Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
In the Mix is a podcast dedicated to the people, projects, and innovations shaping the masonry industry—block by block, brick by brick.
Hosted by Adam Hutchinson, Executive Director and professional engineer, this show brings together architects, engineers, contractors, and industry leaders to explore how masonry drives resilient, sustainable, and high-performance building design.
Each episode breaks down real-world applications of masonry construction, from structural integrity and fire resistance to long-term durability and environmental impact. You’ll hear behind-the-scenes insights, industry challenges, and practical conversations that matter to those designing, building, and specifying with masonry.
If you’re passionate about stronger buildings, smarter construction, and advancing masonry in modern design—this is your place to get in the mix.
Join us in supporting the Masonry Industry mission: https://masonryinstitute.com/in-the-mix
Welcome to In The Mix, the show that puts Masonry in the spot spotlight. Block by block, brick by brick. I'm your host, Adam Hutchinson, executive director, professional engineer, industry advocate, and believer in the power of resilient building design. Every week, I sit down with architects, engineers, contractors, and building owners to break down how Masonry makes our community stronger, safer, and more resilient. We're here to share stories, tackle the tough questions, and help you see what's possible when we build better together.
Speaker 1:Let's get in the mix. Recorded live from the California Masonry Council's design and expo day, I sit down with Ken Tejeda of R and R Masonry to explore the power of collaboration, legacy, and advocacy in the masonry industry. As a second generation contractor, Ken shares how his family's business has evolved over six decades and why the future of masonry depends on contractors, manufacturers, architects, and industry organizations working together with a shared vision. Ken also discusses the growing role of the California Masonry Council in promoting masonry across the state, The importance of educating architects and owners about the materials long term value and why durability, fire resilience, seismic performance, and timeless design continues to make masonry one of the strongest building solutions available. Whether you're a contractor, designer, or industry advocate, this conversation is packed with practical insights on protecting and growing the future of masonry.
Speaker 2:My name's Adam Hutchinson. I'm with the Northwest Masonry Institute, and we're on In The Mix. It's a masonry industry podcast. We're on all of the podcast platforms plus YouTube. So gonna be great to be able to find it everywhere.
Speaker 2:I'm here with.
Speaker 3:I'm Ken Tejeda with R and R Masonry. We're based out of North Hollywood, California.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And we're a commercial masonry contractor. Yep. We do brick and mortar work, clockwork, pavers, stone precast. So yeah, been in business since 1963. Wow, 1963.
Speaker 3:Let's go. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So what brought you into the Masonry industry?
Speaker 3:Well, my father and uncle started the business back in '63. Yeah. And then my brother and I, we kinda worked summers, couple months when school was off, and it kinda got us involved and interested in the company. Our dad really never put direct pressure on us to join the business. So after I graduated college, I spent four and a half years in public accounting with Price Waterhouse.
Speaker 3:Which I enjoy. And then, you know, I talked to my dad and my brother, and ended up coming over in 1986. And it's been about forty years now, so I've
Speaker 2:really That's enjoyed awesome. Yeah. It's amazing how many small, or not even small anymore, but family businesses are in the Masonry industry. From producers to contractors to anybody working with the Masonry industry overall. Even some of the manufacturers, Right?
Speaker 2:We've got the brick and block side. So it's great to see family businesses and family companies continuing to hold on to the legacy that our grandparents and our parents and uncles and everybody has brought us up in this industry. Absolutely. Crazy little sidebar. My great grandpa was a Mason, and his last name was Paris, an Italian guy, immigrated from Italy, and then built masonry buildings.
Speaker 2:Did a lot of real estate as well. So yeah. So great to hear about your story. So tell me a little bit about CMC and and your involvement with CMC, the California Masonry Council.
Speaker 3:So our California Masonry Council was formed probably about three years ago, and it kinda consists of, right now, about eight or nine board members. And our executive director is Arturo Finau. And Arturo's just done a great job. He has just been lights out, just really fantastic. He's motivated, hard worker, and he's really done so much in a short span.
Speaker 3:And today, we're having obviously our second Masonry Expo, and it's larger crowd than last year, and just so well put together and organized.
Speaker 2:Great speakers, great venue, great sponsors, producers, and contractors. Yeah. It's been a great, well rounded event.
Speaker 3:Definitely. And I think for us, with Masonry here in California, some of the other industries, the lumber industry, timber industry, maybe steel studs, concrete, were doing a lot more marketing and promotion for their products and we were lagging behind. And I think we recognize that. One of our initial board founders, Ron Bennett, did, and he's up in Northern California. So he kinda brought it up to some of the contractors also down here in Southern California where we could get together and fund this.
Speaker 3:But the bigger part is just being able to market and promote and grow Masonry as an industry. Because we really haven't had that for a long time. There's been individual groups such as the block companies that have done a really nice job. But here I think it's more of a concerted, 100%
Speaker 2:effort to really- Focus on promotion.
Speaker 3:On promotion. And Masonry, there's so many things about where it's one of those few products, I believe, that is architectural. You can get different colors. You can get, as Adam noted, burnished blocks, split face, all kinds of textures. It's structural, so it can be blow bearing.
Speaker 3:Works well and seismic. Seismic and it's fire resilient. And really for California, the last five, ten years, we're dealing with serious fire issues. And certainly we need to move for public buildings in certain areas really should be probably made out of block to have a better fire resilience because, you know, we've solid grout walls here and all walls are They give a four hour fire rating.
Speaker 2:I feel like that four hour is a little low even. Mean, those grouted walls, can put them up. The ASTM test that we do at the National Lab. Yeah. Our backup wall from the eighties is still being used to test other furring systems adjacent to our walls.
Speaker 2:Right, right. We should be able to get past four hours on there.
Speaker 3:I think so.
Speaker 2:Four hours gives us a safety that we need for our critical structures, Absolutely. So when we talk about critical structures, we're talking about what? We're talking about?
Speaker 3:Police stations, fire departments. It could be even school buildings. They're essential services.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 3:And you want the safety for the kids. So many of those buildings, say if you're at a high school and you have a gymnasium, we're a little biased, but that really should be made out of Masonry. They can get 40 foot high walls to accommodate the baskets and the seats, it just makes sense. And you get, again, architectural, structural, independent, mold and fire resiliency. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, it's easy to hang all of your state championships up on there too. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And back to the council. So yeah, I think we are a combination of signatory contractors from Northern Southern California. Yep. They've gathered together and we fund this.
Speaker 3:And we're hoping one day we can even get the non union contractors with us, where we can just be a force and really gain a lot more market share and grow the industry. And also really try to eliminate some of the perceptions that are out there. I don't if you wanna call it negative perceptions or misconceptions about Masonry. And that really they can see the benefits. Granted, every job might use a different product, but like you were saying, the combination of seismic issues too, it's unique.
Speaker 3:And there's not many products that really have those three, four items Right. You know, working for them.
Speaker 2:In other areas of the country where maybe the union isn't as strong, they've already got councils or guilds where they've merged them under one umbrella. That seems like a good opportunity for us to do that, something similar in Washington, Oregon, California, where we're all here to promote the Masonry industry. We're not butting heads at the promotion end of it. We're not butting heads versus you versus an open shop, right?
Speaker 3:Not at all.
Speaker 2:The architects and engineers and the building owners, they don't care necessarily. Right. They just need to know what Masonry is, right? And the benefit of it. I've been working on that over the past couple of years trying to get more promotion out there.
Speaker 2:That's why we started our podcast in the Northwest, but it's in the mix, right? We're just trying to reach out and bring everybody in the industry in the mix. It's bringing contractors together to talk about what you guys do best and you guys build these buildings that engineers and architects design. Sometimes they need to be educated on it or they need to be promoted to. And over the last twenty, twenty five years, a lot of it's been on the technical side, maybe the education side only or the resource side and that's it.
Speaker 2:So what do you see as the biggest strength of Masonry? You've talked about fire, you've talked about earthquakes. What is the biggest strength and how do we get those architects and engineers, and maybe they're on the fence, whether or not they should design with masonry or not, what would you tell them to get off of that fence and choose masonry?
Speaker 3:Well, when I think of masonry, I think of not just block, but also we do a lot of full anchor brick veneer. Yep. As opposed to a adhered veneer, which is great product too. But I think that it's just in the case of brick veneer, you get such a beautiful look. And, you know, brick, you can make it look older or there's just so many different Norman
Speaker 2:sizes. Backwards.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You know? And soldiers. And so, you know, brick is just a real craft, and it's just beautiful. You see it everywhere in other parts of the country and Europe.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I would say design with that because I think here in California, we get maybe a lot of stucco plaster guys. Nothing against stucco plaster, but I just think that brick is just really a beautiful look. It's a
Speaker 2:longer term product as well, right? Stucco might need to be touched up after twenty years or so or even fifteen years. Whereas Masonry, it's there. Yeah. Maybe take a hose to it to get the cobwebs off of it or bee's nest off of it.
Speaker 2:Right?
Speaker 3:Or it's like block. You know, because block is great. And like you alluded to, being durable over at LAX, and we had a general contractor. We bid the job, and all the interior walls were gonna be CMU block, eight inch block, partition walls. And then the general contractor decided to do some value engineering and change it to stud wall framing and chipboard.
Speaker 3:And then as it turned out later, about six months after the job was done, I was talking to the head of planning and development at LAX, and he was telling me that, he was aware of the original design, that a lot of these walls now were getting all banged up by the carts bringing- All the luggage in and luggage, gifts through, and paint was chipping, that's kind of a problem. And we talked about the durability of Masonry and that it could handle that, let's say, these luggage carts going through. So case in point, back in 2011, we had done another job at the West Bradley in the West Core Edition, and they had hybrid walls. And so the senior walls came up 10 foot high, and then from there up, it was studs. That also helped accommodate all the HVAC and Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's a
Speaker 2:lot easier to put openings in, big openings in the stud walls, right?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And it just worked out perfect. You know, now you have that durability of CMU and can paint it as need be, right? If you, you know, want to keep it clean, but more importantly, just so durable. It's gonna be there forever.
Speaker 2:And those partition walls, they don't need to be full width eight inch, 12 inch walls, We can get those down to six inch partition walls.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And still provide that durability and resilience that they need from a impact standpoint or a use That's true.
Speaker 3:If I can add to that, six inch, you're right. And I know that we've done gels. It's a little different subject. Yep. And the cell walls are always six inch block because I think they have a maximum space area that they can have per cell.
Speaker 3:So they usually go with six inch block per cell, and that gives them some added space. So it's a great point. And six inch CMU, they have designed for tall, slender walls. Sure. I'm sure you're aware of.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And even then, if it's a non load bearing wall, it's a partition wall, and we can design for that. The minimal load that somebody running up against it or throwing their body against it or Yeah. Or even kids throwing each other up against the walls. In school fights don't happen nearly as much as they used to, but still, I grew up in a school that was all CMU.
Speaker 2:It had CMU exterior, CMU partitions, two story CMU walls with a clear story, steel roof, steel frame windows. And you didn't even know that you were in a Masonry building, but nothing needed to be patched. You didn't have to replace the drywall all the time. Yeah. Oh, somebody chipped the paint.
Speaker 2:Okay. Let's Tatch it. Pull it back until it stops spalling off or chipping, and then you put a nice bond coat on there and away you go. Right? And it's back to good and ready to use.
Speaker 2:We talked about this a little bit, but what opportunities do we have as a Masonry industry to come together and promote a little bit better? I know we got this great Design Expo, or Design and Expo Day, where we're recognizing the students and their competitions, recognizing the award programs later today. How can we do a better job of promoting our industry? Industry?
Speaker 3:I think part of it, as mentioned earlier, about this collaboration and really making a big effort to work closely with our manufacturers, whether it's a block company, brick company, ready mix, whatever it may be. But working together as a team, because that just makes you stronger as a team and provides more resources. I think a couple things that are important too is not being afraid to reach out to these engineers and architectural firms. I know the other places, Arizona Masonry Council, you know, with the great Don Rogers.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:They have hands on events. It seems like architects and engineers love that, just outside watching the students, and they were really
Speaker 2:Oh, they eat it up.
Speaker 3:Right? They could be there all day long. But that kind of thing and not being afraid to reach out to big entities, whether it's the city of LA, which we tried to do in LA Unified School District, and reach out to them and meet with them and explain to them some of the benefits, whether it's a webinar, something of Masonry and what Masonry has to offer. And we've been trying to do that the last year here in Southern California, really reaching out to UCLA, in LUSD, State of LA County, and architects and engineers, because I think that's huge.
Speaker 2:If you guys ever need a webinar or anything like that, let me know. I'll put one together for you.
Speaker 3:You got it.
Speaker 2:And put it on for you because I've got the home studio. We've got the podcast booth. We can set it up however we need to do it and get out there and help promote the Masonry industry because that's what we're here for. Right?
Speaker 3:We're
Speaker 2:we're all here to collaborate. We all have passion for Masonry. Whether we grew up with it like you or got adopted into it like me, once you're in, I think it feels very cohesive, very very passionate. Right? The Masonry industry is very passionate about what we do.
Speaker 2:And I love to see that. I love to interview people like you that just have that raw passion for masonry. And we need to bring up the next generation for that.
Speaker 3:We do. And I think your word passion's huge because I agree. Gotta have passion for it. Because a lot of this work, as you probably know, sometimes it's just done our own time, whether it's serving on boards and just showing that passion and not thinking about ourselves, thinking about this whole industry and how do we make it stronger and how do we grow it. Masonry is just a beautiful product, and it just, like you said, offers so many so many things.
Speaker 3:So
Speaker 2:Yeah. There's so many opportunities that we have out there. The last thing that I always talk about, and it sucks that it's last, but
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 2:Threats to our masonry industry. What do you see as the biggest threat to us? Is it our fragmentation in the industry? Is it not being willing to come together and promote? Is it other materials?
Speaker 2:What do you see as the biggest threat to our industries?
Speaker 3:Well, I would say, at least speaking for California, Southern California, we're making this progress moving forward about making a concerted effort to market Masonry throughout A and E design teams and owners. So I think that's a positive note. And I think the collaboration effort has been real positive. There hasn't been much pushback from anybody really worrying
Speaker 2:about
Speaker 3:competing
Speaker 2:Oh, good.
Speaker 3:Competing councils or something. It seems like thus far we've been able to manage that. But I think there's still things out there. Steer walls, are they gonna make them Tilt up or Tilt Tilt up panel. Stud framing, glazing.
Speaker 3:So it's still a lot of different options out there. I don't think California has a lot of block. We don't unfortunately have as much brick as what I'd like to see, but that's still a lot of like universities, SCU, CLA, UC Irvine, they all have a lot of brick. They can have matching buildings. But I think there's certainly a lot of competition with the different entities, different trades.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Glazing. It's they're they're always gonna be there instead. So
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's really hard to fight against the architects who are glazing a 100% of the building with the point supported glass. And it's like, come on, guys. Give us some of the wall at least. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Last
Speaker 2:question. If you had something to tell the next generation that's coming into Masonry, what would you tell them?
Speaker 3:Be involved, be engaged in your industry. It's really important to give back. I know it's hard enough running your own business. It's complicated. There's challenges, there's risks.
Speaker 3:But I think the thing you'll find too, you get involved and engaged, it's very rewarding. And I think what you were alluding to, Adam, about having passion is so important, but part of that passion becomes rewarding in the end game. You really, you give back and you see people changing their minds towards Masonry. But I think it can just be a rewarding industry. There's a lot of options, opportunities.
Speaker 3:Maybe if you start out as a bricklayer or something, you can become an estimator for a company. Yeah. Project manager, doing what you're doing with Northwest Yeah. Masonry I think really get involved, get engaged, and the rewards will be there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate having you on it.
Speaker 3:Thanks so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a wrap on today's episode of In The Mix where we put Masonry in the spotlight. Block by block, brick by brick. A big thanks to our guest, Ken Tejeda, for sharing their time and insights with us. If you enjoyed this episode, do us a favor, click that follow button, leave a quick review, and share it with someone who cares about building smarter and stronger. You can connect with me, Adam Hutchinson on LinkedIn and find bonus content from today's episode at masonrymix.com.
Speaker 1:In the mix is produced by espresso podcasts and hosted by yours truly, Adam Hutchinson. You can find the podcast wherever podcasts are found. Hosting of the podcast is made possible by the Northwest Masonry Institute. Thanks for listening. And as always, stay curious, stay connected, and keep building strong.
Speaker 1:See you right here next week in the
Speaker 2:mix.