by Bob Francis, Fort Worth Report
March 1, 2026
In January, Fort Worth-based Paragon Sports Constructors turned a 100% employee-owned firm.
Originally based over 4 many years in the past as a household enterprise doing asphalt tracks, the firm expanded as the sports activities business advanced to incorporate putting in polyurethane rubberized working observe surfaces and turf merchandise.
Now, Paragon Sports Constructors is a turnkey athletic facility contractor with almost 200 staff and in-house companies together with design-build contracting, stadium building, artificial turf set up, pure grass athletic fields, working observe surfacing, constructing ball courts and turf upkeep.
The firm was privately owned for 16 years till the current shift to an Employee Stock Ownership Plan. Paragon has posted year-over-year progress almost yearly since 2010.
“Over the years, while clients were buying the PSC brand and services, they were really buying into our people and our culture,” president William Chaffe stated in a press release. “As we plan for the future of Paragon, we couldn’t think of any better way to protect what we have built, while also ensuring long-term stability and independence, other than giving beneficial ownership in the company to those who have built it.”
If you’ve attended sporting occasions in the space or seen an area group’s broadcast, you’ve likely seen Paragon’s work. The firm shoppers embrace Fort Worth Country Day School, Aledo ISD, Mansfield ISD, a number of native parks and recreation departments in addition to skilled groups, together with FC Dallas and the Texas Rangers.
5001 Saunders Road
Fort Worth 76119
Business editor Bob Francis spoke with Katie Markovich, vp of promoting for the firm.
Bob Francis: How did the enterprise start?
Katie Markovich: We have been initially based as a family-owned asphalt paving enterprise for working tracks. That advanced over time as the sports activities business advanced.
We now have a pure grass fields division that builds and maintains such fields. We additionally do courts and upkeep, after which handle different small facility upgrades, like pre-engineered press containers and bleachers and dugouts and issues like that. We can deal with the scoreboard, the lighting. We’re venturing into the lined pavilion work now that’s turning into in style throughout Texas. So we’re actually a turnkey contractor of every thing for out of doors athletic services.
Francis: Where has your progress come from?
Markovich: It’s actually a mess of issues. First and foremost is simply placing down good work and offering knowledgeable expertise for our shoppers, with the feeling that they’re being handled with integrity and that they can belief us. We have a lot of repeat and referral shoppers, so placing down good work that will get extra work at the finish of the day. That’s been No. 1 for us.
There’s additionally been modifications in the business over the years, numerous consolidations of opponents and issues like that. That has led to shoppers in search of out people who find themselves extra steady in their enterprise and have a extra long-term mindset.
Obviously, right here in Texas, we do have a rising inhabitants. And we do have an affinity for sports activities right here — whether or not it’s cities and their rec leagues and parks departments, skilled sports activities golf equipment or personal sports activities golf equipment. There’s no scarcity of curiosity in having athletic services right here in Texas.
Francis: Do you manufacture any of your surfaces or do you companion with producers?
Markovich: We don’t manufacture. We wish to say we concentrate on what we do finest and companion with those that concentrate on what they do finest. Manufacturing merchandise for athletic facility surfacing for turf and working observe supplies could be very difficult and must be finished in a sure solution to preserve long-term high quality.
Our main surfacing companions are Shaw Sports Turf. Shaw is a division of Shaw Industries — flooring — which is a Berkshire Hathaway firm. If you attempt to think about what huge American manufacturing appears like, that’s what Shaw’s services are. They’re actually spectacular, and they have a whole lot of science behind every thing they do and make investments in high quality. They produce an important product for us.
With working tracks, we do white label our working observe surfaces as a Paragon Track Surfaces model, however we use solely supplies manufactured by an organization known as Conica. They’re a Swiss-based firm that specializes in polyurethane manufacturing.
Francis: Do you suppose Paragon will really feel any impression of the World Cup?
Markovich: We are already seeing a few of it. Our pure grass division is constructing and putting in the new pure grass area at the Mansfield stadium. Our pure grass group has a relationship with the Cotton Bowl. They’ve finished some work there just lately. I don’t know the way a lot they’ll be doing over the coming months. We do have a relationship with FC Dallas, and so I imagine we’ll be doing a little work there.
Francis: Any actually distinctive or uncommon installations Paragon has finished?
Markovich: What involves thoughts is definitely a development in working tracks over the final couple of years to do coloured alternate zones. For the longest time, you simply put down the traditional. In our ever-changing world, everybody needs to point out off their model and the delight of their group or their group. Running tracks do create alternatives for coloring. You can in all probability see a lot of services on our web site which have had that. I feel Lorena ISD did one. We’ve finished them at a lot of faculty districts, giant and small. It simply actually makes a novel pop to it, and in order that’s been enjoyable to form of grasp that over the previous few years and supply that possibility for our shoppers.
I’d say one in all the extra distinctive issues that we do is our turf companion, Shaw, has a novel expertise known as Game On that gives customized graphics, fewer seams, quicker installs and a safer, high-performance area. It signifies that once we roll out your area, the hash marks, the logos, the numbers are already in place. When you don’t have to chop in each single 350-something hash marks, that’s an enormous headache discount for the consumer long run. On the flip facet, what this expertise additionally permits is for extra designs in fields, and so that you’ll see on a whole lot of our baseball softball fields, as a result of these shoppers have a tendency to love it.
Now that that’s been in the marketplace for a few years now, and persons are catching on to it, they’re getting extra artistic with designs. If you watch Big 12 sports activities, KU changed the turf at their soccer stadium, and they have that wheat sample in their finish zone. All of that’s Shaw’s Game On. It’s enjoyable to see these sorts of issues.
Francis: How did the firm resolve to turn into 100% employee-owned?
Markovich: William Chaffe has been our president for the final 16 years, and he’s very extremely revered throughout the business and right here at our firm. Thinking about the way forward for the firm, we’ve built this good thing. So how will we guarantee it retains going for the long run?
We’ve seen a whole lot of consolidation or personal fairness step into our business over the final a number of years, whether or not it’s producers shopping for up regional contractors, or personal fairness stepping in. What in the end occurs with personal fairness is you are likely to lose somewhat little bit of your native focus. We wished to actually protect our tradition. We wished to protect and shield our folks for the long run. We have very low turnover right here. We have a extremely excessive quantity in the area and in the workplace of staff who’ve been right here for 10-plus years. So we checked out how to make sure that the individuals who built this model have a means of carrying it on.
That’s what it was rooted in. It was the proper factor to do by our folks for the long run.
It’s an actual sense of possession as we go about our work and our every day lives and saying, “Now I’m making the proper determination for all of us long run. And I simply suppose it is an unbelievable motivator for everybody.
Francis: I’ve to ask about pickleball courts. How’s that enterprise going?
Markovich: We form of stepped into the courtroom world round 2017. We had at all times form of stayed out of it. It was a really low bid and we form of stated we’re gonna stick to fields and tracks for a very long time. But we had a whole lot of shoppers who had constructive experiences with us via doing their area and observe work, and they simply requested us to handle their tennis courtroom work. We simply form of tiptoed into it by request. We didn’t promote it for a very long time, and it form of simply took off like wildfire.
We have a full on courts division now the place we set up and preserve and renovate tennis and pickleball courts. Pickleball courts are actually tennis courts painted in another way. At the finish of the day, the tools’s the identical, the supplies are the identical. And we’ve finished a lot of pickleball courts for municipalities and even some personal shoppers. We’ve finished some residences right here and there. Schools aren’t placing in pickleball. We do faculty tennis courts and issues like that.
Francis: The demographic appears somewhat bit older, I feel.
Markovich: It positively is. But we’ve had a rising pickleball participation group right here. Our president performs pickleball. He used to play tennis. Now he performs pickleball. We’ve received a handful of individuals at our firm who’ve taken to the sport, and we’ve even finished some firm outings with pickleball. The good thing is everybody can wade into it. It’s nice group constructing.
Bob Francis is enterprise editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at [email protected].
At the Fort Worth Report, information selections are made independently of our board members and monetary supporters. Read extra about our editorial independence coverage here.
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