Experience and Integrity for over 30 Years

Lloyd D. Nabors Demolition
Written by Ryan Cartner

Lloyd D. Nabors Demolition (LDN) is a full service demolition company headquartered in Hutchins, Texas, just outside of Dallas, offering the entire suite of services from small single-home or duplex residential projects to major high-rise demolitions, and everything in between.
~
LDN was founded in 1997 when Lloyd Nabors left his father’s demolition company to start one of his own. “I worked with my dad for twenty plus years,” says Lloyd Nabors, President and Owner of LDN. “The first building I ever took down, I was ten years old. I’ve been doing this all my life. I started my own business from scratch in my garage by myself and grew from there.”

In the beginning, Nabors ran a very minimal operation with no equipment of his own, and no employees. He would rent smaller machines and take on jobs that suited this capacity. Beginning with small excavators and front-end loaders, he performed primarily interior demolition on small residential projects. As the company grew he hired on people and invested in larger machines, enabling the company to take on larger and more challenging work. After a few years the company had developed an impressive portfolio of projects and capabilities.

In 2001, LDN caught the attention of a large holding company called Southwest Holding Group, and Nabors made the strategic decision to allow his company to be acquired. He stayed on in his capacity under the new ownership until 2003 when he bought the company back. During that time he had hired John Satterwhite and together they realized that with the right management, LDN could be even more successful on its own.

“When we were with the holding company they had us branch out into dirt and asbestos abatement and other things that weren’t really what we specialized in,” says Satterwhite, Vice President of LDN. “It was an amicable separation and it allowed us to get back to what we were good at.”

Back at the company’s helm, Nabors made a significant investment into expanding the company’s equipment fleet and hiring new employees. In 2004, the company hit a major milestone by completing the demolition of the 1.7 million square foot Prestonwood Mall. This project enabled LDN to justify even further investment, and by the time it completed that job the company had grown from a relatively small operation to a mid-sized demolition services provider.

The next landmark project for LDN was the demolition of a major semiconductor manufacturing plant for ST Micro Electronics. This facility was 1.5 million square feet in size, and was the first of many LDN projects that involved reclaiming and recycling concrete for reuse by the customer. This project opened up many opportunities for the company in the industrial demolition space.

In 2008, LDN began work at Love Field Airport. Southwest Airlines acquired the airport that year and invested millions into a revitalization project that allowed it to be expanded from a regional to an international airport. LDN has performed all of the demolition on that project, and it is still ongoing. By then, it had grown from less than twenty employees to more than fifty, and had more than doubled its annual revenue.

By 2013 the company was ready for another major expansion to its fleet. For nearly a decade it had been building a relationship with Volvo. Initially, it had purchased Volvo equipment through a Ronco dealership, but eventually LDN grew to be a substantial enough customer that Volvo began working with the company directly. This developed into a mutually beneficial partnership, and a representative of that company came to work with LDN. In 2013 when Nabors was looking to invest in a much larger piece of equipment, the company purchased Volvo’s 85 foot excavator for projects involving high rises up to six stories. “They’re a big part of our operation,” says Satterwhite. “Most of our equipment is Volvo, and they’ve worked with us to build our fleet to what it is now.”

Currently the company is working on its largest project to date, a 300 acre site with more than five million square feet of structure to be demolished. A former Vought aircraft manufacturing plant where B-52 bombers were built in the 1940s, the project started this year and is expected to go on for at least one more.

LDN offers the full suite of demolition services. This includes everything from using heavy machinery to tear down large industrial facilities, schools, bridges, roadways, and more, to interior select demolition where crews go in and either completely remove the interior of a building, leaving just the shell, or remove select pieces to make it ready for a new tenant. The company is also well versed in the specific challenges related to residential demolition, including houses, garages, sheds, and apartment buildings. In all cases, LDN has pre-demolition crews who will arrive prior to demolition in order to disconnect water, gas, electric, and other services, check for asbestos, manage septic tank pumping, and address a number of other important considerations.

One of the most important of these considerations for demolition crews is how to deal with asbestos. While LDN hires specialty abatement contractors to handle the material, all of the company’s employees are trained on the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP). “We do a lot of single family homes around Dallas,” says Satterwhite, “swimming pools, apartment complexes. All of our employees are NESHAP trained. It’s not required, but we want to make sure our people have it so that they know how to recognize asbestos-containing materials.”

LDN empowers its supervisory staff and management team to make decisions with as little red tape as possible. While many company owners spend the majority of their time stuck behind a desk, Nabors is a more valuable asset when he has the ability to visit work sites and lend his expertise there. He is able to do this because LDN has built a highly competent team of experts to make up its management team.

Two general superintendents, Jerry Oneal and Frank Phillips, divvy up the projects to make sure they’re running effectively. Daniel Ralston is the Operations and Fleet manager, and he ensures that equipment is maintained and running and helps to dispatch those trucks to make sure they have everything they need before they leave for a job. Flo Rubio is the company’s office manager, and she has a team of three employees who manage day to day administrative tasks and human resources work. Rene Rodriguez is LDN’s head of safety. He is on site at the beginning of every project to ensure that all safety requirements are being met, and is in charge of all safety-related training. Nabors and Satterwhite meet multiple times a week to discuss operations and estimating, and the rest of the time Nabors is able to lend his vast knowledge and expertise on job sites.

“We don’t micromanage our employees,” says Satterwhite. “We have managers we trust, and they all have tasks. We set a guideline and a basis but we don’t direct every step. At any given time we have 12 to 15 jobs going. That’s a lot of places for one person to be so we rely heavily on our managers.”

LDN’s leadership believes that its biggest asset is its people. The reputation the company has earned over the last two decades is a direct result of having the right people doing the work. Nabors and Satterwhite understand the value of open communication, collaboration, and seeing all employees as important members of the LDN team. “They’re the ones out there on the front line doing the work and we want to provide them as much support as we can,” says Nabors. “All my guys – it doesn’t matter if they’re swinging a sledgehammer or pushing a broom – they’ve all got my number and they can call me at any time.”

LDN also maintains active involvement in the broader demolition industry. Satterwhite sits on the Safety Committee of the National Demolition Association. It’s important to the team to ensure that the company is not only competitive in its own markets, but that it’s also operating in a way that is beneficial for the industry at large.

After nearly two decades as a demolition services provider, and many more decades of combined experience within the company’s ranks, LDN Demolition has built a reputation for safe, high quality work that customers can rely on. “A lot of our work comes from our reputation,” says Nabors. “We’re among a small few in this market that can do what we can do. That makes us valuable.”

AUTHOR

CURRENT EDITION

Hands-On Learning for Future Success

Read Our Current Issue

PAST EDITIONS

Cladding and Exteriors

February 2024

A Concrete Foundation

December 2023

Elegant and Eco-Friendly

November 2023

From Beautiful Bridges to Breathtaking Buildings

October 2023

More Past Editions

Featured Articles