If you pull onto the scale at Benevento Companies in Wilmington, Mass., on any given weekday, there's a decent chance the person you meet won't be tucked away in some distant corner office. It might be Tim Allard, the general manager of the Sand and Stone Division, or it might be Johnny Benevento, the fourth generation of the family now helping run the business as chief operating officer.
For more than a century, the family has worked this same piece of ground, gradually turning a patch of land in Wilmington into one of New England's best-known names in stone, hot mix and concrete. Today, that same family also is quietly building a strong relationship with Equipment East and a growing fleet of DEVELON machines.
From Mushrooms to Quarries
According to family history, Michael Benevento came to the United States from Montemarano, Italy, in 1916. Like countless immigrants of that era, he came looking for opportunity.
The land that is now the Wilmington home base has been in the picture almost from the start. Early on, the family operated what was essentially a mushroom farm there. They lived on the property in a camp back in the woods, growing mushrooms, working the soil and selling their products through local farm stands and markets.
Over time, they discovered that the sandy soils and underlying ledge had value of their own. Some relatives and acquaintances with masonry backgrounds recognized that the sand was well-suited to masonry work. The mushroom operation slowly gave way to retail sand sales and those simple sand piles gradually turned into a small-scale sand and stone business.
"They came over for the American Dream and started a mushroom farm," Allard said. "From there they realized the soil and sand had value, then they hit ledge, and it just evolved into what we have today."
The Wilmington property has been the anchor ever since. As the years went by, each generation put its own stamp on the business, but always on the same patch of land.
The second generation developed the sand and stone business. The third generation, led by Charles "Charlie" Benevento, moved the company firmly into the commercial materials space and began the transition from a local supplier into a larger, regional operation.
"Charlie's vision has always been to mirror his father's image," Johnny Benevento said. "Hard work, loyalty, dedication to customers and employees and growth that still feels like a family business."
Under Charlie's leadership, Benevento expanded beyond Wilmington and into additional markets and product lines. The asphalt plant on the property, once owned by Heffron Materials, was acquired and folded into the operation. That was one of the company's first major expansions beyond raw stone. From there, Benevento began adding facilities.
In Plaistow, N.H., Benevento acquired and now operates an asphalt plant. In Georgetown, Mass., they purchased a concrete plant that remains a ready-mix facility today. Those two moves extended the company's reach on both the asphalt and concrete sides, tying nicely back to the Wilmington quarry and production operation.
At Wilmington today, the company runs two concrete plants, an asphalt plant, a quarry, and a large recycling operation for both concrete and asphalt. Trucks come in loaded with old concrete and reclaimed asphalt and leave with new hot mix or crushed aggregate.
Expanding North: Sand, Gravel, New Hampshire Growth
One of the company's biggest strategic moves came around 2015, when Benevento bought a sand and gravel operation in Pembroke, N.H.
"At that time, we were strictly ledge producers," Allard said. "We realized that if you want to be serious in concrete, you have to control your sand. It's a main ingredient. If you can control that, you can control pricing and be more competitive."
The Pembroke site started modestly with a screening plant and a small crew. It didn't stay small for long. Over the years, Benevento grew that foothold into a much larger New Hampshire presence.
The company now operates a large sand and gravel and quarry operation on approximately 1,100 acres in Loudon, N.H., and works under a mining rights agreement in Belmont. Two additional gravel pits in the Loudon area are in the process of being opened.
Pembroke was the company's introduction to the New Hampshire sand and gravel market; Loudon is now the centerpiece. Material from Belmont is excavated and hauled back to Loudon for processing.
"It's different from what we were used to," Allard said. "But controlling your own sand makes you more self-sufficient and more competitive. It's made us stronger overall."
Markets, Customers, Staying in Their Lane
Because concrete and asphalt are perishable, Benevento views its realistic delivery radius at approximately 30 miles from each plant. Stone can travel farther, but for hot mix and ready-mix concrete the company focuses on serving jobs within that core radius, using its own trucks and a sizable pool of third-party haulers.
Benevento supplies a mix of municipal customers and private contractors, but it does not operate paving crews or sitework crews. "We're strictly a supplier," Allard said. "We don't compete with our customers."
The volumes are large enough that Benevento has been recognized among the top 50 aggregate producers in the United States. The company chooses not to publish tonnage, but the ranking speaks for itself in terms of the scale they've reached while still operating as a family-owned organization.
Family Business Culture for Everyone
Talk to Benevento employees and two themes repeatedly come up: family and flexibility.
Allard has been with the company as an employee for approximately 18 years, with another decade before that as a contractor. He has watched three generations of the family steer the operation and has raised his own children while working there.
"One thing I was told from the very beginning was family comes first," he said. "Don't miss your kid's play. Don't miss the game. Don't have regrets when they're grown. If you need to leave at 10 a.m. to go see something at the school, you go. Then you come back and finish the work."
That philosophy, he said, traces back to earlier generations and remains intact today. The expectation is that people work hard and take care of the business — but in a way that allows them to take care of their families, too.
The company also has also made a point of keeping people year-round rather than running a large seasonal workforce. Over the past five years, approximately 90 percent of employees have been year-round, due in part to milder winters and a deliberate strategy of building inventory in the off-season. Running some plants and pits through the winter creates stockpiles so there is always material on hand when spring hits.
Inside the operation, there are no rigid walls between divisions. The leadership team — stone, asphalt, concrete — meets weekly, talks about what's going right, what's going wrong and figures it out as a group. When someone has a family issue or an unexpected problem, others step in. Johnny Benevento will get in a loader. Allard will jump in a loader. People get moved around to cover gaps.
"Charlie expects us to treat this like it's ours," Allard said. "And we do. That's how we run it."
Johnny Benevento added another key point: the family is present.
"My dad and I are here every day," he said. "A truck driver can come in, get on the scale and talk to Tim [Allard]. Or he can walk into the office and have the same conversation with my dad or with me. People like knowing the owners are here and listening."
Fleet, Equipment, Practical Philosophy
On the fleet side, Benevento runs an impressive amount of iron and rubber. The company owns one of the largest fleets of triaxles, dump trailers and concrete mixers in the New England market. In addition, Benevento has a large network of third-party trucks it can call in when demand spikes.
Across all sites, the company has an impressive amount of equipment — loaders, excavators, haul trucks — and support machinery.
The company's philosophy on equipment is straightforward: maintain it, train the operators and know when to rebuild versus replace. Preventive maintenance and operator training are stressed heavily.
Before DEVELON came into the picture, Benevento was not a single supplier, but it did lean heavily on a dealership relationship that went back to earlier generations. Over time, that relationship naturally changed as people retired or moved on.
At the same time, the Benevento family developed a long-standing personal relationship with Giovanni and Gilda Albanese of Equipment East. Long before entering the dealership business, they had done business together for many years.
There's nothing corporate about this story, according to Equipment East. It's about real people standing by each other in their respective businesses through difficult business cycles and making the tough decisions that come when things do not go as planned.
Although the two businesses operate in different industries, they are aligned in their core values — family-run operations built with strong leadership teams, dedicated employees, good old fashioned hard work, trust and commitment that endures across generations. That kind of relationship carries weight in a family company.
When the time came to look at some alternatives for heavy equipment, that friendship opened the door to DEVELON (formerly Doosan).
"Let's be honest," Allard said. "DEVELON is not the first name people think of when they think heavy iron in New England. So, we had to be confident we weren't stepping off a cliff."
What gave them that confidence was, in their words, service and commitment. Equipment East made it clear it believed in the brand and would stand behind the full DEVELON line of wheel loaders, excavators, articulated dump trucks (ADT's) and more. They agreed to meet with DEVELON factory representatives — including delegates from South Korea — who met the team and worked through details on financing, warranty and service support that made sense for the way Benevento runs its operations.
Price, they said, was a factor but not the deciding one.
"You can buy the most expensive brand in the world, and if it's down or no one answers the phone when you call, what did you really buy?" Allard said.
The first DEVELON machine Benevento brought was a DL550-class wheel loader, approximately seven or eight years ago. At that time, the machine did not have every "bell and whistle" that some competitors were adding. For Benevento, that was more plus than minus.
"Technology is great," Allard said. "But technology fails. One of the biggest problems we've seen across the industry over the past several years has been electrical and sensor issues. Codes, computers, parts you can't get. Simple is sometimes better."
The first experience with the loader went well enough that the company later traded it in and bought another. Today, Benevento runs approximately five DEVELON loaders, five articulated dump trucks and one 100,000-lb. excavator.
The articulated trucks started as 40-ton Doosan models and have since moved into the 45-ton DEVELON units. The feedback has been strongly positive.
"Reliability and durability," Johnny Benevento said. "We had some equipment from other brands that started corroding and falling apart far earlier than they should have in the same environment. The DEVELON trucks have held up. We think they've built them with the idea of proving themselves in this kind of heavy work."
On the loader side, operator buy-in came slowly and then all at once.
"I've had guys look at a new loader and say, ‘I'm not running that thing, I'm a diehard [other brand] guy,'" Allard said. "Two weeks later, you hear them say it's the best loader they've ever run. For most of them, it comes down to power, comfort and simple controls. They don't want three touchscreens between them and the bucket."
The excavator — roughly a DX420-class, 100,000-lb. machine — may have been the biggest surprise. It went to a seasoned operator known for being fiercely loyal to another brand.
"He's as old-school as they come," Johnny Benevento said. "He came back and said it was the best excavator he's ever run — power, ease of operation, comfort. That's high praise from him."
The machine is used for site development and sand and gravel pit development, not hammer work. But the early results, the company says, have been eye-opening,
Service, Response
What ties it together for Benevento is the level of support the company gets from Equipment East. Peter "PJ" Varone, sales representative, is the company's day-to-day contact and is described as responsive without being pushy.
"He follows our growth and checks in," Johnny Benevento said. "He knows sometimes a quote is just a quote and he doesn't beat us up about it. But he's always there when we need him. He answered his phone on vacation. That says something."
If they can't reach PJ, they know they can call the Equipment East team, whether it's for parts, service, sales or rentals and get the same urgency and attention. They also know their friends at Equipment East are just one phone call or text away, according to Benevento.
Equipment East also has invested heavily in infrastructure and facilities, with a "hell of a garage," as Johnny Benevento put it, and additional locations that align well with Benevento's push into New Hampshire. They even assigned a dedicated mechanic to Benevento's account.
"He works on other stuff when we don't need him," Johnny Benevento said, "but if we call, he's coming. Knowing that is invaluable. You're not buying spare loaders to sit in the yard ‘just in case.' You're relying on your dealer to have your back."
All equipment breaks down or has issues; it's the commitment and response to those situations that makes the difference. That combination — an equipment line that has proven reliable and a dealer that answers the phone and shows up — is ultimately what has kept Benevento buying DEVELON.
Looking Ahead
From mushrooms in the woods to one of the top aggregate producers in the country; from sand and stone for local masons to quarries, asphalt plants, concrete plants and sand and gravel operations across Massachusetts and New Hampshire; from old cable machines to a fleet that now includes a growing lineup of DEVELON loaders, trucks and excavators — the Benevento story is, at its core, a straightforward one.
Show up. Work hard. Take care of your people. Be there for your customers. Partner with suppliers who share that mindset.
"We want to be the one call our customers make," Johnny Benevento said. "For stone, hot mix, concrete — and for the service behind it. And we want to work with vendors like Equipment East and DEVELON who help us keep that promise." CEG
