Daniel B. Fugal and brother Guy L. Fugal used to be known as "the boys." Now they are the third-generation owners of the Niels Fugal Sons Co. of Pleasant Grove, with Daniel as chief executive officer and Guy as president.
Guy, in fact, spent his childhood adoring dump trucks, backhoes, front-end loaders and other equipment and spent Saturdays working with his grandfather, Niels, and father, Boyd. He started work at the company at age 16 and later was instrumental in convincing his father and uncles that the company's future hinged on its ability to get work placing underground telephone lines.
The company nearly died in the 1980s but took off after acquiring plow-trains that could install fiber optic cable.
Daniel and Guy Fugal have seen the company's employee base grow from 30 to 260 as it added hundreds of trucks, pickups, backhoes, bulldozers, compressors and other construction equipment. What was once a company with a two-room home office now has a 50,000-square-foot office, warehouse and shop space in two Utah locations: the corporate headquarters in Pleasant Grove and a second office in St. George.
Niels Fugal Sons Co. started as a construction business in 1924, involved in building water distribution systems. Mountain Fuel Supply became a customer in 1947, and the company hallmark was installing natural gas pipeline and distribution systems.
But telecommunications has been the strong point in recent years as the company got involved in handling installation of telephone cable, conduit and associated work, includingfiber optic lines.
In 1995, then-US WEST tabbed the company to become the general contractor to manage and build its construction projects from Salt Lake City to the Arizona border. It continues to serve in that capacity with US WEST's successor, Qwest.
Another company division offers voice and data wiring services communication and data network application.