In the final episode of Pave It Black, Jim McEvoy, President & CEO of Wirtgen America, shares why a deep knowledge of how your products, teams, and services come together is critical to staying true to your company’s vision and brand promise. From integrating multiple brands under one umbrella to leading innovation in roadbuilding equipment, Jim explains how aligning every step of the process with a clear purpose drives long-term success. We discuss the importance of visibility at industry tradeshows, and how a strong brand is built through service and strategy. Tune in to the season finale for insights that will sharpen your leadership mindset
Published August 5, 2025
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, the company you're with, and your journey to where you are today?
Appreciate you guys having me on here. I guess my trajectory into the industry was not dissimilar to a lot of people. I was born and raised in the Scranton area of Pennsylvania. Very industrialized. Brought up with an understanding that working in construction probably paid a little bit better than some other places where you can work. I worked in construction a little bit through high school. I started fairly early in the construction business. I had my CDL, commercial driver's license, at 16-years-old, which kind of explains how old I am, but also that I've been in this space for a long time.
I finished up college and was given the opportunity to interview with company by the name of Ingersoll Rand. I think to many people, Ingersoll Rand is a legacy name in the industry. I was fortunate to get into what was a traditional corporate management training program where you are taken through a formal process of onboarding into the industry. You then reach a point at which they cast you into the water and it's sink or swim. So that was my introduction to the industry and how I got started. I was there for about 12 years and then became introduced to the Wirtgen familiy which is the company that I continue to work for, which is the Wirtgen Group. That's my personal path into the industry. I would say I took every opportunity that was provided. I didn't know any better. I was ambitious enough to say, I'm just going to take this as far as I can possibly take it. I never had a plan. I just jumped on opportunities.
What initially attracted you to Wirtgen? And what made you stay committed over the years?
Interestingly enough, there was a point in time in my career where I thought I would maybe not stay in this space. But I had the opportunity to meet a guy that was the same age as me, whose family had started a business, and he was second-generation looking to continue building out the vision. The guy I met with was Jurgen Wirtgen, the eldest brother of the family and one of the heads of the company. I was looking across the table at a guy who had a vision of what he wanted to do. Putting a group of companies together to serve the road building industry and infrastructure industry. I would say he was following a vision of his father and he was just one of those people in which after spending a couple of interviews with I thought either he is crazy or he is actually going to pull this off. I took a chance and decided that I would join the company. It's now 25 years since meeting with Jurgen and meeting with the Wirtgen family and following through on their desire to position the brands and the companies. I think to many of those that are connected to the industry understand that the vision of what they wanted to do actually did manifest itself very well. They were very ambitious people fearless, but certainly well-structured and well-disciplined. It's really at the core of what the Wirtgen Group does. They have continued to invest in that over the years and found it to be a very successful strategy.
How do you develop strategy across the four Wirtgen brands and maintain a unified vision across these companies?
I think the decision for the Wirtgen family to keep these individual brands was unique. Usually when you see companies get consolidated, they have a tendency to pick the most, let's say, notable brand or brand with the highest recognition and kind of melt them in. I think the reason behind the branding was really the global footprint of these companies and the legacy of these companies, The Wirtgen brand, the Hamm brand, the Vögele brand, the Kleeman brand, are all part of the production system of building roads, resurfacing and maintaining roads. The unique part about the Wirtgen Group is all of the brands and processes that we're involved in fit very well with our customer base, which are road builders. I often define the people that work in this space go from guardrail to guardrail, curb to curb, and 20 inches down. That's where the work gets done. Whether it's the recycling of road surfaces, the resurfacing of road surfaces, the mining of aggregates that go into the production process. We're completely connected to what we call the entire production system.
That production system is everything from the mining of aggregates to the fracturing of rock to be put into asphalt mixing plants. When you think of the mining of aggregates, the recycling of aggregates, the process of bringing them through an asphalt plant back out into a paver, down behind a roller. To the point at which somebody picks up a cone at the end of the job. The Wirtgen Group has a very unique position in that production cycle. We bring a world of knowledge because of our global position. Ee bring an absolute world of knowledge into that space. It drives us from a technology and innovation standpoint to be leaders in those production processes and the entire production system. When we look at the Wirtgen Group and we position the Wirtgen Group in the asphalt paving and infrastructure business, that's who we aspire to be. We aspire to be the thought leaders, the application leaders, the people with the best understanding and deepest understanding of the process and the ability to improve that process with technology. Ultimately the answers to the problems the contractors face, whether it be Europe or whether it be any other continent in the world, are really not that different. It's people. It's quality control. It's all of the things we do a little differently.
What are some leadership lessons that have stayed with you on your journey?
As I mentioned, I'm 37 years in the industry, which means I've done a number of jobs. Starting from an assistant to the marketing assistant to my current role. I would say that you learn from every experience, right? I've seen people do some things I know that I never want to do in my career, but I've also seen a lot of people and been inspired by a lot of people. You learn and get a good North Star from these people in the way that they conduct themselves. I think the lessons have always been around some fairly simple things that everybody hears, maybe on a regular basis, but the ones that really resonate with me are, trust. It is paramount. Building trust as a leader, trusting your leader is a huge component of that. I think that comes from leaders that listen. I think empathy is a good word. I think understanding is a good word that you use in being a leader. I think some of the best characteristics are leaders that think. They maybe don't respond too quickly, but they have a tendency to pause, think, and look around and ask a lot of questions. Usually there's many inputs into situations, issues that can come to your attention as a leader. Make sure you take the time to dig in and look around and understand the big picture all the way down to what may seem to be, a very selective problem or opportunity that you have to solve.
The other thing is that situational awareness. It really is key that people have a good grip of what's going on from the big picture all the way in. You need to consider all of those things, as you speak to a team. I'd say, the best leaders that I've met and been influenced by are really passionate. They're passionate about the goals of the organization, they're passionate about the goals of the team, and are a passionate communicator. I would say I’m one of those C+ students that surrounded themselves with a bunch of A+ students. Be willing to bring people know things much better than you do into the conversation. I think those are probably the most important things that I've seen over time.
Wirtgen are known for innovation. How do you position a company to stay ahead as a technology leader in the construction space?
You always start with a view of what your customers’ challenges are. I think innovation comes really from understanding the biggest challenges of your customer and understanding the issues that they're trying to solve for. I'd say there's really four things that are key for us it's as an OEM. Machines just have to be reliable. Uptime is everything customers want. They want things to work for the shift that they're designed to work for. Whether it's 8 hours, 10 hours, 12 hours, and be ready to go. That's really one of the most important things to the customer. I think customers appreciate, that you as an OEM, have a clear understanding of your contribution to the production system. All of our customers are challenged by a lot of the similar things, globally as well as domestically. It's a shortage of skilled labor. There are a couple of generations of machine operators and knowledge about the industry that is retiring out. So we look at it from the standpoint that the customer is really driven by, the reliability of the machines. The ability to do the processes more efficiently, obviously with greater safety. They want machines that are intuitive. That let's say, newer or younger operators can understand.
Also the opportunity to use a lot of this advanced technology for, I would say automating. People talk about autonomous things in the future and the autonomous operation of a machine. That's a long way off, but the journey to that goes through automation. When you can take several functions of a machine that's say, the older generation of, machine operators used to have an art to how they would position machines or how they would make them do a specific task. A good bit of that can be automated now because the machine controls are capable of doing that. So it's staying out on that leading edge of, understanding how technology can lead the automation of functions. Today, many of our machines can do five functions with the push of one button. I think that helps the customers as well. It helps the customer get over the hump of bringing, let's say newer operators, with a different skillset or maybe not the skillset of the older generation that's retiring, and help get that new group of operators up and doing really high quality work quickly.
To be a leader in that innovation space requires a deep knowledge of application. How the machine's used and how you can overcome the challenges of the customer. From the big picture standpoint, how these machines become interconnected in the production system and how the intelligence comes off one machine. The information and data that go into the machine that follow the process from milling to paving. There's such an important tie between how a surface is milled and then how it is immediately paved back in. Feeding data across that production system is the type of thing that I think will keep our customers very excited about the technology and the innovation that's coming out of the Wirtgen Group right now.
What innovative technologies do you think will have the most impact on the future of asphalt?
From a technological standpoint, the machines are very capable now. You have so many different types of sensors and cameras and lidar and thermal tracing; all of this technology that exists in the machines. I think the biggest trick, it's not a trick, it's the biggest opportunity. It’s how do you make all that data work for you? If you look at it from the standpoint of your ability to scan a road surface and understand what the problems are within that road surface that you're trying to fix. Being able to scan the data, and load that into a milling machine, and allow that milling machine actually set itself up to mill the smoothest surface it could possibly mill. Then ultimately take that data and bring it back to an asphalt paver. Let the paver use that data to significantly improve the profile of the material that's laid behind the paver. That's a huge leap in the quality of the process.
I also think that there's opportunities in the material side as well, in the intelligent use of recycled materials. We're all getting better at that as the industry moves forward in that space. So again, there’s opportunity for a lot of process improvement in that space. The thing I love about asphalt contractors, and this entire industry, is they're kind of gamblers in a way. They're all bidding for a job and they all have their parameters set on where they think things are going to be, but there's still a lot of risk. I think the opportunity to mitigate risk or let's say if you know the job is 80% sure and 20% we're not so sure exactly how things are going to go. I think if we can help contractors improve their efficiency and risk. There's opportunity for higher quality work. There's opportunity for better returns for the road owner. As far as the quality of work that's left, I think there’s opportunity for the contractor, for profitability, in that 20% space where technology, innovation, data, and information can help them be more efficient in that risk space.
Wirtgen has a strong presence at a lot of industry trade shows. Why do you think it's important for equipment manufacturers to get involvedin associations like NAPA and AEM?
We participate in a number of trade associations. The two specific to your question, AEM is such a great association for us to engage and to be present in. It's an excellent peer group for us. We're all faced with a lot of very similar challenges and I think AEM gives us the opportunity to speak with our peers, obviously very carefully and legally as we're supposed to, but also to understand that big picture. What some of our problems are that we see in our world. They translate to a lot of other manufacturers, in their space as well too. There's a lot of common challenges that I think AEM allows us to have a forum to speak to and understand. AEM also does a great job of advocating on behalf of OEMs in the manufacturing space on these common issues.
AEM also hosts CONEXPO every three years. CONEXPO is just another one of these great trade shows that we have the opportunity to support. AEM puts CONEXPO out in a way that attracts a tremendous number of customers. That gives us the opportunity to showcase our company and our commitment to the industry.
NAPA is very near and dear to my heart because I think it's just center of the wheelhouse for the Wirtgen Group. I'll go back to what I said about the Wirtgen Group being very focused on the entire production system of how to work in this infrastructure space. NAPA just represents that group of people so very well for us. NAPA represents the best consolidation and collection of like-minded people in the asphalt paving industry.
We're big supporters of NAPA and we'll always be because one thing the Wirtgen Group is, is we're very focused. We're a strategically very focused company and NAPA is too. I spoke to this earlier before we started our conversation, how NAPA has a really good feel to it. It's family-oriented in the way that it functions. NAPA kind of captures all of that. NAPA has a great mission statement behind it. I think they do an excellent job in advocating for the industry. The effectiveness of the organization is excellent and obviously the big trade show for NAPA is World of Asphalt. We love World of Asphalt. Our ability to be a strong supporter of World of Asphalt and bring our technology and showcase our people and our equipment and our solutions to the industry, it's a great environment for that. It’s the type of show we really appreciate participating in. Excellent event.
Do you have any advice for anyone attending these trade shows?
I would say take the time to read the agenda. Take a look at all of the things that are available and go into these trade shows with a plan. We certainly love to see our customers attend educational events. The subject matter of the seminars are very well, thought out, very rich. I know that World of Asphalt particularly does a great job with that. Coming into a trade show, I would say, come in with a plan. Not everything at that show will have a specific meaning to every customer that comes, but it's usually all there. Don't be afraid to go up and ask people questions because some of the smartest people of the industry are standing in those booths. Standing next to those machines. They know how to operate them, they know what to do. So I would say, if you're going to go to a trade show or an event, make sure you read up on what's there and plan your trip. Make sure you get the most of it for the time that you're there.
Is there a legacy you hope to leave behind as a leader?
I think that everybody wants to be remembered as a good guy, right? A good person that provided opportunities for the organization to really evolve and for people within the organization to have meaningful work experience and career opportunities. Recently, I've had a number of my very dear friends and colleagues retired. When I reflect on what the team has been able to accomplish, and what a unique group of individuals that were in that team. Allowing them to flourish in an environment and be successful. I guess my wish for the next group of leaders, you can reflect on the history of that. You can reflect on how that interesting group of people were able to bring a team together to accomplish. Some things we all had to build upon. I would like people to think that we've built a really good foundation for future success because there's always opportunity to continue to improve and to grow and to change and adapt vision for the future.
Do you have a piece of advice to an aspiring leader or somebody new to our industry that they should take away from today's conversation?
This is absolutely an amazing industry. It's almost not well known enough. I often refer to the Thanksgiving dinner conversations that you have when you're around a group of relatives and you try to explain to them what industry you're in. It's just not very well known to a lot of people, yet it is such a critical industry to be in because. Nothing happens in commerce. Products don't move products. It's all about infrastructure. My advice to people that are coming in would be take the time to understand the importance of what this industry represents and how valuable it is to be part of it.
I think it's a similar message to future leaders in this industry. Really embrace what this industry does and how powerful it is and how much it contributes to people's everyday lives. The importance of the job you do and the job that this industry does every day to support, rehabilitate, and improve the infrastructure that helps everybody in their everyday lives is a lot bigger than you think it is. It's a very rewarding industry to be in, and it's one that you can get very passionate about, committed to, and it will be very rewarding.