Starting up a company can take a lot of hard work and dedication, something Jordan Graham was used to already with his background as a mixed martial arts fighter.
What started off with only Graham, one other individual and one hydroexcavator two years ago has now turned into five hydroexcavators and 16 employees.
“It was a lot of knocking on doors at the start, but we have contracts now and some handshake agreements,” Graham says. “We have great employees who back us up. It’s a team effort for sure.”
He now has goals to grow his Belleville, Ontario-based company, Graham Utility, in the next few years by offering services to residential customers — something many hydroexcavation companies don’t approach with all the utility and commercial work available.
AN OPPORTUNITY ARISES
Having worked at his parent’s construction company, Unes Poleline Maintenance & Construction, Graham was familiar with hydroexcavators.
“We would always sub in hydrovacs, and I always found them interesting,” Graham says. “When we did sub them in, I would be on site working with them or watching them work.”
Through his work with Unes Poleline Maintenance & Construction, Graham was introduced to Brett Newton, who owned a hydroexcavation company with 13 trucks in Ontario. Graham learned that Newton was looking to become a partner with manufacturer Rival Hydrovac and wanted to off-load his hydroexcavators.
Graham worked out a profit sharing plan with Newton, with Graham managing a hydrovac for Newton out of Belleville, and Newton would take a percentage of what Graham got paid.
Eventually Graham also ended up taking on a second hydroexcavator from Newton. Graham saved up his portion of the pay until he had enough to buy one truck completely. A short time later, he purchased the second.
“Once I had one truck in my name, I was happy,” Graham says. “I knew this was going to be a prosperous business for myself, and I love doing it.”
A GROWING FLEET
The company now has five hydroexcavators — four are Rival Hydrovacs, while the fifth is a Tornado Global Hydrovacs F4 with a 13-cubic-yard debris tank and 2,150-gallon water tank. The Tornado has a 5,400 cfm, 27-inch Hg blower for the bigger jobs.
The Tornado also comes in handy for the jobs where 400-plus feet of remote hose is needed. “That’s hard on any truck, but we can do it on the Tornado,” Graham says. “It’s a monster.”
The Rivals have a 7-cubic-yard debris tank and are capable of holding only 800 gallons of freshwater. The trucks have a Robuschi USA RBDV105 blower capable of 2,800 cfm. The smaller hydroexcavators come in handy when Graham Utility crews are working jobs in urbanized areas, such as Ottawa.
“Every truck has different applications, but with the weight restrictions in Ontario, you can only put about half a load on some of these big tri-axle units,” Graham says. “The Rivals you don’t have to worry about that. You could be full all day and have a quarter tank of water to wash out and not even have to worry.
“I like to diversify the fleet and not have all of your eggs in one basket.”
GOING RESIDENTIAL
Most of the work the company handles is daylighting and clean out of catch basins, but Graham saw a gaping hole in the residential market. “I looked at the residential areas around here and thought about what our hydrovacs could do for these people,” he says. “I kept getting told by other companies that there wasn’t much we could do.”
Then he saw his opportunity — they all had dug wells servicing their homes.
“They have settlement in the bottom of those wells, and they aren’t getting the cleanest water through, or it smells funny, or it’s not coming out fast enough,” Graham says. “It seems to be an ongoing issue with a lot of homes. I knew the vacuum trucks would be a perfect tool to clean those.”
Graham Utility averages about one well clean-out a week now and plans to advertise that service more in the coming year.
“You just look at the market and wonder why nobody has hit this,” Graham says. “I asked about four or five hydrovac companies and they didn’t know. Another company that we work back-and-forth with is now starting to do the same thing in the area they serve.”
FINDING A WAY
Not all of the well clean-out jobs are easy. On the company’s second well job, it found out just how tough they can be.
“The homeowner didn’t know how deep his well was,” Graham recalls. “We get to his property and his has a pond near a bottom of a hill where we think the natural spring is, but then you look up and his house is at the very top of the hill.”
At the top of the hill, the Graham Utility crew of three lifted the cover off the well and discovered that it was 70 feet deep.
“We had our big Tornado unit there and we’re having to go down 70 feet and it has to suck straight up,” Graham says. “Then you have a 26-foot boom reach, so we’re almost at 100 feet of hose into the well.”
The company used a 6-inch hose as the remote hose, having to put ropes on each side of the boom to help lift it because it was heavy when filled with water and debris. “Two guys were on the ropes and the third guy was on the controls,” Graham says.
Even with two guys on the ropes, the boom could still barely lift that much hose.
“We ended up having to hook a rope from the hose to the ball hitch of our pickup truck, put it in four-wheel drive and, without ruining the homeowners groomed lawn, go a little bit at a time to take the pressure off the hose,” Graham says. “It was a stressful job.”
During the job, the remote hose snapped in half and got stuck in the well. Crews were able to remove it and start over. At the end, about 7 feet of settlement was vacuumed out.
“I don’t know if I ever want to see a 70-foot dug well again in my life,” Graham says. “But we got it done and I was happy.”
FOR THE CUSTOMER
That dedication to getting any job done for the customer is what Graham takes pride in with his company. It’s something, he says, that separates Graham Utility from competitors.
“You get a personal feel with us,” Graham says. “We’re a family; we’re a small business driven by a great group of employees who wear our hearts on our sleeves — from office staff all the way to supervisors on site.”
That’s something that Graham doesn’t want to see go away as his company continues to grow: “We’re going to keep that feel and provide a great service for all of our customers.”
Graham hopes to expand into combo units and add sewer flushing in the near future.
“More than doubling the company would be nice and to have us at 20-plus employees,” Graham says. “I love the business in general, and I love seeing clients happy and working with them to accomplish their jobs.”
The Canadian Phenom
Being Canadian almost guarantees that a kid is going to play hockey. Jordan Graham did, but he realized in his teens that he wasn’t going to go anywhere in that sport.
The 23-year-old owner of Graham Utility, based in Belleville, Ontario, wanted something more: “I wanted something where I could be a professional athlete.”
That’s when he discovered mixed martial arts and fell in love with the sport. He had his first fight in 2013 and is now signed with TKO MMA, Canada’s largest promoter. Graham has a 2-1 record and is ranked No. 3 in Canada in the flyweight class.
“It’s grueling and you may not love it in the moment, but it’s so rewarding after you get your hand raised,” Graham says.
The 124-pound Canadian, who goes by the name “The Canadian Phenom” when fighting, says being an MMA fighter has helped him succeed as owner of a company. “Fighting takes an always-focused, never-give-up mentality, just like owning a company,” he says. “If something needs to be done, we like to get it done and as good as our clients want it and need it.”
It takes a time commitment to operate the company and be a professional fighter — appearing in fights throughout Canada and the U.S., including New York and Las Vegas. Graham has also traveled to Italy, Thailand, Malaysia and Panama for fights.
“It’s tough, but I’ve been doing it a couple years now,” Graham says. “You have to delegate. If I’m in Ottawa working, there’s great gyms up there I’ll train at. If I’m in Toronto or that area for work, then I’ll be up there training.”
Graham also trusts his 16 employees at the hydroexcavation company to help when he is out of town for fights: “They’re very supportive of this, and they’re not guys you have to babysit.”
In March, Graham thanked his employees by bringing them along with him to a fight.
“We pretty much shut everything down, and we worked out subs for all of our clients that needed a truck and let them know our plan,” Graham says. “Almost every crew came, and it was a lot of fun. That’s the family atmosphere that we have here.”
Graham isn’t ready to slow down yet, he has goals to move into the UFC within the next two years: “I’m a pretty go-, go-, go-type of person,” he says. “I’m never sitting around. I’m always doing something.”
