot going on now.”
“The Rogers Group obviously saw an opportunity to enter a growing and dynamic market here in the Upstate and I think their confidence in that decision will quickly be affirmed,” Danner stated. “The City and Greer Development Corporation look forward to working with them as they seek to grow their business and brand in the Greer community and beyond.”
Ashmore said making the sale now was more about the timing, although the feeling is surreal. “Once we met with everybody we felt like it was the right time and right place,” Ashmore said.
The company has four main partners. “Once you start forking it out, it just wasn’t a viable way to go,” Ashmore said. “The biggest concern when you do something like this is you affect (200) people, but it’s really (600) people. We felt like this was the best match for us to continue.”
Rogers employs approximately 1,600 people and operates 70 crushed stone and asphalt plants in Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Virginia, according to its website.
“Anybody can buy equipment,” Ashmore said. “They bought us because of the employees. And that’s the key for them.”
Rechter agreed. “We are buying a business and along with that business the most important thing is the people,” he said. “We need people and we need operators. We need all these people here to run this business.”
RGI employs approximately 1,600 people and operates approximately 70 crushed stone and asphalt plants in Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Virginia.