CUSTOMER| A SALUTE TO AN CUSTOMER |
ULLAND BROTHERS, INC.
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“All of a sudden she said, ‘Dad, wouldn’t you like to build something besides a road, like a bridge or a hotel or something that’s more fun to see?’ And I said, ‘How about if we build people — people who can build anything? How would that be?’ “That’s what I like,” Ulland said. “I’ve always seen the value of people here at the company. You don’t get anything done yourself.” That philosophy has shaped the business, started in the late 1920s by Bob’s father and uncle, Palmer and Oscar Ulland, into a major, diversified firm with nearly 230 employees working on projects throughout Minnesota. Based in Carlton in northern Minnesota, with a southern operation in Albert Lea, the company also has an office and maintenance facility in Hibbing as well as numerous quarries and gravel pits in both parts of the state. Risk-taking farmers
In the mid-1930s, the brothers moved to northeastern Minnesota. “They often went up there to fish and hunt, so they knew the area well,” he said. “In 1937, they had a crusher and they bid 11 projects for St. Louis County and got all 11 of them, so they were in business. That’s how they started.” Equipped with only a minimal education they worked and they learned, Ulland said admiringly of his father and uncle. “I have always felt they were
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both highly educated men because they just did their work and learned and learned.” Bob Ulland followed in their footsteps, working summers at Ulland Brothers as a young man, then joining the company full-time in 1965. He began as an estimator, worked as a utility foreman, ran jobs, became a general superintendent, and was named company president in 1970 — a position he held for more than 30 years. He now serves as the company’s semi-retired chairman of the board. In 1954, the year the company was incorporated, the Ulland brothers brought in another brother and Bob’s older brother Gene, who preceded him as company president. Bob is the only family member left in the company today. “It’s not a family business,” he emphasized. “We’ve kept the family name, but I’m the only one in the family involved in the business.” That has been key, he added, to retaining excellent, skilled people. “They see it as an opportunity to develop themselves and be part of things. They’re not going to hit their head against some family member who’s not as good as they are. They have an opportunity to advance in their authority and responsibility according to how they perform.” Employees also have the opportunity to become part owners of the company, Ulland said, noting that more than 30 have chosen to do so. “In that sense, we are very unusual in the industry. There aren’t very many construction companies where the family doesn’t own it. I’m just a small part of the ownership in place.” The power of being diversified A longtime road builder, Ulland Brothers now handles all kinds of commercial and industrial site and underground utility work and has grown its aggregate sales into a major part of the business. “We did a lot of work with the paper companies,” Ulland cited as an example of recent company projects. “We also handled site prep for a science building at UMD (University of Minnesota-Duluth), site |
Bob Ulland of Ulland Brothers, Inc., recently
recalled a conversation he had years ago with his
oldest daughter.
The company’s founders were just two adventuresome
young farmers who weren’t scared of anything,
Bob Ulland said of Oscar and Palmer. When land
became available in Montana, they headed west and
began wheat farming. “They were just young men and
they had a truck. When the wheat crop failed, the
truck was all they had left, so they came back and got
a job hauling some gravel for a township near the
Austin area and one thing led to another.”