But an unexpected call from a friend led to him running a ready-mix concrete plant at Lake Tahoe to helping build successful hardscape supply businesses to manufacturing and product sales. Through it all he has built a career grounded in relationships, mentorship, and a commitment to leaving the industry stronger than he found it.
An Unexpected Career Pivot
Early in his career, Motarex was managing high-end restaurants in California.
“I was managing restaurants in the wine country, high-end restaurants,” he said. “I wore a suit every day.”
Then a friend asked him to run his father’s ready-mix concrete plant in Lake Tahoe.
“I said, ‘I don’t know anything about it,’” Motarex said. “And he said, ‘You don’t need to know anything about it. You just need to know people.’”
That advice would become a defining theme of his career.
The Power of People Skills
At first glance, restaurant management and the hardscaping industry might seem unrelated. But Motarex quickly realized they shared something fundamental.
“Restaurants and hardscaping—what do they have in common?” he said. “Customers. And interpreting what customers need and want.”
In both industries, he learned that what people say they want isn’t always exactly what they need. Success comes from listening, interpreting, and guiding them toward the best outcome.
That ability to read people, to serve with genuine intent, is what Motarex calls “a servant’s heart.” Basically, how you look at service as an internal value will reflect the value people find in your service to them.
“If you go about your business wanting to serve people and be of value to them, your career will carry itself up,” he said.
Building the Modern Hardscape Supply Experience
As Motarex’s career progressed, he moved on from the ready-mix plant and into the hardscape-focused supply businesses.
In the early 2000s, most supply yards were built with contractors in mind. The assumption was that the customer “wore work boots.”
Motarex saw something different emerging.
Homeowners were increasingly involved in outdoor living design decisions. Designers and homeowners were walking into dusty, industrial supply yards that weren’t designed for them.
“So, we looked at who the real customer is,” Motarex said. “What do they want to see when they show up?”
His answer was to transform supply yards into welcoming, well-organized environments where homeowners and contractors alike could explore materials comfortably.
“We ended up making it very beautiful,” he said.
The result was one of the most successful hardscape-focused supply operations in the country at the time. Over the years, he helped replicate that model across multiple locations, shaping the modern hardscape showroom experience most people know today.
Growing Leaders
Eventually, Motarex transitioned into independent rep work selling panelized stone veneer. He was responsible for about 65 percent of his importing company’s total sales, outpacing a full staff of salespeople who had company trucks, expense accounts, and every structural advantage he lacked.
“They asked if I would come and run their sales team,” Motarex said.
When the Great Recession hit and that company folded, he came to previous customer Basalite Concrete Products looking for a job reference. They offered him a job instead.
He planned to stay three years. That was 14 years ago.
Today, as Sales Manager for Nevada at Basalite, Motarex has largely set aside the individual contributor role in favor of investing in people.
“That’s what I do for a living,” he said. “I develop young, smart, talented, hardworking people.”
Motarex describes the philosophy at Basalite in terms that feel less like corporate strategy and more like a community.
“Everyone here at Basalite Nevada has a “silo” mentality towards collective success: if there’s someone below you, it’s your job to help them get better and good enough to take your job. And if there’s someone above you, then you have to help them in any way you can to get successful enough in their job to get promoted, to make room for you.”
It’s a model he describes as “self-feeding.”
Invest in people, help them grow, give them visibility and if Basalite can’t ultimately provide the right opportunity, celebrate the fact that they leave prepared to succeed elsewhere.
“That will also broaden our influence,” he said, “and it continues to make this a place that people want to stay.”
Gaining Perspective
He believes experienced professionals have a responsibility to invest in the next generation.
“Process is no longer my value,” he said. “My value is what I know and what I’ve seen. And what I can see from my perspective. If I can give that to the younger generations and give them a leg up, that’s the goal.”
He talks often about perspective — how to get it, how to keep it, how to give it to someone who hasn’t yet lived enough to have developed their own.
He often encourages younger professionals to focus less on being the best and more on continuous improvement.
“Everybody wants to be best, but no one’s willing to be better today,” Motarex said. “Better is better than best.”
Being ‘best’ can have an end point. Being better is perpetual.
Advice for Aspiring Hardscapers
For people entering the hardscaping industry today, Motarex emphasizes curiosity and education above all else.
“Ask for education,” he said. “Asking is a huge key. People always wait to be told that they can be educated or it’s something required. Ask for education. Let them know you’re hungry for knowledge.”
That curiosity should extend well beyond your own job description. If you’re on a contractor’s crew, learn how the product is made and how it moves through distribution. If you’re behind a dealer’s counter, understand how installation actually works so you can speak to your customer’s real challenges. If you’re on a production line, figure out why the truck drivers get frustrated waiting to be loaded, and what that delay costs a salesperson down the chain.
“Understand your boss’s challenges. Understand your customer’s challenges,” Motarex said. “If you learn what impacts your process has on the others and what’s important to them, you’re going to have a better perspective.”
This broader perspective makes professionals more valuable and more prepared for new opportunities.
Motarex also wants to remind aspiring or early career hardscapers that hardscaping offers meaningful, long-term careers for people from all backgrounds.
“We have an industry full of very hardworking people,” he said. “Believe that you’re worthy of going as far as you’re comfortable with.”
Leaving the Industry Better Than He Found It
Motarex measures success not by titles or sales numbers, but by the people he has helped along the way.
Using a cycling metaphor he often shares with his team, he describes himself as the rider at the front of the pack, cutting through the wind and charting the course.
“I will pull as hard as I can for the time I have remaining,” he said. “Your job is to stay on and as I pull off the lead, sling shot past, faster than I ever could.”
When he eventually retires, he hopes the professionals he helped develop will surge forward faster and stronger than before.
“If I can gift them that,” he said, “their gift to me is that someday I’ll see someone I helped succeed in some small way.”
He hopes to run into them someday in a grocery store or a park or with their family.
“They’ll say, ‘That’s the guy who helped us get the house’ or ‘He helped me think bigger than I thought I could,’” he said.
For Motarex, that’s the ultimate goal.
