One thing Bob Gravier has learned during his career is that engineering teaches
discipline and persistence.
Hard work and ingenuity have paid off for Gravier, a civil engineering alumnus, entrepreneur, and inventor. Products developed by his company, Allan Block, have been used for landscaping near high-profile landmarks such as Olympic Field Stadium in Atlanta, the Statue of Liberty, and even Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland.
But Gravier’s start wasn’t fast or easy. Take his college degree, for example. Before graduating in 1980, he spent 11 years in academia, a consequence of changing schools (transferring from Michigan Tech to the University after his freshman year), changing majors (from civil engineering to architecture to landscape architecture and back to civil engineering), and dropping out for two years to focus on a growing landscaping business he and a friend started as teenagers.
The business, Up A Tree, which began as a tree-trimming service for homeowners, had expanded to include snowplowing, landscaping, and construction. “We had a 40-acre nursery in Maple Grove, [Minn.], a fleet of trucks, and five crews in season,” Gravier said.
He got married, bought a house, and had a child on the way when he had a falling-out with his business partner and suddenly found himself unemployed.
“Engineers can always get a job,” he said, “so I decided to go back to college.”
To help pay for tuition and to support his family, he launched another landscaping company. By the time he graduated, he was making more money running the company than he could earn as an entry-level engineer, so he invested his engineering skills in the business.
That company, Allan Block, is now a leading provider of stackable concrete blocks for landscape walls, retaining walls, and fences. Gravier, whose middle name is Allan, designed the blocks after inspecting some walls he’d built with treated timber—the product of choice in the 1970s. After only ten years the walls were falling apart, despite industry claims that they would last for 50.
“I realized I was building with inferior materials, so I sat down at my drawing board and came up with an alternative,” he said. “There’s an Allen wrench, so I figured, ‘Why not an Allan block?’”
His original patent was for a hollow-core block with a raised front lip that creates a locking mechanism and allows the blocks to be “dry stacked,” without using fasteners or mortar. The company has since developed and patented other mortarless block systems, which it licenses to its worldwide network of manufacturers.
Allan Block also helped pioneer the use of “geogrid,” a flexible synthetic mesh, as an efficient way to reinforce the soil behind the walls.
The reinforced walls offer unprecedented stability. According to recent seismic research in Japan sponsored by Allan Block, the walls can even withstand earthquakes.
“You can throw a 7.2 on the Richter scale at an Allan Block wall, and nothing happens. The forces go right through,” Gravier said.
His block doesn’t need to withstand those kinds of forces in his company’s headquarters in Edina, Minn., where he has created a parklike indoor environment. Employees work behind cubicle walls made of Allan Block units, and a waterfall trickles into a beautifully landscaped fishpond located near Gravier’s corner office.
Reflecting on what it takes to succeed in business, Gravier ticked off a list of essential entrepreneurial traits.
“Introducing a new technology to the engineering and construction market is a real challenge. You need to be very determined, and at the same time you have to be flexible,” he said. “There’s no recipe. You have to adapt to the challenges the marketplace throws at you. You also need to know how to multitask because in the beginning you’re doing everything.”
Early on, Gravier was surprised to discover how illogical the marketplace could be. From his perspective, the advantages of switching to Allan Blocks should have been obvious to customers.
“My formula said, ’Allan Blocks are profitable for the manufacturer and the contractor and a great value for the owner. These guys are going to buy millions of Allan Blocks the day after they meet me,’” Gravier said. Instead, it took years of training, marketing, and engineering refinement to convince customers that it would indeed be profitable to use Allan Blocks rather than treated timber and other products.
His University classes taught Gravier only part of what he needed to know. He mastered sales by sitting at the kitchen tables of potential customers three nights a week for 10 years, and he learned construction by “playing in the dirt.”
Nevertheless, he’s glad he persisted for 11 years and received his degree. His diploma now hangs in his office alongside some of his first patents.
“My engineering training was invaluable to me when I started this business, and it still is today,” he said.
