S9EP10. Driven by curiosity: building the Dirt World’s next generation with Aaron Witt

I started in construction at 18 'cause there was a project in my neighborhood I thought was cool. I called him up, I asked for a job, fell in love with the construction industry and I've been here since. I initially wanted to be a contractor, but then started to tell stories online on social media. Out of college, out of engineering school when I was 22, it took off. So, I started telling stories within what we now call the Dirt World. That's infrastructure paving, earth moving pipeline, et cetera. Telling those stories, getting the next generation in and now we're here having fun with it

Could you share how you developed the criteria of being a 'winning' company and what those critical components are?.

As was pointed out in the intro, I'm young. I just turned 30 years old. I don't have gray hair. I still have hair. I can't grow facial hair so I look even younger than I really am. I'm small. And because I'm young, I'm unassuming. I'm not a contractor. I'm not a threat. I'm this neutral party. I've had tremendous access to the construction industry, to the paving industry, not just in the United States, but worldwide. I've met hundreds and thousands of industry leaders, visited hundreds of companies, probably thousands at this point of different construction operations. After seeing all these different operations at a very intimate level; I'm not driving by in a pickup truck, I'm going out to that night paving crew and I'm spending four or five, six hours with this crew at night watching what they do, documenting what they do, and sharing what they do to educate the world on what it takes to keep the world moving. So I'm seeing this world at a very intimate level, and I'm talking with these leaders at a very intimate level as well too 'cause again, I'm not a threat and I'm just genuinely curious. I want to know what Dan Garcia at CW Matthews is seeing, for example, and what his opinions on recruiting are and developing the next generation and where the market's going.

There a lot of operations in which leaders are not present and you can only do so much when the leaders aren't present. I can only buy in so much, as an employee, at that business if I don't know who is leading the company. If I don't know who's steering the ship I'm on. As a leader within my company, I've fallen into that trap too. It's an easy trap to fall into, but those winning companies, they have those leaders out in the field with their people, getting to know their people, figuring out what the challenges are in leading accordingly. So that's just an example. But to summarize, I've just had some brilliant exposure to the industry. I've gathered this data anecdotally and I'm basically saying, ‘Hey, don't take it from me. Here's what the best-in-class companies are doing day to day to elevate their businesses beyond where they've ever been before.’

When you look at the other buckets, either a follower or leaders, is there one commonly missing trait from companies that are not in the winner bucket?

If I had to pick, I would probably say communication, internal communication. The great companies, they're sharing information nonstop within their businesses. The people from the top within the office, they're pushing information down through the business as much as possible. They are on social media. They're on podcasts like this. They have an internal podcast for their people. They're sending out memos. They're having annual meetings. They're making their toolbox talks more effective. Their leadership is in the field meeting with people, talking with people, et cetera. There's just nonstop communication happening within those great companies. But that is not the norm in the construction industry. You can go a whole career on the back of a paver not having any clue what's going on within the business, not having any clue what's coming; what jobs elsewhere are going on; what the heck the business is doing within the community; who's even leading the business. I've worked for construction companies where it's like ‘I think this is the guy. I don't know though. Beyond my foreman, I don't really know what's beyond that.’ And why do they need to know? You can make a really good argument they don't need to know. They should just do their job, but that's team building 101. Involving everybody in what the heck is going on within the organization. They don't need to know, but they probably want to know.

What happens when you don't have the information? You're either not all that motivated or you make stuff up. Make all kinds of crazy stuff up, which I see all the time. It's largely happening because of the absence of information. In our business, we have a value: transparency wins. So we are getting ready to make a financial move. And if I just talked about the financial move, big picture. It would be perceived in a very wrong way. But I'm like, cool, I can make a five minute video for our company, for our whole team, explaining exactly what's going on. Here's our rationale and here's what that means for you. That's not going to resolve all of the uncertainty or all of the confusion. But now the information's out there and we can talk about it so that everybody understands where the business is going.

You've taken BuildWitt from a startup into a major company. What are some of the most unexpected leadership challenges you've faced along the way?

Well, we're still very much a startup, or at least it still feels like it. Our bank account suggested we're still very much a startup. We started officially in 2018. It's now 2025. We're starting to figure out what our market fit is. There's been so many leadership challenges. I think the biggest challenge is developing myself as an individual. I've been leading this company as somebody in their twenties. So when you're in your twenties, you're still trying to figure out who you are, and you're not wanting the company, the team, to outpace you. So you're having to, at least I'm having to, nonstop develop myself as an individual to then be worthy of the growing company right behind me 'cause if I stop growing or if I'm not growing in the right ways, the organization's just going to run me over and it has in some ways in the past. So I would say that's quite difficult. One is just learning who I am and learning about leadership in general. When I got into this, I would've told you I knew what leadership was. I had no idea what leadership was.

I made a post this morning about cash flow. I thought I understood cash flow getting into business. Then early on I ran the company out of cash, so then I really understood cash flow. It's like the same thing you think, ‘alright, I'm getting into a leadership position. I know how to be a leader. I've seen enough, I've read the books, I've been around leaders, I've watched the movies. I get it.’ And then you get into that legitimate leadership position, and you're just like, ‘oh no, I have no idea what I'm doing.’ But then you realize leadership is a skill. This is a phenomenal skill that I can get better at. I might not be as good as I thought I was, but I can do things to improve upon this skill to be more effective. On that note, finally, I would say the best thing I've done from a leadership standpoint, the best skill I've built is my ability to communicate. I have practiced relentlessly over the past decade. I'm not naturally a good communicator but by doing podcasts like this, by speaking, by writing, by sharing on social media, by recording videos for our company. Doing everything I can to put myself in positions where I have to communicate and express myself effectively, I've become much better at it, which has made me a much better leader.

I really do want to tell their story. I really do want to get them the respect they deserve and they pick up on that. I've been able to learn a lot as a result. I think the curiosity should go both ways. I think young people especially, they need to be humble. They need to be curious, but I think the people that have been around for a while need to have the same sense of curiosity as well. The best in class leaders I've been around, not just executives, but the best in class paving crew leaders, or the best in class paver operators or truck drivers or whatever it is, they have this. This mentality of continuous improvement, of constant learning. They're curious. They know they don't know everything. They're always looking for a better way to do things. We have all different kinds of better ways of doing things entering the industry now. Those best companies are asking ‘we've been paving roads this way for 20 something years the same way, but is there a better way to do it? Is there a better piece of equipment to do it? Does somebody out there do it better than we do? Are there other countries that do it better than we do? Could we learn from them? How can we learn from them?’ And they're asking those questions. As a result, they're ending up with a better result, better teams, better companies, and they're making more money.

What intentional choices have you made to help build and protect your company culture as you've scaled and gotten bigger?

I think number one is that every company has a culture. The first intentional choice I made along the way is that I want to guide our culture. Having a culture, is put out there like it's the easier way to manage people, retain people, do what you do, and it is, but it's also harder in that it takes a lot more effort. A lot more work behind the scenes to build an intentional culture. So one, I've acknowledged we're going to have a culture whether I like it or not, and two, I want to be in the driver's seat alongside our team. There's a lot of people involved in culture now, but since the beginning, I've always wanted to be driving our culture, making it intentional, and it requires constant effort. If I take my foot off the gas or if we, as a business, go over here and focus on something else, it can start to spiral out of control really quickly.

The two things we've done to build the culture beyond anything else are define what the heck our mission is. Why do we exist? What is our business trying to achieve beyond making money? What's the point? Why are we different than what anybody else is doing? One, we're here to help build the Dirt World’s next generation. That's why our company exists. And two, what's our operating system? What are our values? What do we believe in? What unites our business? How do we measure performance? How do we measure who we're hiring? Why we're hiring them beyond we like them or beyond they can do the job. Are they the right fit? You have to define what the heck the right fit is before you can answer if they are or not. Once you've defined those two things, that's just step one.

Now you have to work it into the organization and the team, nonstop. It's a daily effort, and if you don't do it even just one day, you start to regress. But if you do keep that momentum, if you do keep pouring into it, you can create just incredible results. You perform better. In the contractor world, the companies with the strongest cultures, they're attracting people at a much better rate than anybody else because they're defining who they are and why they exist. They're retaining people at a much better rate than most other people. They're safer because culture is the ultimate safety program. They have better quality work, less rework. They're making more money. Everybody knows that's the path to performing better as a company, as a contractor especially, but it's hard and that's why most people are not quite there yet.

Is there a particular book or mentor or even maybe a quote that's had an impact on your leadership journey?

One of the best ones we talk about all the time is Extreme Ownership by Jocko and Leif. It's phenomenal. Basically, the whole premise is, ‘Hey, if you're a leader, everything rolls up to you. Everything's your responsibility.’ And again, leadership is a skill. So maybe you haven't been in a leadership position before. Maybe you're not a great leader. Maybe you don't have those skills yet, but anybody can be a leader. It's scary at first when you realize ‘Man, everything is my responsibility’ but it's also really freeing. If we have a turnover problem, for example, I could sit here and say ‘it's just not my responsibility. It's out of my hands' but I'm ultimately responsible of our workforce. I need to ensure that I have the workforce necessary to do the work, to serve our customers, to serve our people, to serve our mission, et cetera. So that turnover problem, that's my responsibility as a leader. So I can either say, ‘well, I can't do anything about it.’ Or I can say ‘man, this is my responsibility. I need to figure this out. I need to ensure that I can solve this problem so that we have the workforce necessary.’ Again, that's the mentality of every best in class contractor I know of. There's not a single exception to this. They're saying, ‘cool, this workforce thing, our responsibility; my responsibility, let's go figure it out. If we can figure this out, there's a much better future for everybody here that's in, that's involved.’

Even if it's temporary, they can still lure people away. It's still going to cost you money if you're competing just on wage. It's a losing proposition long term, and everybody knows it. Again, I'm not saying anything that people don't already know, so you have to give them more. So when I've asked people, my following, why have you stayed at a company? Why have you left? They always want to grow, better themselves. I can talk specific examples, but what I've been talking with a lot of executives about now is, they quickly go to growth from a workforce standpoint. If I can make them a better operator, a better truck driver, somebody better on the rake, that's good for me. It is good for me, we need to do that, but the best in class companies, the best in class leaders are asking themselves ‘how do I bring these kids into my organization and make them adults? How do I make them better individuals? How do I make them better with their finances so that when I pay them, they're being more responsible with their money? How do I help them be a little healthier? How do I help them get where they want to be in life? If they want to buy a house, how do I help them get to that next level? How do I ensure that their family life is good to go?’

'Cause if we're working everybody to death and their family is deteriorating on the side, that's not just hurting them, that's hurting me, the team, everybody. How do we give our people the tools from a mental health standpoint for the first time? We can say we need to talk about it. That's great. But how do I talk about it? How can I provide those tools for our people, that training, so even our crew leaders have the ability to address it proactively within the field? Or can recognize if somebody's a little off one day and can pull them aside and have an effective conversation, rather than just, ‘Hey, what are you doing? Why are you late today? You're never late. What the heck's going on? Get it together.’ Well, no, maybe that's an indication that something's wrong. I need to have that conversation.

So rather than purely skills based, they are looking at how do I make these people better people, not just better workers? And the more things I can do to make them better people. The better off they' are makes the team better off, the company better off, and allows that person to grow. It's easy to talk about growth from a career standpoint because it's measurable. There's a ladder. So yeah, they started out as a laborer and now they're foreman. Now they're superintendent, now they're project manager. We can say there's a lot of growth there, but there's one president of every company. For example, you could have a 500 person paving company. There's one seat as the president, but not everybody wants to be president. Some people are stoked to drive a truck and drive it really well their whole career. So it's not helping them to get to that next leadership level. They might not want to go there. How can I make them just a better individual? If I'm investing in them as a human being, they are much more likely to stick around. I know that much.

Could you share how your global experiences have shaped your perspective on leadership and the construction industry as a whole?

Traveling around the world has been one of the best things I've done. I've got to see construction operations in almost every US State at this point. I probably do about 30 States a year. I do a lot within the US, but going around the world has helped from a leadership standpoint because it just drives home the point that we're all human beings at the end of the day. You can be halfway around the world, totally different religion, totally different upbringing, totally different language. You don't even speak the same language as this individual, and yet you still can realize that they just want to be left alone. They just want to become better. They just want a better life for them and their family, especially their family. That's what we're all trying to do here. We all just want a better life for ourselves and especially our families. So if I can create a business that enables that, I'm not going to lose the big picture which has been a really helpful realization for me. It sounds simple, but you get lost in the fray of business and America and everything going on, that you forget people are just people at the end of the day. It's actually quite simple what we're doing.

It's also been fun to just see the better ways of doing things. I think in the United States, we like to believe that we're just the best at everything. But going abroad has just proven that's absolutely not true. I would say we're middle of the pack from an infrastructure standpoint, based on what I've seen. There's not just one country. It's a lot of countries that I think are far more impressive than we are. They do have newer infrastructure, but you even go to Europe, their crews just look better, equipment looks better. Everything's a lot tidier. They're using technology more effectively. And so I think we have a lot to learn from the rest of the world, with how we're doing things as well. I'd say we're best in class at some things, but I like going abroad. It's not in a negative sense, it's in a ‘Hey, they're doing this and this is phenomenal. And I think this would really help us elevate the industry here. Why don't we do it here too?’

So that's not saying that's every paving crew, everybody in the United States, there's a lot of phenomenal world-class paving companies within the US. But you go to Europe and that's the standard there. And it's like, why isn't that the standard in the United States? Why don't we take extraordinary pride in how we're looking, how we're being perceived? Because that is shaping public perception and we have more control over public perception than I think we believe we do.

For someone trying to break into the Dirt World, where do you think they should start?

If I could give you a good answer for that, I'd be a lot wealthier than I am. I'm trying to figure it out one day, so give me a few more years. But the best example is, start anywhere you can find a way in. It's unfortunate because I talk with road builders across the country, as we've explained. Everybody needs people for the most part. There's a lot of work to do right now. We're in April. Everything's starting to get busy. We're starting to pave again. It's time to get after it. We're hiring people like crazy. Then on the other side, I don't know how many, hundreds and hundreds of messages from people quite discouraged saying, ‘I just can't find a way into the industry. I can't find a way in.’ And they're applying. They're not getting any kind of feedback. No one will hire them because they don't have experience. They need five years experience, but they're 18. How do I get five years paving experience when legally I can't get a job until I'm 18 within the paving world?

So there's a big disconnect. I think those best-in-class companies, they understand that disconnect and they are actively recruiting those individuals with no experience. They're not just bringing them into their organizations, but they're setting them up for success. They're teaching them, they're pairing them with mentors, they're working them into the organization so they don't just come in and bounce right back out, which is what happens, statistically speaking now. From an individual basis, again, what I say is look into the companies within your area. Call around. Find one that will let you in. Work as hard as you possibly can within that company. Don't skip anything on the bottom. If they want to give you a rake and make you rake, I'd be the best raker out there 'cause that is going to make you much better off long term no matter where you go within the Dirt World. No matter where you go at that paving company, knowing how to rake being the best performer, that will carry you really far. So the best-in-class companies, they understand they need to bring more people in that are not experienced and they need to develop those people, in an intentional way. From somebody on the outside, I would research companies in your area, find any way and you can get that relevant experience and work it from there.

What are the certain traits you see are highly desirable from employers?

So we're in the in-between right now. I'm speaking on average. I'm a generalist. All I have is a very broad brush in my little paint kit. Generally speaking, employers are still looking for experienced people, but they know experienced people don't exist. So they're recruiting for experienced people, but then when you talk to them one-on-one, they don't want experienced people because they have bad habits that they have to unteach. That can cause more damage than them just knowing how to do their job. But they're under so much pressure. I understand why they want that experienced paver operator 'cause they need somebody to come in on Monday. They can plug them in and just not worry about it anymore. So I understand that.

So how do I do that? Again, those great companies, they just want those hardworking individuals, those humble individuals, those curious individuals 'cause if they have those traits, they can take them, they can mold them, and then give them that skillset, those tools they need to produce out in the field.

If you could summarize your leadership journey over those eight years in one sentence, what would that be?

I'm not as good as I think I am. That's it. That applies not just in my twenties, but it's going to apply more so in my thirties. It already has. It's going to apply even more so in my forties. I feel like any leader I've met that's a high quality leader has that mentality of ‘boy, I thought I knew what I was doing, but I have no idea what's going on.’ And that humility, that confidence to even admit that I think carries them to be ironically, the great leader that they are.