It's a great time to join, be ready for All Next Season with your listing!
Remember many companies budget for the coming year over the winter and will need to talk to YOU!

Please note: this page has not been updated in quite some time as we have most info on our forums now. We WILL be trying to re-do this page in April to catch up on a lot of our new news like our "You Tube" style video site.
This site will allow members to post their videos and link to them like "You Tube" but without all the distractions of you tube that may cause your potential customers to wander off" into other videos--Keeping visitors focused on YOU! Also you will be able to "embed" videos from our video site into your web site so they will play fast and not take up space on your web site account. The video will look just like it's part of your page but will actually play from your personal account on our site. We are currently testing this new super-technology and it should be ready before the end of April--and unlimited videos are free to NPCA members.

Then to add to the benefit we hope to soon add video seminars on subjects from "how to" type videos to sales & marketing type videos in a section exclusively for NPCA embers. We are at the "front" again offering the latest technology to our members as an added benefit (and you will even be able to link to a video right from your search engine ad here on our site when customers find you-increasing the professionalism and appeal of your company when they find you here!

Another great value-added benefit for NPCA members.
We have had a great allied vendor PavementWeb Services for years now. Many NPCA members use them for the unbeatable value.
This long time ally web-design-hosting service now has all dual-quad-core servers and offers a "build it yourself" web site creator. It's simple, has video instructions, and requires NO software on your computer. Thousands of designs to start from, all fully customizable and easy creators for forms or other such things that are complex on other software...and best of all it's included Free
Of course PavementWeb still allows NPCA members to have custom web sites custom-built at very low costs, and complete hosting services at great value prices, and even register their own dot-com names all with one easy source. All or any part of these services (depending on your needs) are available to members at better prices and with better service than ever offered in the past.

BEWARE: A new site has added "sites" to PavementWeb and PavementWebSites charges as much as FOUR THOUSAND dollars for an $11 domain name and $149 per month for the less services than offered by the ORIGINAL PavementWeb for $10,95 per month! Don't fall for this outrageous "knock off" on the firm that hosts more pavement related web sites than any other single firm. Why pay $138 per month for less in this economy?

Look for the NPCA Credit Seminars for Vegas in fall 2010 and the NPE 2011 as soon as it becomes available!
Pavement and the NPCA are always looking forward to a bigger & better shows than ever!

The Newest Benefit Exxon/Mobil Fleet Cards for Members is Here Now!

New Members:Please bear with us as we work through all the new member processing as fast as we can. If you joined and are not listed on the search engine please e-mail us right away at info@pavementpro.com with your company name and personal info so we can get you on ASAP. Thanks and WELCOME to all our newest family members.

NPCA Health/Wellness Insurance Is Here!

Health & Wellness Insurance Plans for Members and/or their employees with many choices to fit any budget and flexible co-pay options for your employees. Customize your health benefit plans to fit your business needs & budget.
Members: find full information and links to plan details, choices, and applications in the members section of the forums.

WELCOME to Our Newest Allied-Vendor Member - DigiMark!

DigiMark offers an unbelievable product to enhance your pavement business year-round with custom offerings your competition can't match!

Watch For Our New Regular Column in Pavement Magazine; it in every issue!

SealMaster Corporation and all their franchises and locations have recently joined!

We are excited to have SealMaster Nationwide as an allied-vendor member. If you are a SealMaster Customer PLEASE thank them for their support! All SealMaster locations and franchises are now allied members. If you use SealMaster from any plant ask them about the special SealMaster Customer Discount on your NPCA dues if you are a new member just joining (the same is true of ALL allied vendor-members)

Unbelievable savings are available on any Ford truck to your specifications as an NPCA member.

WELCOME OUR NEW Allied-Vendor Member STAR of Florida!
We are excited to have this STAR location as an allied member (all STAR locations are independent and only the Florida location has joined to date. If you use STAR from any other plant ask why they haven't joined yet to show their support for professional contractors!)

Equipt. and the Cimline Family of companies are also relatively new members and have already offered some great discounts with more to come for NPCA contractors only! They saved a couple of members a bundle during the month of March...we look forward for a continuing great relationship with this family of companies.

CONSUMERS! Be sure to watch out for the scam site at PavementMaintenance.com as noted on the home page! Now they are going so far as to pose as us using the new dot-pro Internet extension with the name www.Pavement.Pro Note:dot-Pro, NOT Dot-Com.(using the new dot-pro extension that is supposed to be for doctors, lawyers, and other such "professional" individuals!
Worse than before; now they are resorting to trying to fool people with a copycat domain name. Don't be fooled Our domains (PavementPro dot-com, dot org, and dot-net) have been in use since 2000.
Only the NPCA has been featured in and recommended by magazines like the nation's #1 reporting "consumer" magazine (trademark law prohibits use of the name) and and Reader's Digest.
At that site they not only collect consumer's (your) private information to use however they wish (want some more junk mail?) These "people" will list anybody that just claims they are a contractor (we can imagine some of the type "outfits" that will sign up there). As a fact they got virtually all their listings from on-line & other public "address" sources with 99% of the contractors not even knowing they are listed...
This site was brought to our attention by one of our members who saw his company listed there and had no idea who these people were or how he got listed! Also the reputable companies listed as advertisers, like paint companies, were unaware they were supposedly paying to advertise there!
Judge for yourself, they are a "knock-off" contractor list and really a "front" for all their services that make a quick buck, not improve the pavement industry and the image of professional contractors.
It is cleverly "hidden" behind 2 "cloaking" servers but is actually just a site owned by a Dann Hart who owns a Pavement Striping company in Michigan...that just "happens" to be top listed on their site (and has been the "contractor of the month" there ever since they went on-line!)
To see what they are really about got to This Page and see all the domain names they have registered (oh and they will be glad to LEASE you a domain name or a bunch of other unrelated stuff. It's obvious by looking they are out to make some quick bucks from way over-priced web services & such and creating junk mail lists from unsuspecting consumers. Again--Consumer Beware!

New Articles Coming Soon in the Articles Section of the Forums
Also watch for member's only articles to be on the increase this year as an added benefit as we have new agreements with 2 writers for the industry and are talking to a third.

Now is the best time ever for you to join. As an example Oct. 4th we got a call from the "C. Reports" link from a lady wanting to know why we didn't have any driveway paving companies within a 100 mile radius of her in Maryland. Sadly we didn't. That job could have been yours and you the only bidder! Paying easily for a year's membership especially since you would have discounted membership rates because we had no members within her area! How long can you afford NOT to be a member?

We have shattered all previous consumer search records by a huge amount; but this has been building for years. First was Professional Retail Store Maintenance in 2003,Family Handyman in 2004, then Reader's Digest in 2005 and then the best yet...in the nation's leading consumer magazine (who will not allow use of their copyrighted name even though they used ours)
The article was about watching out for pavement "scams" and ended with a suggestion of finding a NPCA member contractor you can trust at this web site address.
The reason this was so great for our members is because the of the subject of spotting shady paving & sealcoating contractors and scams for both commercial and residential. And of course that's the biggest benefit of being a member, consumers know right away our members are neither.
It's been amazing...If you have been thinking about joining stop thinking... and GET ON BOARD!

Two more great reasons to join today if you are not a member already or to renew to make sure your membership is current if you are!

Under-represented areas can still save BIG $$ on dues if there are no members doing your services in your area-with over 100,000 visitors some MUST be from your area! Today is the time to Join! Just use the form on the "Become a Member" page.

NEW Health Insurance for Members!

It's Here Now! For you and your employees and YOU customize the plans to fit your company and your budget. Now YOU can afford to provide health benefits! Of course we still have our discounts on All Types Insurance specifically designed for pavement contractors at a great savings! (General Liability, vehicle, workers comp, you need it...we have it available at a discount! For 4 years we worked on being able to offer specialized insurance coverage for all types of off-road pavement contractors at reduced rates. Now it's finally here... for pavers, stripers, sealcoaters, sweepers etc. We have all paid too much for too long because there was no insurance for our specialized industry. Now there is and it's available nationwide thanks to NPCA members.
Available NOW full details and contact & quote information is in the member's only section of the forums! Don't wait, it could cost you BIG $$$ We will note that this insurance may offer little savings to brand-new contractors with no insurance history. Discounts are based on past claims-loss history so for a brand new business there is nothing for them to base a quote on so savings may be smaller; also allow approx. 30 days before your insurance expires for them to prepare a quote with the best discount.

Our Members Keep Making News!

This time it's Fahrner Asphalt in a national magazine: See the article by clicking here!

A great e-mail from a recent visitor. This is why we are here!

Thank you for a very informative site! We had an offer to us that is one of those too good to be true offers! Of course it waved huge red flags to me but my DH was a little taken in and wanted to get the job done. After reading EVERYTHING on your site and showing it to my DH he is going to now ask for a written quote, proof of insurance, guarantee of work and materials, and for references. Is there anything else we should be asking?
S. Stubbs

We answered with a few more "tips" but too often many contractors don't realize the overall good the Association provides for our industry as a whole to the thousands of visitors who come to our dot-org site each year for such information on everything to do with pavement. On average we get 1-3 similar e-mails a week.

CONTRACTOR Scam Warning!
You may get an Email from one of several sites but all will direct you to “shareyourexperiences.com”. The jest of the Email will be that someone has inquired about you or your company or has posted information about you or your company. The information is totally “anonymous” and so they say it is “real”. It’s a scam.
The “catch” is that to find out what people are supposedly saying about you or your company, you must sign up for their service at rates from $7.95 per month for a year to $25 a month for 1 month. They are a totally illegitimate scamming operation using Emails from “spam” lists to create these phony inquiries. Their whole trick is to make you concerned about what someone is supposedly saying about you so you will pay the money to find out.
Don’t fall for it, all the major scam alert sites already have this one at the top of their list.

We made national news again in 2009!

We were interviewed and mentioned (along with our web site address) in the nation's leading consumer magazine magazine last year.
They reach 7 million readers a month, and are very highly respected. We have really seen the increase in traffic & inquiries from this and it is the second time they have given this recognition to our members-the only pavement related site to have made that list! Even more invaluable exposure for our members.

Don't delay in joining or renewing your membership.

We would like to recognize one of our members for great customer response.
We randomly send out “feedback” forms to customers who search our site for contractors. There is a place on the form for additional comments. The following comment came in on a couple of months ago.
"I had called two contractors before going to your site, and they never called me back. I contacted the contractor that you recommended through your certified-contractor search engine via e-mail yesterday, and I've already gotten a reply from the president of the company
This is an example of the basic principles of our association at work. Customers really appreciate finding quality contractors that provide such professional response as easily as a few clicks of a mouse.

Great phone call recently.
To make it short, the caller was asking about different sealer types etc. (he was checking to see if what a local contractor told him was really best) That led to our tips for choosing a contractor. Then we asked if he had checked our search engine. He hadn’t yet but logged in and checked during the conversation.
Suddenly he exclaimed “well here he is, right here! He was relieved and very happy to find the local contractor he had been talking to among our members. We were happy because we knew the contractor and knew his services exceeded everything we had told the customer to look for.
A quick way to close a sale for one of our members and another example of the many various ways NPCA membership can benefit you… sometimes when you least expect it.

Here's a copy of a featured "sales tips" article. This is old but is a sample of the articles available to our members every month or so.

Thank you for visiting our site... Enjoy!

This article ran in Pavement magazine. (There was a new article about our need for more members to handle customer searches in this month's issue)
We have been featured in Family Handyman and Reader's Digest as an information source for sealcoating and our discussion forums were featured in an article about dealing with problems from "fly by night" contractors in Better Roads magazine.
We will also be mentioned in another article in an early 2006 PAVEMENT magazine

NPCA: Something Different

This industry needs a contractor-focused association and maybe the National Pavement Contractors Association (NCPA) is the effort that's going to survive and give pavement maintenance and reconstruction contractors the help they need. As anyone who's been around more than a handful of years knows there have been numerous scenarios to get an industry association going. About 15 years ago for example, an effort was made to start the Pavement Maintenance Institute, with $10,000 seed money provided by this magazine. Over the years there have been numerous attempts to start some type of national striping association too. But the efforts have all come to naught. These and other efforts failed primarily for the same reason, and it's a "Catch-22" problem: Associations need members and member's dues to finance their management and services. But in order to give companies reason to join, the association has to offer definite benefits. But it can't offer benefits until it has resources-financial or numerical-to research, acquire, and provide them. And of course, it can't get the resources until it gets the numbers. So what inevitably happens is some die-hard contractors join, hoping their dues will be enough to get the ball rolling, while other contractors sit on the sidelines waiting for the fledgling association to be able to provide some more substantial benefits (this was the problem the Contract Sweepers Institute has worked so hard to overcome, successfully in recent years). But the NPCA (see article page 69) is starting a step ahead of other efforts by offering for a nominal membership fee, real marketing benefits via the Internet and promotion of members at various property management events. So while NPCA, like other association start-ups has some big and worthwhile plans, it's at least a little different. NCPA already has some help to offer.
by Allan Heydorn
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