QC Construction Products, Madera, California
QC Construction began life as a regional supplier of decorative concrete raw materials -- colors, hardeners, release powders
by John Chandler

QC Construction Products found gold at the end of the rainbow.

In other words, color meant opportunity.

Started in 1992 in Madera, Calif., QC Construction began life as a regional supplier of decorative concrete raw materials — colors, hardeners, release powders — to contractors in central and southern California. The company blossomed in the mid-’90s when contractors and homeowners alike discovered that there was more to concrete than mere shades of gray.

“The growth of decorative concrete during the mid-’90s was huge,” says QC’s national technical director, Chris Sullivan. “QC went from being a small, regional player servicing a few-hundred-mile radius from the plant in Madera to where we are now, a national player with five regional sales managers and 30 sales reps all across the country.”

Sullivan attributes the phenomenal growth in sales to a few key factors. First of all, the design community vigorously embraced the product line being offered by QC. Suddenly, it seemed, everyone wanted concrete in different colors. A variety of integral colors and stains were clearly the way to go, particularly in style-conscious California. It was only a matter of time before the rest of the country followed suit.

“Number two, contractors and applicators were seeing the increase in the amount of money they could make,” Sullivan says.

And finally, he says, homeowners climbed aboard this colorful bandwagon. “I would say a large portion of (the sales) came from residential use — patios, driveways, walkways. And we’re seeing more decorative concrete use in interiors as well. HGTV is huge at getting people introduced at the homeowner level. We get so many calls from people saying they want this or that kind of stain that they saw on HGTV for their patio.”

When it became apparent that the demand for color was going to be a market force to be reckoned with, the brain trust at QC faced a critical decision: quality versus quantity.

“We are not a commodity-driven line,” Sullivan says. “I think one of the challenges we faced on the way up was whether or not we were going to try and be all things to all people. There are companies out there that treat these products like commodities, available on every street corner. We want to deal with the upper-end, leading distributors in the market, and we want to have cutting-edge product quality. We aren’t trying to sell everybody, just the people who are striving to do the highest quality work.”

Sullivan and his QC compatriots found that they got great feedback by getting the stains and colors into the hands of applicators doing the most creative work. “They’re doing things with our products that we never thought of,” he says.
As for the products themselves, many have contributed to QC’s rise in popularity. In addition to QC Patina Stain and ColorTech E, which have been used on high-profile jobs at the Luxor in Las Vegas and Disney World in Orlando, Sullivan is especially keen on another development.

“We have a product, that to my knowledge, nobody out there has anything quite like it,” he says. “It’s a penetrating reactive stain, but it’s water-based. It’s called QC CemTint and it’s a water/lithium-based reactive stain. It works on different chemistries and different properties than acid stains.