VMC

Vulcan Materials Company

A maker of the crushed stone, sand, and gravel that go into roads, bridges, buildings, and airports, based in Birmingham, Alabama. It began in 1909 as the Birmingham Slag Company, turning steel-mill waste into road material, and took its name after a 1956 merger with the Vulcan Detinning Company, named for the Roman god of fire. Birmingham is home to the Vulcan statue, the world's largest cast-iron statue, which from 1946 for about fifty years doubled as a traffic signal, glowing green or red depending on whether the city had seen a traffic fatality that day.