RIPON - Anthony Beato has a passion for his lot in life – between his family, rock crushing, and his church.

Beato joined the Ripon based CalCrush – the California Rock Crusher Corporation – five years ago as its environmental health and safety manager.

Today he’s serving as its general manager with emphasis on environmental health and safety. He describes the operation as being a unique “specialty nitch.”

The firm will celebrate its 10th anniversary this year under the direction of its president Charlie Evans.  It was in the spring of 2000 that Evans and his brother Brian put their conceptual business plan into a reality and CalCrush was born.

“We are really unique.  It really comes down to environmental issues and cost issues, because contractors – when they are doing demolition projects – as in the demolition of freeways or roadways find the trucking very expensive,” he said.    

The cost of diesel fuel and the carbon foot print that those diesel trucks leave behind can be alleviated with CalCrush coming in with four or five trucks and their impact crusher and pulverizing all of the material on the job site with the demolition aggregate product being reused on the project.

“It’s cheaper, it’s more environmentally friendly,” he said.  “If you pull the material off and truck it (for offsite crushing) you have to truck it right back – it really lowers the carbon footprint.”

Bateo is quick to explain that the crushing operation has played a part in reducing that carbon foot print in his firm’s on-location demolition operations at sites in all of California and Northern Nevada. The firm has reduced the use of three diesel engines down to one, using hydraulics as a backup.

“Charlie realized there was really a market just for a crushing operation,” Beato said.  

He had worked with his dad Bob of Manteca in the skilled trade on a smaller scale in earlier years after the elder Evans expanded out of his trucking business.

Evans laid everything on the line to get his first crushing operation up and going, and it has been growing ever since, he added.

The firm recycled the asphalt, concrete, and brick from the recent demolition and restoration of Main Street in Ripon and turned it into aggregate that was placed back on the street serving as its new roadbed.  Also, the Jack Tone Road bike path development south from Main Street and the connecting bike path along the Stanislaus River bank from the Jack Tone Golf Course to the city fueling station is packed with CalCrush aggregate. 

Other Northern California job sites included the Highway 680 at the Highway 92 interchange in addition to the crushing for the South San Joaquin Irrigation District project on River Road.

He noted that his firm can customize the aggregate to the customers’ construction needs with its crews of 22 to 30 workers.

While most of the CalCrush operations are outside their four acre Ripon headquarters site on Doak Boulevard, crushing was actually taking place at the home base last week.  The impacter was spewing out aggregate onto conveyor belts – carrying the product to the top of three-story-high piles.

Beato said the winter months provide a natural dust control for the operations, unlike the warmer seasons when crews have to water down the production to keep dust away from the community environment.   He noted that the operation is also unique in the way it has addressed both environmental and health issues throughout the state.

“We are never shy to say the City of Ripon really treats us well,” he said.  “They have been good partners – they really push recycling.”   

The mobility of the operation to specific sites is designed to save its clientele the cost of hauling the raw materials. It quickly turns the on-site rubble into usable and marketable finished products without requiring transportation.  The industry is regulated by (OSHA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and (MSHA), the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

“Right now our biggest challenge is air quality with the State of California,” he said.

As excited as the CalCrush general manager is about his firm, it doesn’t take much to nudge him over to chatting about his family and his wife’s church activities.  

Beato and his wife Nicole have two sons, sixth grader Cody, 11, and Myles, 6, now in the first grade.  He said Cody hopes to be a police officer some day and Myles – this week at least – thinks he’s going into Lego design.  The couple met in junior high and went through high school together becoming quite a team.

His wife – who he describes as having a servant’s heart – is a stay-at-home mom in addition to overseeing a ministry for the Big Valley Grace Community Church for moms of preschoolers (MOPS).  It is not just for her church, but for other churches as well, reaching from Sacramento to Livingston.