Sam Harb’s story – and that of the founding of Sam the Paving Man – is one of determination, hard work and vision.
“I came from a very poor family of 11 children back in Lebanon,” he explains. “I left school when I was around eight or nine years old and went to work selling packets of Chicklets chewing gum to tourists on the streets of Beirut, or collecting bottles – doing whatever work I could find so that I could bring 2.50 lira home to my mother. My father struggled to earn enough to feed all of us.”
“My father was an honourable and kind man who worked very hard, but life did not give him many opportunities – plus, you must remember, there was a war going on. He sold fruit and vegetables from a barrow, moving from house to house, and we would help him push it. We lived in our own little bubble and didn’t understand how the world worked. My parents lived from day to day and were too busy trying to make ends meet to look after us. Their focus was simply on how we would survive each day.”
At the age of 18, Sam had the opportunity to leave Lebanon for Australia, where he joined his sister, who had recently married and migrated, and began creating a new life for himself. He started work just two days after arriving, as a council gang labourer at Strathfield Council, where he learned concreting and levelling. He worked hard to repay his sister for his airfare and then began saving for a deposit on a home.
Eventually, he put down a $3000 deposit on his first house, which he eventually renovated with the help of his new wife, Annette.“It was actually Annette who introduced me to paving,” Sam recalls. “She suggested that we pave the backyard, and I said, ‘What’s paving?’ She explained it to me, and I thought, ‘What a funny idea – how could pavers stick to sand?’”
The early years
Throughout those early years, Sam continued working as a labourer and doing concreting work.
“One day, my boss didn’t have a job for me, so he sent me over to work with his paving team,” Sam recalls. “I saw the boys laying pavers and I said, ‘Oh my God.’ It was the best thing I had ever seen. I instantly understood it and wanted to work out the best way to do it. How could we speed up the process? How could we do it better? Within a couple of weeks, I had mastered it.” It wasn’t only paving that Sam found a love for. He discovered that he was a natural leader, with a passion for running his own business and being his own boss.
With nothing but a strong work ethic and a dream, Sam and Annette launched a small, home-based paving business in 1985. They hand-delivered flyers, knocked on doors and managed every project themselves.
“The first job we won was a $600 job,” says Sam. “We were so happy that we danced. I knew I needed something more than my car, so I went and bought a second-hand van. That was my first workhorse. Bit by bit, the jobs came in, and we grew and grew.”
Through their hard work, they quickly became known for paving, and Sam earned the nickname “Sam the Paving Man”. It was a name that Sam and Annette embraced and one that became synonymous with quality and reliability.
Sydney Olympic Park
As the business grew, Sam and his team undertook increasingly large projects, culminating in the paving of Sydney Olympic Park – one of Australia’s most iconic urban projects.
The Olympic project involved Sam’s team installing more than 20 million pavers across 200,000 square metres. Its scale and complexity solidified the company’s reputation as the go-to paving expert for large-scale, high-pressure projects.“That was the biggest paving job that had been done in Australia at the time,” says Sam. “We were very proud. We secured that job after they asked me to complete the display area. While I was doing the display, I proved that we could do the job.”
“I tendered for the first section of paving next to the Olympic Stadium, and then the second section, and it went from there.”
“For me, it was all about building a solid reputation. A lot of people will tell you it’s about money, but it wasn’t the money—it was the reputation that motivated me. That was what I was fighting for: to be involved in an iconic project.”
The Olympic project became the impetus for growing the business even further. When the project was completed, Sam had built a large, strong paving team and wanted to keep everyone employed. The solution was to tender for—and win—more major infrastructure projects.
“The Olympics took the business to a much higher level,” he explains. “But at the same time, I was thinking, ‘What am I going to do with all my team? When we finish the job, where am I going to take them?’ So I started searching for other large projects, and our reputation helped us to secure them.”
Sam’s memories of the cobblestone-lined streets of Beirut came into play. He decided to bring similar products to Sydney and began researching and developing a new market for his vision. His teams developed new laying methods, and many of the larger builders were keen to use a product that was not generally available at the time. Each successful project opened significant new opportunities for Sam and his team.
Since then, the company has completed work on many iconic projects, including the Sydney Opera House, Pitt Street Mall, Darling Harbour, Darling Square, and the Sydney and Parramatta light rail projects. More recent projects include Western Sydney International Airport, the Powerhouse Parramatta and the Sydney Harbour Bridge Cycleway.
Growing the business further
In 2009, Sam expanded the business further with the purchase of the prestigious Austral Black granite quarry in South Australia. Stone from the quarry is renowned for its rich history and superior quality and is the material of choice for government and other high-profile projects across Australia.
This was followed by the acquisition of an Australian stone-processing facility in Adelaide, enabling the company to produce 100 per cent Australian natural stone across a full range of products – from pavers, tiles and kerbs to bespoke items such as stone bollards, seating and intricate pavement patterns.
“It has always been my ambition to promote Australian products instead of buying imported stone,” explains Sam. “You have to look after your own backyard. Honestly, I felt it was my duty because I was in a position where I could do it. We are the resellers, but we are also the ones who use the stone.”
Sam is determined to help keep the Australian stone industry alive. He has a passion for promoting Australian stone and believes it is the best way to ensure the industry retains its skills and secures a strong pipeline of work for the future.
“Australia has given me everything, and it’s time for me to give back,” he says. “It’s about legacy, and it’s my duty to help create our own history. People travel to Europe to see the history in its cobblestone streets and architecture, and I want us to create the same history for Australia.”
Futureproofing is important to Sam and the Harb family as the business continues to grow and expand into new areas. Many team members have been with the business for more than 30 years, and all members of the Harb family now work in the business, including Annette, daughter Rebecca, and sons Alex and Robbie.
“We’re very proud of what we have achieved,” says Sam simply.