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| Decked out in Hawaiian garb, Larry and his wife Kathy (left) accept the 2007 Ditchdigger of the Year award from last year’s Ditchdigger of the Year Cheryl Yoder (right) at the NUCA Executive Experience Expo in Kauai, Hawaii, in January. |
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When asked what he was going to do after his contract work was up in Las Vegas during the late 1970s, Larry didn’t quite have an answer. Having worked in Vermont and Nevada, Larry knew his way around a jobsite. So when his contract was up, Jim Gordon, a contact at the phone company, told him that the phone company needed guys who could pick up the small work that fell between the larger company’s cracks.
That’s all it took. Four months later, Larry had a state contractor’s license, with a $10,000 bid limit, two employees, Dick Hart and Phil Gordon, a relationship with Centel Engineers and Dimension Cable Engineers and a drive for success.
“Kaccel started back in May of 1985. In fact our first day of work was on a Tuesday — the day after Memorial Day. There were a total of three of us — Dick, Phil and myself. We had nothing. No company vehicles, no company equipment, no contracts, no business plan,” says Larry. “I personally owned a pickup truck, as did Dick and Phil. We were all compensated for the vehicle use. The work we got was the leftover maintenance work for the telephone company. I didn’t even need a slice of the pie; I was happy just picking up the crumbs. It was work that other, more established contractors didn’t want or have time for. We would do little things like place a pull string inside a conduit or pothole and expose and repair a damaged conduit. We started out renting everything we needed. We would go down to Ahern Rentals [the local rental yard] and pick up whatever we thought would be needed. Usually for the minimum amount of time allowed [4hrs].”
Kaccel Communications’ biggest challenge in those green years was to stay busy. When the beeper on Larry’s hip wasn’t blaring, he would head to Southwest Signs to install a couple of 4 ft by 4 ft signs during the day and referee soccer games in the evening to make ends meet. Another imposing battle was establishing credit. Larry had acquired a Sullair diesel 185-cfm compressor, but that was hardly collateral for a much-needed backhoe loader.
“When I walked into Hertz equipment and told them I was interested in buying a backhoe, the receptionist pointed me to the brochures hanging on the wall. They didn’t take me very seriously. I also remember getting rejected for a credit line at Nedco, a local electrical supplier,” Larry admits. “Then I met with Arnie Linden the sales representative with Cashman Equipment, the local Caterpillar dealer, and he knew exactly what to do. He let me demo a used, two-wheel drive 416 Series backhoe for a couple of days and we were hooked. It was absolutely the best solution at the time and we ended up buying it. It was the start of a great relationship with Cashman Equipment and Caterpillar.”
These were lean times for Larry and his wife and business partner Kathy. When Larry injured his left eye on the job over a year into operations, times became even more trying. Doctors had to rush Larry into emergency surgery to save the eye — due to bleeding complications, he lost eyesight for about five months before recovering. To complicate dire matters, Larry didn’t have worker’s compensation for himself (he did for his company), thinking that he was covered under Kathy’s insurance. He wasn’t.
“I could have gotten the phone company to pay for that because I was working for the phone company when I got hurt,” Larry remembers. “But I got advice from the engineer, who said, ‘we’ll pay this, but you’ll never have another job with us. That’s just advice.’ They were our biggest and best client, so we paid the medical bills. We made payments to the doctors and the hospital and considered it a valuable learning experience. It didn’t slow us down. I remember using the hospital phone by my bedside to keep the guys working. I was the only foreman and supervisor.”
Over the next 20 years, Larry’s and Kathy’s drive and passion allowed Kaccel to grow and mature to the point where they decided to sell the company to Team Fishel — a utility construction and network installation company with 21 offices nationwide. Larry is currently a general manager of Team Fishel of Nevada.
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