History
In 2012, HARPER COMPANIES is celebrating a milestone, our forty fifth years in business. I’ve never slowed down long enough to realize how the company started or what it has become. Now it seems like a good time to write a brief history about our company and how it became to be”. (Rulon J. Harper)
Around 1966, Rulon Harper was finishing concrete for someone else, when he discovered something that troubled him; it was winter and it was very cold to pour concrete, so his boss went on vacation to a warm location, leaving most of the workers without a job. Rulon had to do various jobs at the time, just to get by. This situation impacted Rulon greatly in two different ways. One, he needed to figure out how to keep working all winter. And two, anyone who worked for him, was going to be working all year long, regardless of the season. He didn’t know it at the time, but his ambitions and motivations were going to take him on an amazing journey full work and satisfactions.
Somehow Rulon always managed to save a little money and that same summer he acquired his first truck. He hired a driver for this truck and kept finishing concrete simultaneously. This same year, Kennecott was on strike, and the tailing pond in Magna, had a breech. It became an emergency and a blessing for Rulon, since he would work all day finishing the concrete on his regular job while his friend drove his dump truck all day, and at night time Rulon would relieve him by driving the truck himself. This went for days. Back then, a dump truck and driver rented for $13.00 an hour. Many hours of hard work and effort were put into this job until it was successfully completed.
The next spring Rulon had a lot of work lined up, and then he bought another truck and his first “cat”. He quit his job and founded Harper Excavating back in 1967. He would literally work all day, do mechanical work, bid and schedule jobs and even fuel equipment all night. Then he would spend Sundays driving subdivisions and construction sites finding people that were laying out to dig a basement or final grade their new yard. Rulon would then introduce himself, win their trust and friendship, and almost always, hustle up some more work.
“It’s funny to think that those early days of my Dad trying to win a job, because to this very day, he still meets with people every day to do the exact same thing. I would often sit in the truck and wait for him, while he was meeting with people on Sunday, because that was the only time I had to be with him. When Dad bought his first “cat”, he was very excited because it came with work night lights. It was usual for him to work in subdivisions until late, then police received noise complain calls, and came around to made him go home at 10:00pm. Then they would be called again when he started to work too early. He put 12.000 hours on the “cat” in 3 years by himself, that is twice as many hours as a normal machine would work in that amount of time. When I was younger, Dad would drop me off on Saturdays to run a “cat” pulling a compactor all day. Other days, I would help shoot grades, wash dump trucks or paint trucks. In other words, anything that I could do to hang with my Dad”. (Jimmy Harper – Son-).
Another even that shaped Harper Companies happened around 1970’s. Rulon went into a gravel pit to buy a load of gravel, as he pulled up the scales house the owner of the pit drove by and told him to return that load of gravel because he needed it for a concrete pour early the next morning. Once again, Rulon expanded his business and decided to start his own crushing operation, so nobody could ever have that control over him again.
“I want to congratulate Rulon on his great milestone: he has not only been a father to me, but a great friend and leader. There are countless funny stories and fond memories; I have worked for him from a young age and all my adult life. I have learned a lot from him about life and business” (Bobby Mitchel – Son-).
This determination resulted in a company that grew to more than 900 employees over the years. Their safety and welfare are always the number one priority on our company. It is almost impossible to drive anywhere in Utah Valley that Harper Companies had not worked. As wel l, numerous projects were completed in Arizona, Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada, Colorado and Texas. More recently in the last few years we started operations in California, North Dakota and Montana, obtaining good results and completing projects on time and efficiently.
By 2009, Harper Companies completed over $140,000.00 in revenues. Our excavating division moved over 6 million yards of earth. We installed more than ½ a million feet of various types and sizes of pipe, we hauled several million tons of aggregates with our trucking division and crushed well over 3 million tons of various sizes and specifications of sand, gravel and road base. Our Concrete Ready Mix Division produced and delivered about ½ million yards of concrete mix products and finally our Precast Division completed many of the largest and finest projects involving concrete precast products such as Noise Walls, MSE Walls, Box Culverts, Drainage Boxes an Precast Bridge Decks.
In these forty five years of hard work and dedication, we want to express our sincere appreciation to all of our customers, people who have worked hard for me, subcontractors and suppliers and partners. Without them, we would not be here today. It is a great joy and satisfaction, to make a quick stop in our journey, and recognize what we have accomplished.
I would specially like to thank my dear wife Paula for her support and hard work over the years, and my sons and grandchildren for their loyalty and hard work.
Thank you so much,
Rulon J. Harper
President, Harper Companies
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