Southern Concrete Materials Employs New Workhorse Loader

Wed August 27, 2025
Eric Olson - CEG CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

For several decades, the professionals at Southern Concrete Materials (SCM) in Asheville, N.C. have relied on Charlotte-based Carolina Cat to provide them with the machines they need to get the job done.

SCM is one of the leading ready-mix concrete producers and suppliers in Western North Carolina and North Georgia. It runs 24 batch plants and facilities in the region, utilizing 150 mixer trucks, 25 haul trucks and 25 wheel loaders. SCM employs approximately 300 people.

Recently, SCM helped celebrate Caterpillar Inc.'s 100th anniversary in 2025 by purchasing a new Cat Centennial Limited-Edition 938 wheel loader from Carolina Cat.

Rather than the traditional yellow hue, the new machine sports Cat's throwback "Centennial Grey" paint scheme to recognize the original color of the venerable equipment maker's first products.

Even though SCM already has approximately 15 other Cat 938 aggregate handlers operating at its facilities, company President John Bryson was thrilled to receive the new wheel loader from Mitch Christenbury, his account manager of Carolina Cat, and credited him with understanding SCM's specifications for the machines before taking delivery.

"Mitch has fostered his relationship with us so well that he knows exactly what we like on them — all the different things with which you can equip a 938," Bryson said. "He knows that small model's size best suits a concrete batch plant operation. It's big enough, but not too big."

Bryson elaborated on the synergy he enjoys with Christenbury by adding, "Sometimes if Mitch has a machine available that I could get prior to Cat building one for me, it might have a few things on it that I wouldn't ask for. But knowing my specifications, he might have to add a few things that he knows I would want, such as a different seat or more lights for operating at night. Regardless, we know each other well and I have grown to trust him."

Soon after acquiring his first Cat 938s, Bryson recognized that the production and efficiency SCM gets from the loaders are perfectly suited to the concrete provider.

As an example of that, he said that SCM's batch plants typically only need one Cat 938 with a bucket on it to feed aggregate into the plant to create the concrete mix.

The company normally operates the loader with a 3.5-cu.-yd. bucket, although it also uses some that can hold as much as 4.25 cu. yds. of material, Bryson said.

"Several of our plants have different-sized charge hoppers and we don't want to get [a loader bucket] so large that it wouldn't fit the hopper. What we use are plenty big enough to keep our plants going."

Additionally, SCM pours a big block out of leftover concrete, which also needs to be moved.

"To do that, we purchased a versatile extendable boom implement," he said. "For the last several years now, it's been a quick-connect attachment device so that the operator doesn't have to get off the tractor to change implements."

Needless to say, the inherent adaptability of the Cat 938s have made them SCM's workhorses as they constantly maneuver around the company's various concrete plant sites.

Bryson added that despite being so robust and rugged, the loaders also are surprisingly good workspaces for their operators.

"They have enough creature comforts on them that I truly don't feel bad when we have someone running one of them for eight to 10 hours a day," he said. "As good as Cat machines and Carolina Cat have always been, the manufacturer has made some upgrades in just the last few years that make them even better inside and out."

Bryson noted that SCM's parent company, Salisbury, N.C.-based Hedrick Industries — which celebrated its 100th anniversary in business in 2024, one year before Caterpillar — also is a construction aggregate supplier that primarily runs much larger machines than the Cat 938 and has deep roots with Carolina Cat, as well.

"So, for me to have the opportunity to get the Centennial edition of the Cat 938 we enjoy running was absolutely a no-brainer," he said. "Jason Green, SCM's vice president and western region manager, will have this loader operating at our Waynesville batch plant here today, and I'll be disappointed if that machine's not still running for us 20 years from now because they are that good."

SCM Leans On Carolina Cat for Service After Sale

"In many cases, since the pandemic, much of SCM's new equipment needs mechanical attention upon arrival," Bryson said. "But we have not found that to be the case with Carolina Cat. When Jason brought in this new Centennial model, he put it to work immediately."

And, he said, on those occasions when any of SCM's Cat equipment needs service, its own mechanics can generally handle the job. For more complicated fixes or emergency repairs, though, Bryson does not hesitate to call the Asheville branch of Carolina Cat for assistance.

"We have learned that their service group in this area is very easy to work with, and we depend on them. If we need their help on a problem that we can't work on ourselves, they'll send someone out to us in a service truck. If not, we'll carry our machine to their service location. We can't operate the equipment unless we get good service after the sale."

SCM Delivers Concrete for Jobs of Every Size

After Hedrick Industries formed Asheville Concrete Materials (ACM) in the late 1950s, a series of new plants and market expansions beyond its home base followed over the next 25 years, which led the company to change to its current name in 1983.

Today, SCM batch plants can be found throughout most of Western North Carolina, from Hickory west through Murphy, along with a few northeast Georgia plants.

"When ACM started out, our concrete mixer trucks back then only had a 1-cubic-yard mixer drum on them that had to be loaded from two or three stations at a plant," Bryson said. "We've come a long way since then because now you'll see us back a mixer under a station and pull out to deliver 10 yards of concrete. Everything goes through the plant into the truck, and, as a transit-mix operation, the truck actually mixes the concrete."

The finished concrete, of course, is a mixture of crushed stone, sand, cements, chemical admixtures and water.

Companywide, SCM is built to take care of its local communities the best that it can, Bryson asserted, which means every one of its customers are given personal service — no matter the job's size.

"If a farmer needs to pour 20 post holes with two yards of concrete, our mixer trucks will take two yards of material out to him and we'll stop at every post and help him pour it because that's what we do," he said. "From there, we extend our service to doing highway work for DOT customers, which for the last few years and for the foreseeable future is one of our largest customer segments."

Currently, SCM's highway contracts are partly the result of the damage that Asheville area roadways suffered last year from Hurricane Helene, Bryson added, but it also includes the company's work on the 7-mi.-long Interstate 26 Connector project around Asheville and the bridges along I-40 in Haywood County.

"SCM already had a lot of infrastructure work in progress, and the storm definitely added to it," he said. "But we want to be involved in the reconstruction of our communities because we're the ones that helped build them in the first place. Being able to help this region recover from the hurricane's devastation is something that we take very personally."

To that end, SCM and Green have set up a portable batch plant in the Pigeon River Gorge to support NCDOT's effort to rebuild the sections of I-40 that were heavily damaged by Helene. There, contractor crews are continuing to stabilize the road base at the site and rebuild 5 mi. of the eastbound side of the roadway.

"Our batch plant is set up about 10 minutes from the bulk of that work, whereas before we would have been 45 minutes away," according to Bryson. "One of our 2024 Cat 938 wheel loaders will soon go to Fines Creek down in the gorge to support Jason's plant operation, meaning Carolina Cat will also be involved in rebuilding that highway."

Bryson understands that SCM's success is primarily measured in business terms, but he also likes to focus on "The Total Success" of the company's mission.

"I've said this before, and I hope it'll always be true after I'm gone from Southern Concrete: We realize success only when our employees return home to their families safe and benefited, when the communities we serve are enriched by our citizenship, when our customers and vendors gain value from our partnerships, and when our stockholders earn an appropriate return."

The main batch plant and corporate headquarters for Southern Concrete Materials is located at 35 Meadow Rd. in Asheville, N.C. CEG

This story also appears on Construction Equipment Guide.