Note: Bluffton Stone Company and Bluffton Paving are subsidiaries to The Gerken Co. The parent company has nearly 370 employees in season and span two states. 

In addition to the website, Bluffton Paving has its own LinkedIn page and Gerken has both a LinkedIn and Facebook pages that include updates with Bluffton as well - including the Icon’s recent personal interest story about Jim Motter’s retirement.

The National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA) announced that Gerken Materials Inc., of Napoleon, is the winner of the 2017 Outstanding Website Award.

The association was recognized July 9, at a ceremony honoring the Operational Excellence Award recipients during the NAPA Midyear Meeting in Boston.

“NAPA members strive for excellence beyond constructing high-quality asphalt pavements. The five categories of the Operational Excellence Awards — Asphalt Operations Safety Innovation, Community Involvement, Ecological, Outstanding Brochure, and Outstanding Website — recognize a company’s commitment to operations that make them good contractors, good industry ambassadors, and good neighbors,” said NAPA Chairman Craig Parker.

The Outstanding Website Award recognizes website designs that promote the use of asphalt and the asphalt pavement industry. Websites are judged on the use of industry messages and efforts to educate the general public about the asphalt pavement industry.

In 2016, Gerken created a Marketing Task Force to determine a consistent brand appearance used for logos and for the website, www.gerkencompanies.com,” Gerken Paving Area Manager – Central Division Jason Baden said. “We wanted our website to be a ‘showpiece.’ The work led us to create a new website to go along with our new branding strategy.”

The objectives of the new website are to strengthen Gerken’s brand awareness with its target audiences.

“We stress safety and quality as our foundation for success,” Baden said. “We also highlight our high-quality service and attribute it in part to our staying on the leading edge of industry standards and methods.”

In the Services section, the company’s high-quality service is illustrated through a full menu of services that describe asphalt paving, production, aggregate, trucking, milling & grinding, quality control & testing, construction, traffic control, and decorative asphalt. On the asphalt production page, Gerken proudly displays the Diamond Achievement Sustainable logo recognizing the company’s sustainable operations.

About the NAPA
The National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA) is the only trade association that exclusively represents the interests of the asphalt producer/contractor on the national level with Congress, government agencies, and other national trade and business organizations. NAPA supports an active research program designed to improve the quality of asphalt pavements and paving techniques used in the construction of roads, streets, highways, parking lots, airports, and environmental and recreational facilities. The association provides technical, educational, and marketing materials and information to its members; supplies product information to users and specifiers of paving materials; and conducts training courses. The association, which counts more than 1,100 companies as members, was founded in 1955.