A hundred years ago, a man named Wilford Woodruff Clyde — W.W. to friends and family — started a road-building company in the small farming community of Springville.
It was a good time to begin paving roads. By this point, automobiles had effectively replaced horses as the preferred mode of transportation. In 1921, just five years earlier, the Federal Aid Highway Act had been signed into law, earmarking funds to help turn the narrow, rutted, mostly dirt pathways crisscrossing the country into smoother terrain for the 15 million Model T Fords and various other jalopies owned by car-crazy Americans.
W.W. operated his enterprise out of his hometown of Springville, the Utah County village his Latter-day Saint pioneer forebears helped settle in 1851. He set up his central yard and company headquarters at 1400 North Main, on the far end of the town limits.
Through the years, the construction yard remained, but as W.W. Clyde expanded, branching out into businesses ranging from insurance to hardware to land development to cement mixing, its corporate core left Springville.
Well, now it’s coming back.
To put it mildly.
In what amounts to a huge thank-you both to the free market system that has enabled W.W.’s road building enterprise to transform into a conglomerate doing $3 billion in annual revenue, and to the place where it all began, Clyde Companies is building a four-story, 125,000 square foot corporate headquarters on property next to the original yard.
Beyond that, it is renovating the old yard and clearing another 60-plus acres on the south and north ends of Springville for what amounts to a massive community facelift. Plans include restaurants, retail shops, affordable housing and various other community amenities.
The cost? “We’re going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars over the next several years doing this,” said Jeremy Hafen, Clyde Companies president and CEO.
On a recent tour, Jeremy Hafen showed off the land where “Springville Rising” will take place — and explained why he’s not worried about losing his job if the undertaking doesn’t make any money.
“This is a not for profit endeavor,” he said. “We hope not to lose our capital, we don’t think we will, but we don’t think we’re going to make any profit on these ventures and we’re totally OK with that. That’s not our priority.”
The priority is to give back.
“We want to create a place where the residents of Springville can come and have a great experience,” he said. “Let’s make the community that has been so good to us even better. We’re careful with our money, but we’ve created an enterprise that’s large enough for us to be able to give back to the community.”
There were more than a few raised eyebrows, Jeremy admitted, when the plans were presented to the Clyde Company’s internal development team — the people who will manage the project.
Their initial response amounted to “Wait … what?”
“You don’t see developers doing this. They know they’re handling a project that is not normal for them,” said Jeremy. “But the purpose is to spend the right amount of money to do it right. We’re giving up what a normal business would look at as an opportunity to make a profit.”
It helps — indeed it’s essential — that Clyde Companies is entirely family-owned and family-run. (Jeremy married into the Clyde family; he succeeded his father-in-law Wilford Clyde as president and CEO in 2022. Wilford, a grandson of the founder, is now chairman of the board).
“There is no way we could do this as a public company,” Jeremy agreed, “the shareholders would never go for it. But our board is entirely OK with it.”
He thinks the original W.W. Clyde would be as well.
“I never met the man, but I think he’d be proud. He gave back a lot. The family has always been philanthropic. The company has been investing in Springville and Utah for a century.”
Jeremy put his business hat back on when he said, “l see this as a good business decision too. To focus on things greater than the business itself, I think that makes for a good sound company that can last for a long time.
“We have a chance to do something magical here, to give back to our iconic hometown that gave us a start 100 years ago.”
Are there detractors? Doubters? People who think there must be a catch?
“Oh, there’s always going to be people who are skeptical or disagree with what you’re doing,” said Jeremy, “there’s a million different opinions out there. But I think for the most part, people are excited to see what comes about.
“If it’s a story that sounds too-good-to-be-true, we’re trying to make too-good-to-be-true the actual reality.
“So will it cost some money? Yes. But is it worth it? Absolutely.”