HADCO Construction LLC

In 1979 John L. Hadfield founded Hadfield Irrigation, a small agricultural irrigation company in central Utah. Seeing an opportunity in the market, John later created HADCO Construction LLC (HADCO) to perform construction work in 1989.

Over the years, the family tradition continued. In 1993 John’s son, John D. Hadfield, took over HADCO with the same determined attitude, and the new team began to offer site development and utility services to other builders.

Highly Evolved Business

Work-life balance is important at HADCO, which allows the team of more than 350 employees to focus on the important aspects of business. The company promotes integrity and innovation, qualities that have attracted longstanding relationships with a number of major clients.

“We do residential, industrial and commercial work,” explains Nick Baird, operations manager for HADCO. “We work for all of the top commercial builders in the state, as well as seven of the top 10 major homebuilders, such as Ivory Homes, Richmond America Homes and Perry Homes.”

In the early years of HADCO’s construction history, the business primarily served homebuilders. “We started digging basements and connecting utilities,” Nick notes. “Part of the company is still geared toward the residential market, but we have evolved into a much larger business.” As the business has grown more entwined with commercial, industrial and heavy highway work, HADCO has opened itself to greater opportunities.

A Redefining Moment

After the housing bubble burst, HADCO’s opportunities in the residential market were few and far between. Relying mostly on commercial and industrial work, the team took a leap of faith, breaking into heavy highway construction.

“The Mountain View Corridor has been our largest project to-date,” Nick recounts. “That was a redefining moment for our team. It was a big jump, but we did well. It was one of those defining moments. We brought the work in on time and on budget and established ourselves as a heavy highway contractor.”

While the Mountain View project paid off financially, the company’s growth was far beyond revenue. HADCO was able to expand while the business’ leadership and staff gained new insight, knowledge and skills. The project also led into more highway work, which has become a major facet of the business.

“Now, we can do anything,” Nick explains. “If the market shifts to more residential work than utility work, we can roll with it. We can shift to commercial, industrial or highway as we need to.”

As funding shifts for public projects, like those HADCO has performed for Utah’s Department of Transportation (UDOT), the business is able to rely on other market sectors to keep the gears turning. The team has been involved in a number of unique construction projects in the commercial sector. Recently, the crew completed a major site development project for a future business park.

“A new client brought a massive facility into Utah,” Nick explains. “We moved more than 1 million yards of dirt within three months. That’s a big deal. We used 657s and 637 scapers, teamed up in threes. We moved all the dirt and developed the site doing all of the piping, paving, curb and gutter. It’s the type of project we get excited about as civil contractors.”

Teamwork Makes HADCO Work

HADCO performs approximately 90 percent of its work in-house, relying on a small set of subcontractors’ select services on larger projects. “We bid out a lot of these efforts to our longstanding partners,” Nick explains. “One of our core values is being committed to long-term relationships and that is not just a slogan for us. When I first came to work here, it surprised me just how valuable these relationships are with our subs, suppliers and clients. Our partners really cannot be beat. We give them a lot of business, so they hook us up. If we have a big project and we say we need the work done tomorrow, they will drop what they are doing to take care of us.”

Relationships on all ends of the business have helped HADCO keep moving, even through the recession. On top of that, the company is versatile; the Mountain View Corridor project serves as proof that the team can evolve.

“Diversifying our services kept us going when other companies dropped out,” Nick elaborates. “We constantly do in-house training and our leadership is always reading books to help manage the team, our projects and our relationships. A few years ago when we got into roadwork, our whole team was on board. We knew that would be a huge moment for us.”

Recent growth has been established by constant internal project analysis. “We gauge our success by our customers’ happiness,” he continues. “We have a commitment to succeed for our customers and strategic partners, as well as ourselves. Because of that, 80 percent of our work is on a repeat basis. We do a safe, high quality job, the project is done when we say it will be and we make our projects cost-effective for our customers.”

As the economy makes a gradual recovery, the HADCO team is looking ahead to growth both internally and externally. The crew takes great pride in the company’s diversity and relationships. As the company approaches 25 years of growth, HADCO Construction LLC will continue to evolve, serving the changing needs of clients across the region.