Founder’s Story

How did a Farm Boy from Syracuse, Kansas build a Dream of Success into a Heavy Civil Construction Company doing Tens of Millions of Dollars’ worth of work annually with over one hundred employees?

A Strong Work Ethic, a Clear Vision, an Entrepreneurial Spirit and a Focus on surrounding himself with Exceptional, Capable, Team-Oriented People. And just a touch of reliance on “asking for forgiveness instead of permission!”

Our Founder, Dean Hartman, was born poor into a farming family in 1933 in a little Kansas town just east of the Colorado border. At an early age, it was clear that Dean would probably not carry on the “farming tradition.” And as it turned out, he did not. The “Dust Bowl” in Western Kansas caused Dean’s Father to move the family to Southwest Missouri and this gave Dean a platform to move away from farming. After graduating from Highschool, Dean bought a “Milk route” and later purchased cutting and bailing equipment to start his own hay harvesting operation. Finding he needed additional work, Dean then hired on to a Company that moved houses which was common in the 1950’s. Capitalizing on this experience, he started renovating houses and flipping them which lead to larger vertical construction projects such as Leong’s Original Tea House and the Brentwood Library on Seminole Street.

When Dean purchased his first piece of heavy equipment, an Allis-Chalmers HD-5 dozer, to grow his earthmoving capabilities he was poised to move into the Heavy Civil Construction Segment. From there he moved into Paving and started Midland Paving Company which also included a Quarry Operation so that he was vertically integrated. By now it was the Early 1980’s and Dean was approached by Journagan Construction Company to sell Midland Paving. The sale would allow Dean to go into “early retirement,” but that did not last long!

Shortly after retiring, Dean was approached to take on a struggling Church in Mt. Vernon that had a little run-down building and only six congregation members. Of course he took on this challenge and built a new Red Brick Church along I-44 and grew the congregation to over one hundred people in the first year. This experienced convinced him that he was not ready for retirement, so in 1985 he founded Hartman & Company and officially entered the Heavy Civil Construction Segment.

Now after 40 years, Hartman & Company has grown into a medium-large company with over one hundred employees that provides a full range of Heavy Civil Construction Services to Clients in both the Private and Public sectors. A success story that has been built on hard work and a focus on always going above and beyond to provide Excellence in everything we do.