The Rabine name from the early 1960s through the late 1970s was “Gary Rabine and Sons.” A sole proprietor, Gary L. Rabine focused on residential services in Northern Illinois. Gary L. Rabine was the only full-time employee and his work force consisted of his four daughters, two sons and a couple of part-time employees. His services included light grading, excavating, tree removal, sand, gravel and topsoil delivery.
Gary T. Rabine enjoyed laboring with his dad and running small equipment. His specialty became grading yards and driveways. In 1976, Gary was hired for $5/hour to work for a family friend’s paving company. Over the next four years Gary realized his passion was paving.
Upon graduating from high school, Gary focused his efforts on paving services while also working for his father's business. From 1981-1991, paving services grew to over 90% of the small company that had then become a partnership between Gary and his father. By the end of 1993, the small paving company had reached almost $2 million in sales. In May of 1994, Gary bought his father’s share and aggressively doubled the geographic service area, tripled gross revenues and grew the team to 40 people by the year 2000.
From 2001 to 2005, major expansion continued with the addition of two hot mix plants, the acquisition of three companies and the start-up of several new locations all within what became the Rabine Group. This resulted in over 500% growth to over 33 million in total sales and a growing work force of over 250 people.
In 2006 and 2007, the Rabine Group continued to blossom despite challenging economic conditions. Rabine Paving America, our national paving company and UltraLot, our regional and national concrete paving company, were started with great success. In 2008, the acquisition of Palatine Oil Company, a company that provides fuel and oil to Northern Illinois' largest fleets and bio fuels throughout the country took place. The Rabine Group companies' growth over the last three years has resulted in our team’s expansion to over 350 people with annual total revenues of over 190 million dollars.
Gary is now the CEO of the Rabine Group and Mike Johnson has been promoted to President. Since 2004, Mike’s leadership has played an integral role in the growth and success of our companies. The Rabine Group continues to seek out talented, passionate individuals who enjoy the challenge of our progressive industry. Gary truly believes ”Growth for the sake of growth is not our objective; it is to provide cutting edge service and the technology to our customers and constant opportunity for our company’s future leaders. That is our objective.”
Our goal is to continually develop and acquire talented, passionate people ensuring our ability to exceed industry standards and customer expectations. We strive to fulfill this mission on a daily basis by doing things the Rabine way…
We will maintain the highest degree of customer service to ensure complete satisfaction leading to long-term relationships.
We build on technology, always with an eye on the future. Implementing this technology provides our customers with results that last.
We’re excited about the future. We will continue to strive to be the best…not the biggest. We appreciate the customer loyalties we’ve developed over the years and we look forward to the opportunity of performing for you.