Dave Thomey’s heart and home have always been in Maryland, with the 74-year-old living his entire life within the state.
Thomey’s allegiance to Maryland is one reason why he took a job seven years ago with Martin Marietta, which he continues to serve today as a community relations consultant. The job allows Thomey, an aggregate industry veteran, to maintain two of his greatest joys: Maryland living and interacting with people.
“I have seven grandchildren, and I wanted to schedule myself so that if those grandchildren have anything at all, I’m going to be there,” says Thomey, who previously spent 27 years of his career at Maryland Materials, a company his father ran while he grew up. “I attend community meetings. I give tours. I run a grant program. I do a lot of different things, but I do it as a consultant.”
Thomey did many of those same things throughout a career that’s stretched outward to 42 years, making a name for himself industrywide in the area of community relations. Thomey, time after time, emerged as somebody others could trust – and he proved especially valuable as a communicator with quarry neighbors.
When neighbors came to Thomey with complaints about noise, dust, vibrations and other issues, he listened. Just as important, he regularly encouraged other producers to engage their neighbors with a delicate touch.
“I’m a firm believer that if you’re going to do something, bring your neighbors in,” Thomey says. “Let them know what you want to do, and then listen. We want to work with the surrounding community to make our own small world just a little bit better.”
In the field
Those who know Thomey best say he has a friendly demeanor and a calm, level head that puts others at ease. Thomey applied these innate qualities well to his community relations work.
“I wanted to get all of the complaints [at Maryland Materials],” Thomey says. “I wanted them to personally come to the guy who is running the operations.”
Thomey recalls one instance when he received a call from a neighbor who detailed how her house allegedly lost air conditioning because a blast from the quarry tripped her breaker. While Thomey says he could have gotten defensive with the woman, knowing she was wrong, he remained calm and pointed her in the right direction.
“I told her: ‘Call an air conditioning expert, find out what happened and send the bill over to me,’” Thomey says. “The air conditioner man came down, [and] the main circuit had tripped. He tripped it, [the] air conditioning went on and I never heard another word about it – and didn’t get the bill.”
In another instance, a neighbor who was on a council of community organizations said during a meeting that quarry dust was affecting her health. Again, Thomey listened.
“I didn’t know what she was going to do,” he says. “I think she really wanted to put the quarry out of existence.”
At the next meeting a month later, Thomey articulated a plan for how the quarry could better work with the community. Because of the approach, Thomey says he gained support from council members, as well as a state senator to whom the neighbor initially reached out.
Still, Thomey is well aware there are genuine complaints that arise because of quarries.
“You have to admit your warts,” he says.
At the same time, Thomey is a firm believer in the benefits local quarries provide to communities.
“We are right there with farming as the most important industry in the world,” he says. “I also believe we do a terrible job of telling people that [and] getting people to believe that. That’s what I want to do with the rest of my working career. I want to let people know how important and how wonderful this industry is, and how it is populated with really, really good people.”
Growing up, Thomey did not initially plan to step foot into the aggregate industry.
Thomey graduated from the University of Maryland in 1970 with a degree in English language and literature. He taught for eight years and worked construction during summers.
Thomey was ready for a change by the summer of 1979, though.
“I was ready to leave teaching and go into construction full-time,” he says. “I wanted to buy the business I had been working with, but there was a crash. All of a sudden, there was no company. So I came to my dad and said I was looking for work.”
After spending three weeks as a Maryland Materials intern, Thomey was hooked.
“I fell in love with the industry and the people in it,” Thomey says. “It didn’t take long. I thought: ‘This is what I want to do.’”
Thomey joined Maryland Materials full-time in 1980, and he remained there until 2000. In the years that followed, Thomey served the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association (NSSGA) as vice president of operations, and he oversaw hot-mix asphalt operations at Edgemoor Materials. He also served as president of the Maryland Aggregates Association, departing in 2006 only to return to NSSGA, which he rejoined as executive vice president. Thomey served NSSGA the second time around until 2008.
“It was a marvelous job,” Thomey says. “I loved it to death. I loved working with [president and CEO] Joy [Pinniger] and with the 30 to 35 brightest people I’ve ever met in my life.”
Thomey also served Maryland Materials a second time as executive vice present, completing his stint after Bluegrass Materials purchased the company in 2015.
With such a mix of career stops, Paul Mellott Jr., chairman of Mellott Company, says no other industry résumé can possibly rival Thomey’s.
“I keep telling him: ‘You’re the only person that’s ever done that,’” Mellott says. “The experience he has from all those jobs is incredible. He gets it. He gets the importance of what asphalt is to aggregate and what aggregate is to the foundation of our nation. He is on top of the world when it comes to state and national associations. The perspective is enormous.”
Lasting legacy
As Mellott describes, Thomey’s contributions in community relations are monumental.
“A lot of people in our industry would be in better shape with their neighbors if they took a proactive position like Dave does,” Mellott says. “He’s such a great guy and everyone – all the neighbors – see that and they begin to trust him. He follows through with what he says he’s going to do.”
Kim Snyder, who spent nearly 17 years as president of Eastern Industries, says it is impossible to adequately measure the impact Thomey had on the industry’s community relations efforts.
“He, along with Bernie Grove, was one of the original leaders of that mindset change,” Snyder says. “Instead of hiding in the quarry, go out there and get to know your neighbors, understand what your impact could be and work toward minimizing that impact.
“Even as difficult as it is to get new permits or expansions on permits now, without the work they did, it would be literally impossible right now,” Snyder adds.
Grove, a longtime executive at Genstar, has a similar view of Thomey’s industry legacy.
“There’s an old saying in the aggregate industry that I’d rather pay a PR man than a lawyer,” Grove says. “I think that probably describes Dave’s contribution. He gave the aggregate industry a different reputation than it previously had.”
