About Rodeio

The Rodo-Rake has its roots in the hands of the pioneering installation crews who transformed the paver trade in the late 1970s. By the early 1990s, Southeast and Central Florida had become a hotbed of innovation, driven by the Brazilian, Guatemalan and Mexican installation crews who were all prolific. These communities brought their own expertise and competitive spirit to the trade.

They were businessmen who were craftsmen, and they began pushing the boundaries of how installations were done. As production housing boomed, speed became the defining mindset — measured in square footage. How many square feet can I lay today? This week? That drive for efficiency changed everything.

Out of that mindset, the "Rodeio" — or Rotary en Engles— was born. Whether the credit belongs to the Brazilian, Guatemalan, or Mexican crews is a friendly debate best left to them, but one thing is certain: every crew uses it. The Rodo is a lightweight, aluminum, T-shaped screeding tool designed specifically for paver installation. Crews use it to push, pull, spread, flatten, compact, and screed the leveling sand that forms the final layer beneath the pavers. While many crews in the northern states rely on leveling pipes as guides — pulling lumber or straight metal along them like a train on tracks — the Rodeio takes a more fluid approach, often used first as a come-along tool as the installer works the sand dumped by a partner from a wheelbarrow.  Once the aggregate is flattened the installer begins a steady deliberate dragging of the Rodo towards their boots as the walk away from the rake in a continuous movement around and around the surface.  It's an art!  

The Community Behind the Craft

The story of paver installation in Florida is inseparable from the immigrant communities who mastered it. Beginning in the late 1980s, as interlocking concrete pavers emerged as a premium product, labor-intensive installation work attracted tight-knit crews from Brazil, Guatemala, and Mexico. By the 1990s, Brazilian immigrants — concentrated in Broward and Palm Beach counties — had formed powerful word-of-mouth labor networks, training family and friends in a trade that rewards speed, rhythm, and precision. By the 2000s housing boom, Guatemalan and Mexican crews had expanded the workforce further. Today, this specialized trade remains largely driven by first- and second-generation immigrant owner-operators and subcontractors.

The interlocking paver industry in Florida has deep roots in the specialized craftsmanship of immigrant communities. Emerging in the late 1980s and booming through the 1990s and 2000s, tight-knit crews—particularly from Brazil, Guatemala, and Mexico—established a reputation for precision, speed, and mastery of the trade.

— Editorial / Industry Oral History