From the cab of a dozer to the C-suite, Ben May’s story is a study in momentum, grit, and stewardship. Over a 36-plus-year career in mining, aggregates, and construction, he has led turnarounds, scaled multi-site operations, and shaped safety cultures that protect people while unlocking performance. Today, as Executive Senior Vice President of Impact Companies in Las Vegas—and slated to assume the COO role—he brings a craftsman’s eye for detail and an operator’s instinct for throughput to every decision he makes.
Ben’s earliest lessons were learned in quarries and on job sites, where he absorbed the cadence of production and the primacy of safety. Those formative years built not just technical fluency with heavy equipment and fixed plants, but a leadership style grounded in visibility, accountability, and respect for the people who keep the belts turning. He often says that anyone has the right to “stop process” when something doesn’t look safe—an ethos he has institutionalized across teams and locations.
At Impact Companies, Ben oversees safety, mining, trucking, maintenance, quality, environmental compliance, sales, and P&L for multiple operations in the Las Vegas market. He has led strategic planning processes that materially improved performance—driving a 40% increase in production efficiency and a 25% reduction in costs through lean initiatives and disciplined execution. He partners closely with finance on budgets and capital planning, scrutinizing capex to ensure every dollar invested returns reliability, capability, or both. In a cyclical industry where headwinds can be real, he leads through clarity, communication, and hands-on problem solving.
Before Impact, Ben was recruited to Arcosa to manage a portfolio of seven high-volume sites on the west side of Phoenix producing roughly 12 million tons per year. There, he owned budgets and capex, coached 70+ employees, and worked alongside safety leadership to reset expectations and behaviors. His remit extended to acquisition diligence and integration, where his on-the-ground operator’s lens created practical synergy plans rather than theoretical spreadsheets.
As Plant Manager with Kilgore Companies in southern Nevada, Ben was responsible for the day-to-day health of a non-union sand and gravel operation. He improved mobile equipment uptime from 64% to 97% and lifted fixed-plant uptime from 18% to 89% by building the right maintenance team, redesigning routines, and attacking chronic failures. The site regained outside customers who had drifted away years earlier and, crucially, produced sufficient quality sand to supply the company’s concrete division—reducing dependence on competitors and improving internal margins.
Ben’s tenure with Heidelberg Materials (Lehigh Hanson) in New York further sharpened his ability to run large, complex operations with union workforces. As Interim Plant Manager at a two-million-ton-per-year limestone quarry, he was accountable for mine planning, drilling and blasting, mobile and fixed maintenance, compliance, and quality. He lifted fixed-plant uptime from 83% to 96% and readied the site to host a concrete facility with a seven-figure revenue impact—evidence of his end-to-end understanding of value chains from pit to product.
Going back further, Ben honed his leadership in roles at Lafarge and Calx Resources, where he supervised sizeable teams and implemented safety turnarounds after challenging years. At Lafarge, he worked with maintenance and fleet managers to move fractionated and fixed-plant performance from 40% to 87% uptime and mobile uptime from 64% to 98%. He improved quality control by aligning crusher settings, feeder rates, and screen media maintenance—practical changes that translated directly into consistent spec product and lower rework.
Entrepreneurship is woven through Ben’s career. As CEO of Ben May Construction and later Quality Renovations Construction, he owned P&L for businesses generating up to $7 million annually, managed 60+ employees, and instituted preventive maintenance programs that kept equipment uptime at 98%. He reduced overtime to sustainable levels, embedded behavior-based safety that delivered consecutive years without a lost-time accident, and became known for finding cost-saving design improvements—on average lowering total build costs by more than twenty percent.
What distinguishes Ben is a rare bilingual fluency: he speaks the language of the plant and the language of the boardroom. He can climb a catwalk to inspect a chute plug, sit down to recalibrate a budget variance, and then articulate a capital strategy that balances reliability, growth, and return on invested capital. He is as comfortable mentoring a new loader operator as he is defending an ROI on a secondary crusher to a private-equity sponsor. That range has made him a go-to leader for companies looking to professionalize, scale, or integrate acquisitions without losing operational discipline.
Safety and environmental stewardship are non-negotiables in Ben’s playbook. MSHA Part 46 and 48 certified, he treats safety as a system, not a meeting. From revising haul-road geometry to water-road protocols and dust suppression, from LOTO enforcement to predictive maintenance and critical control checks, he builds cultures where people understand why procedures exist and feel empowered to act. He has addressed city councils, state departments, and community groups, advocating for responsible operations that deliver jobs, materials, and infrastructure while respecting neighbors and the environment.
Ben’s perspective is also shaped by service. An eight-year Army veteran, he served as a Military Police officer with training in law enforcement, counter-terrorism, navigation, and combat first aid. The Army forged in him a calm under pressure, a bias for preparation, and a team-first mentality that shows up in the way he plans blasts, stages maintenance, or orchestrates a time-sensitive delivery schedule. His teams know where they’re going, why it matters, and how their roles knit together.
Internationally, Ben has exposure to operations and partnerships in South America and Iran, giving him global context on cost structures, logistics, and regulatory environments. Closer to home, he is an avid outdoorsman who hunts and fishes—time that keeps him grounded, sharpens his attention to conditions, and reminds him that all operations are ultimately accountable to the land. He credits mentors, peers, and hourly teammates for his own growth and views leadership as a privilege to help others advance.
As he steps into broader enterprise leadership, Ben is increasingly sought after for advisory and board roles. Companies approach him weekly to pressure-test business models, design operating playbooks, or troubleshoot chronic bottlenecks. He sees board service as a natural extension of his personal mission: “impacting people—employees, customers, and communities—every time we meet them.” He aims to help asset-heavy businesses build resilient systems that are safe, efficient, and profitable, and to develop the next generation of operators who will run them.
In every chapter, the through-line is impact—on people, on performance, and on places. Ben elevates organizations by pairing disciplined operations with human-centered leadership, proving again and again that safety and production are not trade-offs but twin outcomes of good systems and engaged teams. That is the standard he sets and the legacy he continues to build.
Character:
Ben leads with steadiness, humility, and a visible commitment to safety, creating environments where people feel respected and protected. He honors his word and owns outcomes, celebrating wins publicly and taking responsibility when course corrections are needed. His service background informs a calm, mission-first ethic that keeps teams aligned under pressure.
Knowledge:
He combines deep technical expertise in mining, aggregates, and fixed-plant reliability with a robust command of budgeting, P&L management, and capital planning. Years of hands-on experience with heavy equipment, crushing circuits, and quality control give him instinctive diagnostic speed. He translates that knowledge into practical standards, repeatable routines, and measurable improvements.
Strategic:
Ben links daily production to enterprise value, ensuring operating plans, maintenance strategies, and capex all compound into sustainable advantage. He is adept at integration and scale, aligning people, processes, and assets after acquisitions or during expansion. His strategies are grounded in reality—time, talent, and tonnage—so they get adopted and endure.
Communication:
Ben is clear, direct, and respectful, tailoring his style to the audience—from shop floor tailgates to board presentations. He uses data to tell stories that make decisions easier and trade-offs explicit. He also listens closely, drawing out expertise from frontline teams and turning their insights into action.
