As many in asphalt know, we’re a community as much as we are an industry. That’s why Polyco’s latest hire, Dario Alvarez, our Regional Sales Manager, is a perfect fit – he’s about people. 

In 2000, Dario launched his asphalt career selling liquid asphalt in Ogden, Utah, for Pioneer Oil Company. “My boss [at the time] hired me because I had a really outgoing personality,” he said. “It was easy for me to talk to people and engage with people and get them to like me. So I got out there, started talking with contractors, getting involved in the industry. For the next seven years, I worked in Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming, selling liquid asphalt to hot plants.”

From there, his sales career accelerated and he branched out into the highway safety industry, where his passion for people really began to shine. It was Dario’s job to engineer safe work zones that utilized smart work zone system technology and then sell that work zone configuration to contractors to implement. “We’ve got guys out there putting down the roads, putting down the asphalt, building bridges. And, as they are trying to create this infrastructure, they have to be kept safe from the traveling public,” he said. 

Over the course of his career, Dario found his way back to asphalt sales. He worked with several prominent companies in the industry, including Ingevity and Surface Tech, gaining critical experience with asphalt and pavement preservation technologies. These have included polymer modified asphalts, asphalt emulsion, fuel oils, surface sealers, refined products, and preformed thermoplastic pavement markings.

Ultimately, asphalt is where he wants to be. 

“What’s been fun for me is [that], in a lot of the jobs that I’ve taken on as a sales professional and as a sales leader, [the] product that I’m about to sell is brand new to the industry,” he said. “That’s something that’s really exciting to me. Polyco is offering the same type of adventure where this is a technology that we’ve had for a few years, but it’s still kind of burgeoning in the industry on the paving side.”

Dario has been tasked with developing relationships with specifiers and end users in the asphalt pavement market to promote SigmaBond, Polyco’s waste tire rubber asphalt modifier. “This role affords me a great opportunity to go out and introduce something that could really benefit the paving industry, that is proven to work really well and be sustainable. SigmaBond has got all of the characteristics and attributes that people are looking for.”

Outside of his profession, Dario makes sure to allocate time for personal pursuits, namely fly fishing and coaching judo. Alongside his coaching partner, he runs the largest judo program for juniors in Austin, Texas. It represents yet another way in which Dario connects well with people, who ultimately are what matters most.