MIDDLETOWN — Steve Hester’s path to becoming president of Benchmark Masonry is built upon decades of experience.

Hester started out in the construction business in 1974 in a masonry company that shut down in 1979, then opened Miter Masonry in 1980, which he sold off by decade’s end.

In 1990, he purchased Miami Cement Products, a manufacturer of concrete blocks, retail brick and other accessories, but sold it in 1997 and started Benchmark in 1999.

The Middletown business generates between $6 million and $10 million in revenue each year and employs between 40 to 100 workers, depending on the season.

Completed works include Miller Ridge Elementary in Middletown, Cincinnati Children’s Liberty Campus, Kroger locations in Middletown and Hamilton, a new hospital in Springfield, plus additions to Springboro High School and Kettering Memorial Hospital.

Q: What are Benchmark Masonry’s major goals and how is it working to achieve them?

A: “One of our major goals is just to be a safe place to work, provide good equipment and we try to hire the best professional masons that we can. The goal is to provide a good product on time and to turn a profit and satisfy our customers. ... In this business, you have to be low bidder to get the job, but if you do quality work, it helps.”

Q: How has the company retooled itself?

A: “Two or three years ago we all took a 10 percent pay cut. That went from top to bottom, which was substantial for everybody. In this kind of market, gas (prices) goes up, food goes up, but we had to cut wages and we had to eliminate some positions inside the office. We’ve all tried to get leaner and take on more responsibilities.”

Q: Where do you see Benchmark headed in the next five years?

A: “Right now, it’s just a matter of survival rather than growth. One of the major difficulties we have is to try and maintain a good health insurance program for our employees. When we first started, we were probably paying 65 to 70 percent of their health insurance. Now it’s down to where we’re providing 47 percent and they’ve got to pay the rest. Every year, it’s a struggle to provide a good health insurance. We have to reduce our benefits to try and maintain at the same costs.”

Q: What is the company working on now?

A: “We’re currently working on a Beavercreek school. We’re doing a $1.3 million contract for an addition to Miami Valley Hospital (South) off of Wilmington Pike. We’ve got a Kroger to build in Amelia and we’re currently doing a project on the REI store down at Rookwood Commons (in Hyde Park). We’re working on the new parking garage at Austin Landing, plus we’re doing a lot of limestone work on Washington Park parking garage in downtown Cincinnati.”

Q: How many projects does Benchmark have going at one time and how has the economy affected that?

A: “There’s usually anywhere from four to six. The economy has affected the price of each project. Commercial work has really been limited the past couple of years. We’re either doing schools or hospitals. The parking garage downtown is for a developer but those kind of jobs are harder to come by because there’s not that much development going on other than Kroger.”