Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/93519
contractor of the year finalist | by Mike Anderson winter's day. Just imagine what it's like at 4 o'clock in the morning. It's a sensation Jonathan Lane has been embracing most of his 33 years. As a pre-teen, he'd be up and out by 4 a.m., standing at the end of the family's drive- way, along lonely State Route 26, waiting for family friend and local contractor, Mike Kelly. Young Jon eagerly jumped in the truck, head- ing off to face whatever equip- ment challenge awaited. He'd pressure-wash, change oil, help pull an engine and, without hesita- tion, climb up and operate a dozer or loader – anything Kelly needed and more. U "Mike said he never had such an energy guy," says Jon's father, Butch Lane, himself a construction industry veteran. Construction runs deep in the Lane family. Jon's grandfather, Bucky Lane, built many of the logging roads Jon's company, JML Trucking & Excavating, maintain today. When Jon was a toddler, Bucky even installed a car seat on p in the North Woods of New Hampshire, a cool, crisp 25 degrees constitutes a nice his favorite piece of iron. "I'd fall asleep riding on my grandfather's bulldozer," says Jon. "I basically grew up on equipment." Even though JML is the larg- est single employer in the Errol, New Hampshire, area, Jon's habits haven't changed. He can still be found heading out into the frigid New Hampshire air before 4 a.m. "I'm here at the shop with the men, and that's really the key," he says. "They know I wouldn't ask them to do something I wouldn't do." Jon's friends and admirers – scattered throughout the barren wilderness of the New Hampshire North Woods – are much less soft- spoken about the man who still fi nds it diffi cult to take even a day off work. "Jon's an extremely, extremely hard worker," says Mike Turner, a regional sales for dealer Nortrax, which supplies JML with much of its in-woods equipment. "He would work seven days a week, 16 to 18 hours a day, if his wife Amy would let him. If she wants him to take a weekend off even now, she literally has to drag him away." The early-to-work routine is EquipmentWorld.com | October 2012 49 Jonathan Lane Errol, New Hampshire JML Trucking & Excavating Year started: 2001 Number of employees: 35 Annual volume: $5 to $7 million Markets served: Site prep, road building, winter maintenance, forestry, underground utilities Jon Lane admits the conditions are rug- ged, but he wouldn't want to be any- where but home in the New Hampshire North Woods, where his company pro- vides right-of-way cutting and clearing, road building and maintenance services for forestry management companies.