Bruno Dietl of Vulcan Construction & Maintenance, Inc.

Construction Business Owner, November 2010

We are a California-based construction company that works throughout the state. The majority of our work is with utilities: underground work, water pipelines, gas/sewer lines and communications.

With 50 years in the industry, I’ve seen a lot. At the end of 2008, after having made serious cuts to overhead expenses, I was faced with a very difficult decision:  close my business and sell off all assets or continue operations while every staff member made sacrifices.

Keeping in mind the potential hardship for the families of our employees if I closed the business, I choose to continue operating. In order to do so, I ask every employee to forego salary raises and retirement benefits. At the time, I felt that it was worth the risk of possibly losing my investment and hard work of many years. In 2009, we landed a large contract with the city of Fresno and reinstated salary raises and 401(k)s. Our perseverance paid off and now we have been able to secure a multi-year backlog.

It was not easy: I gathered all the staff together and discussed our alternatives. I benefitted from having extremely loyal people who had worked with me for 15 to 20 years. During this time, we wouldn’t buy things that were not necessary.

My advice to someone who wants to excel in this industry is to work hard, watch the cash flow, be honest and take good care of the employees you have.  Anyone can buy the right equipment, but without the right people, we would not have survived. Another advantage that we have is that we always use accurate data to bid. (We build all of our jobs on paper when we bid.) Once we get a job, we establish a budget and monitor it weekly, adjusting as needed.

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