Snyder, Tripp start Aurora-based Quality Underground LLC
Two young entrepreneurs who launched an excavating business last year in Aurora are reporting early success, touting themselves as “fiber cowboys” ready to work hard and go anywhere opportunity leads them.
Aurora native Jared Snyder and Noah Tripp met each other two years ago as pipeliners on a natural gas project in Nebraska, where Jared was working as a welder and Noah as a heavy equipment operator. They struck up a friendship and one day on a rain break started talking about the concept of venturing out on their own.
“We just happened to be staying in the same RV park, sitting around on a rainout day and Jared said, ‘Why are we doing this?’” Tripp recalled. “I made a joke and said it’s raining outside and the beer is cold, but he meant why are we working for somebody else when we could start our own company.”
From there, the wheels started turning, with the focus eventually narrowing to the exploding field of fiber optics.
“Jared was pitching ideas about starting this fiber optics company and we just kind of concocted a plan and went from there. That was August or September of last year and by late October it really started to materialize.”
The new partners formed Quality Underground LLC in November, completing their first job that same month.
“We did a project up in Central City, a little subdivision near Valley View (Golf Course),” Tripp explained. “They want (fiber) service up there in the event that the development takes off, so that was kind of our breakout job. It was freezing cold, but we did it.”
Quality Underground LLC offers a variety of general excavating services, though the owners decided to try and specialize in fiber optic installation.
“We plow in, directional drill, and excavate fiber optic lines, but we’re not exclusive to that,” Tripp said. “We can do gas, water and power lines, and we can also dig holes, trenches, ditches, whatever. Anything underground, we can typically do it.”
A 2017 Aurora graduate, Snyder said he is familiar with Hamilton Telecommunications’ mission to install fiber optics infrastructure throughout its trade territory.
“We knew Hamilton was doing a bunch of fiber work, so that’s where we got the idea to try Hamilton first,” he shared.
“There is a fiber boom going on right now,” Tripp added. “You can drive anywhere and see fiber trucks rolling around with conduit reels and cable reels. Jared was convinced that fiber is huge and that we need to invest in it, so when you talk scope of services, fiber is kind of our cash cow now. It’s where we bring in the bread, but I wouldn’t say we are exclusive to it. We are doing it because it’s what is going on right now, but truthfully we can drill in about anything and trench about anything. We are not opposed to doing about any type of underground utility work.”
Having launched the LLC in November, the new partners found early success, prompting the need to hire four full-time employees, including Caleb Trumbull, Tommy Leininger Jr., Juan Galvan and Gage Leviner. And, like many local companies, they are looking to hire additional staff as well.
“We’ll go anywhere,” Snyder said when asked about the business footprint. “We were on the east coast this winter in South Carolina. We took three campers and a 40-foot gooseneck trailer down there. We’ll go anywhere in the US.”
“We’re fiber cowboys and we’re chasing the work,” Tripp declared.
Both Snyder and Tripp smiled in reference to the “fiber cowboy” description, agreeing that the term accurately describes their personalities and shared mission.
“I don’t think there is a limit to what we are going to want to achieve,” Tripp said. “We are never going to set a bar. We’re just going to wake up every day and try to be better than we were the day before and, God willing, take that wherever it lands us. And we just so appreciate Hamilton’s business. We’re a small-town, community business and they gave us an opportunity to start this business and that’s kind of how we got our feet wet.”
As far as the scope and size of Quality Underground, everything gets bigger with the size of the job, Tripp noted.
“The bigger the job, the bigger the equipment, the more manpower you need, so we’re always looking to hire,” he said, noting that company has no need for a storefront location, so it storing equipment at a nearby rented acreage.
Different perspective
Exactly one year after first brainstorming about the concept of starting their own business, Snyder and Tripp were asked how it feels to now be their own bosses.
“I found my motivation to get up and go every day,” Snyder replied. “The days aren’t long enough. I don’t even look at the clock anymore as the days just whiz by. Most of the time we don’t even take a lunch.”
Tripp was more specific about his changing role and perspective.
“For me, it’s a night and day difference,” said the 2013 Gothenburg graduate. “There is a lot more responsibility, a lot more stress, but with that comes just excitement for opportunity. I think you have to take risks to further yourself. If you stay in the same place, you’re never going to grow, you’re never going to expand, you’re never going to bloom. So for me, I was nervous about that, but Jared was actually the one who kind of prodded me and said, ‘Let’s do this.’”
Still very early in their experience as business owners, Tripp and Snyder said they already have a sense of appreciation for the strong business culture they live and work in here in Hamilton County.
“There is always someone you can lean on if you need help with this or that,” Tripp said. “I can’t tell you how much, I’ll just be blunt about it, we’ve saved money because of the connections Jared has in this community. Having that network of people around you can make life easier on you, whether it’s financial or structurally, having access to whatever it might be — tools, equipment, accounts, whatever. And then, especially, having work availability right here is huge. Fiber is definitely our cash cow right now.
“We’re all about local business and we’re all about the small town,” Tripp concluded. “We both grew up being from small communities and we’re advocates of the small-town community, whether that be networking or just getting to know each other. We’re glad to be here.”
Snyder is the son of Brad and Tara Snyder of Aurora.