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At 4:45 most mornings, Bob Jaster, president and CEO of Robinson Brick Co., can be found roaming the company's brick manufacturing plant and headquarters on 51 acres near West Dartmouth Avenue and South Santa Fe Drive.
"I want the first manager they see in the morning to be me," Jaster said of his employees.
"I don't expect my managers to be there at that time; that's just something I expect of myself. That tells [the employees] the company is interested in them. They know that I care about what they're doing."
From the loads of rust-colored bricks stacked in Robinson Brick's yard, to its bright, airy show room, to the noisy plant where robots swing wet clay bricks onto carts headed for the kiln and workers pull off the finished product, the company is showing no strain from its rapid expansion.
In the last three years, Robinson Brick has branched Out from its traditional brick manufacturing to launch new product lines. These include a line of bricks sliced about 1-inch thick and dubbed "Old Brick Originals," as well as real stones sliced thin and called "Robinson Rock."
The thinner product lines can be used for interior remodeling without building heavy foundations to support walls made of full-sized bricks or rocks. They're particularly popular in new, downtown lofts seeking an older appearance by installing a wall of brick, Jaster said.
The company has more than doubled its employee headcount, from 180 people three years ago to today's 456. Its revenues also have doubled in that time and now hover in the range of $75 million to $85 million a year, Jaster said.
And in the seven months between June 2003 and January 2004,...