THE MELDRUM GROUP –
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Floyd Meldrum was not your average 1950 graduate from Utah’s Provo High School.
By August of 1951 he was running paving, working as a laborer, teamster and operating engineer.
Nor was Floyd a conventional college student. Following his service for the United States during the Korean War, his college experience began at Ft. Douglas where he studied hard to qualify for the GI Bill.
It was over the next few years that he really learned the craftsmanship of a mechanic and was exposed to and trained by many remarkable people who had returned from WWII. Military service had matured and seasoned Floyd as well and he knew exactly what he wanted from his college studies.
Enrolling at the University of Utah as a working, part-time student, he came under the influence of dedicated professionals who had honed their trade during depression and war and who had the capacity to instill in their students the same work ethic and commitment to problem solving that would distinguish them professionally and in every facet of their lives. Floyd learned these values as he earned his degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Utah in 1962 and has passed them on to his children and grandchildren.
Floyd had worked in Nevada as early as 1952 and when he first crested the old Salt Lake Highway with a group of friends, their view was a tiny cluster of buildings far off in the distant valley surrounded by sagebrush, cacti and dust devils. Floyd looked from east to west and in his eyes he saw more – much more.
In the mind of a visionary man, Floyd saw sand and gravel for roads and materials and space to build large buildings, airports and homes from one end of the valley to the other. He never lost the excitement of that panorama of what the Las Vegas valley could become.
So, ten years later, in 1962, with his dream still alive, he arrived in Las Vegas with his wife and life partner, Jeri, and four daughters. He was a newly minted engineer with less than $100.00 in his pocket and a vision in his mind. Fortunately, he went right to work for a large construction contractor that operated in the Las Vegas area.
Floyd caught on quickly and not much time passed before he formed and licensed his own Nevada-based construction company, Southern Nevada Paving and kept busy building small road jobs and numerous paving projects.
Most important, he gained a strong reputation for honesty, dependability and quality work – the Hallmark of his companies to this day. Floyd was a rare man who could be trusted to deliver what he promised and maintained a 100% compliance record with all state, local and union requirements. His stellar reputation eventually propelled him into the brightest spotlight one could achieve in the southern Nevada construction industry at that time.
It was 1967 and Floyd’s company won an important job in Area 51, the top-secret government proving and testing facility. They were tasked with constructing infrastructure for buildings, roadways and a landing strip.
Southern Nevada Paving, under Floyd Meldrum’s steady leadership performed critical services including engineering, contracting, asphalt paving, excavation and aggregate mining including processing and sales of materials. Over 90% of the hotels and destination resorts on the famous Las Vegas Strip and nearly every other important resort project built during those 50 years had the Meldrum company on their team.
The Meldrum team was integral in the construction of the Mirage, Rio, Treasure Island, Circus Circus, Venetian, City Center, Bellagio, Arizona Charlie’s, MGM Grand, Sunset Station, Boulder Station, Palace Station, South Point, New York New York, Excalibur, Silverton, Stratosphere and The Wynn Las Vegas.
Over time he acquired general contracting licenses in Arizona, Utah and California and completed major road and highway projects that included a 20-mile road job for Ford Aerospace and tying together highways in California, Arizona and Nevada to serve a native-American gaming project.
By the early 1980’s, Floyd Meldrum’s company was becoming the leader in private sector grading and paving projects. Over the next two decades Floyd Meldrum took a seat at the table with other visionaries who conceived, designed and built the most significant infrastructure and destination projects in the history of Las Vegas.
In addition to the long list of private sector projects, Mr. Meldrum’s company completed work on countless Clark County School District schools and other community facilities including Cashman Field, UNLV buildings, the Las Vegas Convention Center, McCarran Airport runway and roadway expansions and major projects within the federal government’s top-secret Area 51.
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Now let’s talk about roads and how we get from place to place. For over 42 consecutive years, while the Meldrum family owned and operated Southern Nevada Paving, they performed roadway and bridge construction and improvement work for the State of Nevada, Regional Transportation Commission and every local community in southern Nevada. Within every municipal government entity in Clark County Floyd Meldrum and his company built valuable, quality transportation improvements providing reliable and sustainable solutions for the safe travel of citizens and visitors.
In addition to his building and construction activities, Mr. Meldrum located, developed and continues to maintain several of the most important sand and gravel claims and related operations in the entire southern Nevada region.
For decades, Floyd Meldrum’s company paid an honest wage to an average of more than 500 employees and was the tenth largest contributor to the health and welfare fund for the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 12 in the Southern Nevada/Southern California Region.
The company’s average payroll during the last several years prior to the sale in 2004, amounted to $500,000.00 per week and Southern Nevada Paving’s gross revenue their last year of ownership, was in excess of $100,000,000.00.
Floyd Meldrum’s company never defaulted on a single employee benefit payment because it was the right thing to do and more important, Floyd cares about his people.
Mr. Meldrum and his company maintained his contractor’s license issued by the state of Nevada “in good standing” for the entire 52 years he was in the grading and paving business, and to this day there has never been a single complaint or disciplinary action filed against him or the company – quite an achievement for a guy who started with only $100 in his pocket.
Yet, sustaining Floyd was his grand vision of a great ongoing future, the grit to work honest and hard to accomplish that vision and a heart ready to teach, lift and share with family and all those he knew. As a result, during many of those years, beginning at 10-years of age, his grandson, Jason Jensen, spent every moment possible helping and learning all his grandfather had to teach. On the job training, from cleaning out paint cans, washing vehicles, to, finally, learning how all the machinery worked Jason learned the business from the ground up.
Unlike many of his colleagues, after the sale of his original company Floyd discovered he was not finished. He and Jason continued to enjoy the effort and creativity of work. During the Southern Nevada Paving years he began purchasing and developing what became approximately 600 acres of industrial property in North Las Vegas and Clark County. It was only natural that he wanted to continue the dream and, with Jason to assist as CEO, they decided to finish what he’d started.
Soon, they were recruiting national Fortune-500 companies to southern Nevada and completing “build-to-suit” projects for such businesses as: Clearwater Paper Corporation, Adesa Auto Auction, Stocks Building Supply and Freeman Expositions Inc. , to name a few.
With significant ownership in the APEX Industrial Park and other vacant land in North Las Vegas, it appears, The Meldrum Group, is just getting started.