Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/353300
N either lengthy win- ters nor a crippling recession slowed down Steve Mueller or Dan Thiel. Instead, they combined their business savvy, passion for the out- doors, honest work ethic and love for their community to create J&S General Contracting in Osceola, Wisconsin. Getting started Mueller's first industry experience came when he was 8 years old, mowing lawns with a push mower. Then in eighth grade, his parents gave him half of the money to buy a four-wheeler, and he got one and put a blade on it to plow snow. By the time he was 16, he managed the property at a grocery store and bank. He later partnered with his friend, Jason, hence the company's name, J&S. Mueller didn't focus on the company full time until 2001 when he quit his engineering job. Thiel, who grew up on a dairy farm just five miles from the current office, joined the company in 1998 as a silent partner. He originally wanted to work with computers, but after he met Mueller and discovered they had a lot of common interests, Thiel decided to take a different path. He had 20 years of experience in the IT industry working as a programmer and project leader before leaving to focus on J&S full time in 2005. The two brought a good balance to the business, with Thiel as the realist and Mueller as the dreamer, they say. "We always compromise," Mueller says. "It's gotten us through tough times." At the beginning, they just had a skid steer and a single-axle dump truck. They later expanded to add a Cat 924G wheel loader and screen- ing plant. "If you have a screener, people will come," Mueller says. "It became a quarter of our business." J&S now has mostly Caterpillar equipment, including compact track loaders, skid steers, backhoes, doz- ers, wheel loaders, pickup trucks, a tracked power buggy, dump trucks, EquipmentWorld.com | August 2014 37 J&S General Contracting Year started: 1998 Number of employees: 19 Annual revenues: $3 million Markets served: Excavation, landscaping, concrete and snow removal services Dan Thiel and Steve Mueller Osceola, Wisconsin Diversifying services resulted in contractors' biggest project to date contractor of the year | by Lauren Heartsill Dowdle