When Jack Henderson-Adams started Western Earthworks, he had $200 to his name and a vision shaped more by grit than by a safety net. With no family business to inherit and no guarantees ahead, he cashed out his 401(k), sold his home, and took on multiple jobs just to keep his fledgling operation alive. He was determined to build something different in the construction world; a company where problem-solving came first, employees had a clear future, and the culture prioritized pride and purpose.
“I was determined to start a construction company on my own in 2014,” said Jack, now General Superintendent at Western Earthworks. “I went about coming up with a name and a logo and an idea of what it was I wanted to do, markets I wanted to go after and figured out what I would need for equipment.”
In the early days, Jack wore every hat: project manager, bookkeeper, foreman, estimator, mechanic, and operator. Then in 2018, he met Mariel Lima. With a background in operations and a sharp eye for systems, Mariel joined full-time in early 2019 to overhaul the website and lay the groundwork for growth.
“I knew that would be the first step—when you have your name out there, people are going to look you up,” said Mariel, now Operations Manager. “So I started there and then streamlined all of the processes that we currently have in place, along with policies and procedures to build that framework of what it is to be a construction company and be able to support more employees and customers better. The rest has been history.”
From three employees to forty, Western Earthworks has extended its reach throughout the Northeast. With projects stretching from Bangor, Maine, to Albany, New York, to Cape Cod and throughout Massachusetts, the company takes on everything from public infrastructure and private developments to utility solar installations.
Their services are wide-ranging: heavy highway construction, earthmoving, access roads for green energy projects, grading, retaining walls, drainage, hydroseeding, slope stabilization, and landscape construction. They build bridges and culverts. If it involves reshaping land or preparing it for infrastructure, Western Earthworks is in its element.
Ten years in, the company is celebrating a major milestone. But the journey hasn’t been easy. “We’ve grown over the years pretty quickly,” Mariel said. “It’s been a lot of hard work and built completely organically from the ground up.”
For Jack, that drive came from his own experience in the field. Before founding the company, he had worked as a heavy equipment salesman and across multiple facets of the construction industry. What he saw left him disillusioned. “I saw the producer side of the market, the sales end, parts, and the labor side,” he explained. “And, I saw owners that were disconnected from their workforce, employees that looked at their employment… as just a job. I looked at relationships with companies and their customers as being a little confrontational, and I wanted to do a better job at that. I wanted to do a better job for those who work for me and for those customers we work for.”
But he also knew time was running out.
“I didn’t feel like I had any chance left in my life and that I better hurry up and get to it, or else the opportunity and the time were going to pass me by.”
Jack believes the company’s success rests on two foundations: proactive problem-solving and investing in people. “We’re a problem-solving organization and we provide cost-effective solutions where we see issues,” he said. “We solve problems, and we’d never approach an issue where fault becomes the priority. Fault is never really important.”
Instead, the team focuses on identifying actionable solutions, agreeing on a path forward, and executing.
The second key is hiring intentionally and helping employees grow.
“We work with a young workforce and one of the biggest questions we ask in an interview is: ‘Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? What can we do to get you there, and how can you help us?’” Jack said.
“We work with a young workforce and one of the biggest questions we ask in an interview is: ‘Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? What can we do to get you there, and how can you help us?’”
This clarity of purpose extends into everything from annual bonuses and employee assistance programs to financial planning and work-life balance. The company strives to make construction more than just a job. “A lot of people were just showing up to a job in construction, but we look at it as a career,” said Mariel. “We instill pride in our employees about what they are going out and building every day… the infrastructure that their communities are relying on.”
Western Earthworks has also been an early adopter of technology. They were among the first in Western Massachusetts to implement GPS systems in their heavy equipment. That commitment to innovation caught the attention of equipment manufacturer Develon, who invited Jack to become their first ambassador; a partnership that would later evolve into a formal program.
Their project portfolio reflects both scale and complexity. One standout is a solar site in Williamsburg, Massachusetts. The job required blasting through 275,000 cubic yards of bedrock, carving a 38-foot-deep road into the hillside, and managing an earthmoving operation of 495,000 cubic yards of cut-and-fill—all in the middle of July, during a stretch that brought 32 inches of rain in just 28 days. “The drive and having to keep pushing through—that was a big deal for us,” Jack said.
The company is also under multi-year contracts with both the Department of Conservation and Recreation and MassDOT. The DCR work has included sensitive environmental and recreational sites, such as Bash Bish Falls, the largest waterfall in Massachusetts, and a historic tavern dating back to the 1700s. The MassDOT contract, meanwhile, focuses on emergency and scheduled drainage maintenance to prevent flooding.
Their green energy work began in 2018 and has since grown to nearly 40 solar sites across New England, totaling approximately 280 megawatts of civil infrastructure.
Western Earthworks is also committed to supporting women in construction. Mariel is a proud member of the National Association of Women in Construction, and the company recently hired its first female truck driver; an employee whose long-term goal is to start her own trucking business. “She said, ‘I want to be transparent, I want to own my own trucking business someday,’” Mariel recalled. “Jack and I looked at each other and said, ‘We want you here and we want to help you get there.’ That’s been a proud moment for me.”
Looking ahead, the company is preparing for the future with the same tenacity that defined its beginning. They are building a new facility to house offices, a shop, and a yard. They are focused on refining efficiencies week by week. And they are planning for the next generation. “A big part of our success is we are fully aware and accountable, looking into seeing where this labor crisis is headed,” said Jack. “All of the owners of these construction companies I had ever met were old and ready to retire and had no succession plan… And then you had younger guys out there that were just taking the risk.”
Jack was one of those younger guys who took the risk. Now, Western Earthworks is the proof of what’s possible when you bet on vision, values, and people.
“We’re grateful we don’t have a labor shortage here,” he said. “We’re committed to bringing in the next generation of what construction will be.”
