Jim Rogers and Glenn Huey both grew up on farms near State College, Pennsylvania, working hard and learning how to operate all types of farm and construction equipment. They met working as laborers for a construction company in the late ’70s and became fast friends, even helping one another build family homes after they married their wives.
Banking on their work ethic and individual talents, the two friends quickly carved out specialized roles for themselves in the site development company. Huey ran track loader clearing residential sites and digging foundations for new homes while Rogers ran a backhoe loader.
By 1984, they’d become fairly independent, scheduling their own work and dealing with primary contractors on a daily basis. The two began to think about going into business for themselves. Wondering if they could make a go of it, they decided to talk with two general contractors they worked with in the area. “They told us they’d work with us whatever we decided,” Rogers recalls. “In fact, they both told us the main reason they worked with our company was because of Glenn and me. That was a huge boost and made the decision easier.”
And so a deal was struck on a handshake: Huey and Rogers would found their own construction company and continue to do subcontract site work for the two developers. “We didn’t have much,” Rogers says. “But we did have our houses because we’d built them ourselves. And by that time they were worth a lot more than what we had in them.” So Rogers and Huey put up everything they had to start Nittany Mountain Excavating.
Whatever it takes
But could they handle the workload they were taking on? “That was our biggest fear,” Rogers concedes. “We were doing 70 or 80 houses a year for our old boss – but we had 18 or 20 workers out there with us. And suddenly it was just us. Glenn looked at me and said, ‘This is going to mean seven days a week, whatever it takes to make this business a success.’ And that’s what we did.”
They had help, of course. Their wives Kathy and Sandy drove pickup truck loads of supplies to their jobsites. And Huey’s brother would show up after his regular job to run equipment and help out in the evenings. But at the center of it all were Rogers and Huey working 14- and 15-hour days.
The work paid off. In their first year of business, Nittany Mountain did $365,000 worth of work with five employees. In 2003, it grossed more than $1.8 million, and has grown to 14 employees – but it’s still a small company by design. Several Nittany Mountain employees have been with Huey and Rogers for 15 years or longer and their wives now handle all the company’s bookkeeping chores.
