For more than 35 years, the company founded by Ray Lee has grown up with the Commonwealth communities it serves, continuing to stretch its selection of building materials and services. What this means for Lee is more demand for a rapidly diversifying palette of materials and colors. Striving to fulfill that demand has meant around $50 million in annual sales.

Now, Lee Brick & Block operates out of 10 sites in central and western Kentucky (including Lee Door Products in Louisville, which sells hollow metal doors), and a new Tennessee location called Southland Brick & Block. This rapidly growing network of facilities distributes more than 850 separate kinds of structural and architectural block and represents dozens of U.S. manufacturers of brick and other products related to the industry.

Take a look at such diverse Lee projects as the Hamburg Pavilion retail development, Jessamine County High School, buildings on the campuses of Western Kentucky University and Murray State, and the Kentucky History Center in Frankfort, and you'll see a sampling of the variety of masonry techniques and products that are being creatively utilized in today's construction market.

"The architects are using two-tone bands, highlights, glazed brick and tile," says Lexington General Manager Mike Yessin. "We just finished working on the Estill County Middle School. When I went to school, everything was drab and low-key. I walk into this school and they have bright blue tile on the floor, ground face block going up the sides, grouted tile on the walls, brightly colored halls with Kentucky blue lockers. And it's really open, with skylights and thirty foot ceilings. Architects are making these buildings more distinctive now."

Using raw materials from nearby quarries, Lee makes its own concrete block and retaining walls at the Mountain Stone Company in Bowling Green and six other manufacturing facilities, all in close proximity to the company's own distribution and sales outlets.

Not only does Lee offer an array of fluted, split-face, and architectural block in any earth-tone color, they also represent many companies that have ties to the industry flashing, waterproofing, bagged concrete, etc. – as well as brokering for brick houses.

And what about the houses people live in?

"Residentially you see a lot of people going with manufactured stone," continues Yessin. "People are waking up and saying, 'If I'm putting a veneer on my house, what is the best material I can get?' Exterior means a whole lot. Builders are starting to care a bit more about it because the owners are asking more about it."

"You have to get out to the sites. I try to explain to customers everything in the world about a brick: why it costs what it costs, why it has a straight edge or a rolled edge, what a tumbled brick is, what a full bed joint should look like, things like that. These are things the consumer can then go out to the site and police."

According to Yessin, 60 percent of Lee's business is commercial, 40 percent residential.

"We're trying to get our hands into anything that's being constructed. We have people in this office devoted to calling strictly architects, others calling home builders and commercial masons and general contractors. Dollarwise, it takes a lot of basements to make up for one Wal-Mart Superstore – where you're talking 90,000 blocks."

Brothers Carol, David, Alan, Barry and 15ruce Lee are the principal owners of the company their father founded in 1962. Together yet spread apart across the Commonwealth, they have mapped the growth of their enterprise with dedication to quality, innovation, and service.

Like any modern business, Lee sustains its growth through consistent innovation, leading to new applications, products, and markets.

Frankfort General Manager David Lee says, "Our specialty units and colors are the leading innovations that make us stand out."

"Commercially, we're going with a new product called Q-Lite," adds Yessin. "A normal eight-inch lightweight block weighs 37 pounds, and this block takes about 10 pounds out of every block. Those are what we are going to use on the Kentucky History Center."

This UL-approved lighter block is even made in 24-inch block (as opposed to the standard 16-inch), which is still five pounds lighter than the normal heavy block. Company controller Tom Wimp recalls a fortunately humorous incident:

"A mason in Louisville was expecting it to weigh more than it did, and nearly fell off the scaffolding. Then they got to working with it, and didn't want to lay the old block anymore."

Another innovation is called "dry block", with a polymer additive that makes it water-repellent.

"We offer five programs to architects for learning unit credit – it's our technical proficiency and training that make us stand out," adds Wimp, a member of the Masonry Advisory Council, which makes recommendations to the International Building Code.

But the biggest growth area for Lee – one that is garnering national and even international business – is in erosion control, with a family of products sold under the name of ArmorTec.

Developed by a Dutch company nearly 20 years ago, this technology is proving extraordinarily applicable in an ever wider spectrum of uses – and all its forms can be made using Lee's concrete block machinery. The simplest form is ArmorLock: interlocking blocks that are hand-placed to maintain stream banks, shoreline, and breakwaters. This form and the steel cable-woven ArmorFlex mat are popular for dam overtopping as well. Finally, the most unusual form is called A-Jacks: units that look exactly like children's jacks – or a Buckminster Fuller futuristic model – are assembled into a flexible matrix for protection against high velocity flow.

Tom Wimp and the Lee brothers are excited about the prospects.

"About 80 percent of this business is government-related," Wimp says. "Corps of Engineers, Departments of Natural Resources, Fish and Wildlife. On one project in Nebraska, they're building a jetty out of A-Jacks that will dissipate waves, allow habitat to grow, and thus slow down and filter the water with vegetation. Another project in Houston involves the dredging of 20 million square feet of bayou."

Other successful projects have involved boat ramps, marinas, road beds, and even one project in Alaska that has helped preserve the town of Aniak from the onset of the tides.

This offshoot of the masonry business has boosted the company's standing by diversifying its product and customer base, thus solidifying Lee's position for even further growth.

"We had $13 million in overall sales in 1993," explains Wimp. "We're at $50 million now, and we're shooting for $100 million in five years."

By latching on to the high flowing rate of change, Lee's people hope to preserve the markets they've already entered and to lead the industry into uncharted territory, one block at a time.