El Dorado pavement company with 75 employees moves to Wichita, merges with new firm

There’s a new pavement company in Wichita, but it’s a familiar one.

The new Encore Pavement merged with El Dorado’s SPS Pavement, a business Andy Waller started while going to Wichita State University about 15 years ago.

“Literally started with a pickup and shovel,” Waller says.

Now, the company has 75 employees and does work in Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Arkansas.

Waller and former SPS partner Josh Clevenger and their new partner, Collin Stieben, formerly of Birds Eye Holdings, have plans to rapidly grow.

“We are looking to expand in new markets,” Waller says.

He says they have a lot of opportunities, especially going east.

“We plan to capitalize on those opportunities in the next 24 months.”

Waller says the company likely will have more than 100 employees within two years.

Encore has a 12-month lease at 3515 N. Topeka and is looking for new space to buy but also is prepared to build.

“We are actively looking for our permanent home over here in Wichita,” Waller says. “We’ll maintain a satellite operation in El Dorado.”

He says a lot of SPS employees already live in Wichita, and a lot of the company’s customers are in Wichita as well.

“We think that being in Wichita is going to greatly increase our efficiency.”

Waller says each of the partners — he’s CEO, Stieben is president and Clevenger is executive vice president — brings something different to the business to create a strong foundation for future growth.

For now, the company offers asphalt paving, repair and striping services, seal coating, concrete repair and construction, milling and aggregate sales.

It’s all a far way from when Waller was a third-year student struggling to start a business — the pavement business grew out of a painting business he had — and get an entrepreneurship degree.

Waller, Clevenger and Stieben all went to WSU.

Waller says he never told his entrepreneurship professors he’d already formed a company.

“I would have to think that they would enjoy the story of how it started.”

This story was originally published February 11, 2020 at 2:40 PM.