Matt Bennett, founder and owner of Matt's Underground in Kalkaska, Michigan, began his construction career as a mechanic at a pipeline company.
He’d planned on and had begun training to be a mechanic while in high school and had worked as a teenager servicing trucks for sanitation and school bus companies. But it was through this job working on trucks and equipment at the pipeline company that he learned the skills for his future construction career.
“I went to work there as a mechanic and learned how to fuse pipe, run a side boom, learn how to excavate, run equipment, drive a truck,” he says. “That being said, I didn't see it coming. I didn't know that pipelines or pipe installation was going to be in my future. It was just something I knew how to do.”
In the video above, Matt tells how pipe fusion became the core of Matt’s Underground. The company offers fusion for high-density polyethylene irrigation pipe from half-inch diameter all the way up to 72 inches.
Bennett and Project Manager Isaac Belongia’s connection to pipe fusion goes back 20 years to their early days in construction together, doing excavation work out of a pickup truck. After one customer asked if they’d also do small pipe fusion, Bennet paid a few hundred dollars for a small machine, cleaned it in his garage and paired it with a generator he dug out of a junk pile. Bennett says that first machine, which can only fuse 1- to 4-inch pipe, is still a functioning part of their fleet.
Their fusion machine fleet is approaching 160 units, and Bennett says they’re one of the largest pipe fusion contractors in the Midwest. Their largest fusion machine is a McElroy T900, capable of fusing pipe up to 36 inches and one of just a handful in the state of Michigan.
Key pipe fusion customers include industrial processing facilities, oil refineries, power plants and chemical plants. The scope of the irrigation systems varies, with some made to be used for just six months and others for several years.
The strength of their reputation in the pipe fusion world has Bennett working jobs across the U.S., as far as Corpus Christi, Texas.
For that reason and more, Matt's Underground was a finalist for Equipment World’s 2024 Contractor of the Year.
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