April 2009: Cover Story

Portrait of a President

“Every contractor can make a difference. In my opinion, every contractor that owes his or her living to this industry has an unwritten obligation to contribute in some manner. Make a difference by speaking up — opinions do count.”

— Lyle Schellenberg, 2009 NUCA President

Frozen in time — whether captured by celluloid or a digital string of zeros and ones — photographs capture a moment. Occasionally, we pull the photo album off the shelf and leaf through the yellowed pages that hold the images of the past to get perspective on our futures. The NUCA Presidency is one of those times when a dash of self-reflection can go a long way before Congressional meetings and association leadership. Over the next five pages, Utility Contractor will take a look at where the 2009 NUCA President Lyle Schellenberg has been and talk to Lyle about where he’ll be taking NUCA in the next year.

Little Lyle might not have known what life had in store for him, but from his innocent smile, it was clear that he’d enjoy it. Lyle’s father, Art, was the local plumber in a small town, located on the prairies of Manitoba, Canada. Trenches and pipes ran in his family, as his father had a loader backhoe he used to install sewer, water and septic fields.

Unfortunately, Art’s business went under after he took on a large project in which the financing for the project collapsed. Lyle’s father lost everything. In the spring of 1972, Lyle dropped out of school and joined his father in moving out to central British Columbia to start over.

Lyle and his father first started a plumbing company together and then leased a backhoe to install water mains for a local developer. The business failure back in Manitoba damaged Art’s credit, so Lyle purchased a Case backhoe after a finance company rejected Art’s credit due to his bankruptcy. He found his credit unblemished. “I was 17 years old. I assume that since I was in business for myself nobody questioned my age,” Lyle says.

The developer that Lyle and Art installed waterlines for also needed to install water services under the 22-ft asphalt roadways and he did not want to open cut the new pavement. The two Schellenbergs figured out how to punch water services boring holes and soon the developer was asking them to do the same for larger water lines.

“Before long the word got out that we could do this type of work and others started to call. The next thing I knew I was in the boring business,” says Lyle. “We tried to operate both the plumbing business and the boring business, but I had no love or desire to be a plumber. Boring holes under roads was more challenging and more fun.”

The business grew and in 1976, Lyle and Art opened Pacific Underground Installations Ltd. in Langley, just outside Vancouver, British Columbia. In this new location business flourished and capabilities increased. Primarily, they provided large diameter auger bores for water and sewer. However, Pacific Underground Installations Ltd. also provided directional drilling services on public projects for a few select private customers.

The economy in Canada started to slow in 1982 and expansion was on Pacific Underground’s mind. While driving to California, Lyle and Art were surprised to see a Seattle-based boring contractor working in Salem, Ore. A quick research of the yellow pages revealed the need for more boring contractors in Oregon. In May 1983, Lyle and his father formed Armadillo Underground Inc.

“The original plan was to hire a local manager to operate this division,” says Lyle.

“Unfortunately, the manager selected did not have the experience in boring and the company soon began to fail. It was clear that we could not operate from Canada with just a local manager. It was decided that I would move to Oregon to assist with company.”

Eventually, with Lyle’s leadership, the company started to pull back from the brink. From 1983 through 1990 Armadillo operated in both British Columbia and Oregon. Lyle often would get up early in the morning, drive the 330 miles to Canada and then drive back over those 330 miles in the late afternoon to Oregon.

“Needless to say, I spent a considerable amount of time on I-5,” Lyle continues. “In 1987, we also established a location in Edmonton, Alberta, which was 700 miles from our Langley location and over 1,000 miles from Salem.”

Once again, Lyle found his time stretched thin and after a year the Edmonton location was closed. In 1990, Lyle and Art sold the Canadian operation; Lyle purchased the rest of the family out of Armadillo Underground. This allowed his father to retire from the business. Lyle’s dreams of operating a large company with many locations began to shift toward creating a well-managed operation that focused more on profits than volume.

In the 1980s and early 1990s Armadillo focused on cased bores for the telecommunication industry. In the mid-1990s, it became involved in directional drilling.

At first, Armadillo was very successful, as it was doing road crossings and competing against the auger bore price structure. As the communication boom exploded, Armadillo increased its directional drilling capabilities and at its peak had six directional drills. This was before the telecommunications industry went bust in 2002-2003, Lyle recounts.

“Our largest period of growth was from 1995 through 2002, due to the telecommunication boom,” says Lyle. “We preferred river crossings and drilling in downtown Portland. These projects required more planning and allowed us to utilize our skills such as pre-planning directional crossings using CAD. In some cases a two-block section of road would have over 20 different operators of underground facilities. Often, we would spend more time potholing and surveying the location of the existing utilities than we spent actually drilling.”

In June of 2002, Lyle sold Armadillo to a group of Portland-area investors and agreed to stay on for three years. At the end of the three years, Lyle was asked to stay on as President of the company. He agreed to this request and he is still working in this capacity. Even though Lyle sold the company, he still has passion for the business.
As president of the company, he remains active in ensuring its success.

“My first NUCA event was at the Walt Disney Dolphin in Orlando,” remembers Lyle. “As our taxi approached the hotel and I looked out at the dolphin statues on the building and began wondering where I was headed. I was used to staying in hotels catering to construction crews — the kind of hotels where one paid extra for a key to turn the TV on. I was in awe. I really felt out of place. Several of the NUCA officers reached out to me and soon I was feeling more comfortable.”

When Lyle attended his first NUCA event, he felt that there was something really special about the people in NUCA’s leadership. He realized that it’s their commitment to NUCA that made the association stand out. By being involved in NUCA today, Armadillo is exposed to a variety of knowledge, a vast array of different perspectives and an enormous amount of safety and training material.

“To be successful one cannot operate a company in a vacuum and ignore the outside world,” he says. “The trips to Capitol Hill provide one with an enormous insider look at how our government operates. Armadillo uses the Safety Director’s Forum and the Foundation’s Leadership programs to expose our people to different approaches to problem solving.”

Lyle’s first leadership role was as a founding member of its local chapter — NUCA of Oregon & Southwest Washington — in 1997 and that was his first involvement with NUCA, although he was familiar with the name from construction magazines. The early meetings started with a handful of members, but by the time NUCA of Oregon and Southwest Washington received its charter, it had the 10 required members.

In the early years, the chapter went through its growing pains. As the first president, Lyle had no predecessor to learn from before assuming the role. His first-year term turned into a two-year term that the chapter still uses. During this time, it was very similar to starting up a new company — the chapter had to incorporate, have bylaws drafted, obtain a tax ID and set up an accounting system.

Everyone pitched in and at first, every member was on the board. The chapter had no Executive Director, so Lyle’s role included setting up meeting rooms, etc. The chapter slowly grew to the point where it had a part-time person to set up the meetings and do the basic bookkeeping.

“I even designed our first association logo…it was awful,” Lyle laughs. “Our chapter now has a professionally designed logo and it did not bother me at all when we adopted it.

“Local chapters are extremely important since many contractor issues are state- or local-based. The national unit excels at promoting the contractor’s perspective at the federal level.

Contractors are impacted by local, state and federal regulations, so it is the combined efforts of the chapter and the national that are necessary for complete representation. The local chapter obviously has more direct contact with the members and the local chapter’s efforts are a major factor in recruiting and retaining existing members.”

After successfully starting a local chapter, Lyle set his sights on national NUCA leadership, with a little help from his friend. Lyle first met NUCA Vice President Dave Neuser, with R&T Construction from northern Washington, when he came to the chapter during its early stages.

Dave and Lyle became (and remain) good friends. Dave had served as a NUCA Vice President and recommended that Lyle take over this role when he stepped down. The to talked over this topic and finally Lyle agreed.

“Dave must have submitted my name to NUCA,” says Lyle. “As I recall, I was already involved with and chairing the trenchless committee, which at that time only had three or four active members, so it was not a large committee. We lacked a goal and we lacked focus. By the end of my chairmanship, we had packed attendance [in the committee].”

Lyle’s work ethic and perseverance to see his jobs through was apparent even before he officially took office. Alongside the knowledgeable NUCA staff, Lyle has already started working on a five-year improvement plan and has started looking into opportunities to generate more non-dues revenue sources.

“I do not like budget cuts; I would rather look for opportunities to generate more revenue,” says Lyle. “I want to ensure that our committees are working on issues that need addressing and the committee’s work is promoted more to the entire membership.”

With the Stimulus package passed, Lyle is looking forward to tackling continuing contractor concerns.

The Clean Water Reauthorization will likely be on the table and this year with the Democrats looking to further stimulate the economy.

“Congressman Blumenauer from Oregon has been actively promoting an infrastructure trust fund for water and sewer,” says Lyle. “I met with him last fall during a series of meetings held around Oregon promoting his ideas. Whether this will get pushed forward or not, I do not know. I do know he was traveling around to other states promoting this idea and Speaker Nancy Pelosi was in Portland last year discussing this issue with him.”

As he prepares to embark on a challenging task of leading NUCA through 2009, Lyle knows that he can’t do
it alone.

“Every contractor can contribute to make a difference. In my opinion, every contractor that owes his or her living to this industry has an unwritten obligation to contribute in some manner. Joining a committee is an excellent way to become active. I would suggest joining a committee that deals with a topic that is near and dear to the person’s own operations. If one is not in the position to participate at the national level, there is plenty of opportunity for participation at the chapter level. Make a difference by speaking up — opinions do count.”

Jason Morgan is Associate Editor of Utility Contractor.