After working with a variety of
contractors, Tom thought he could
perform the work better than many
others in the field. In 1955, he started his
own company. Nesbitt Contracting
opened with four employees and Tom’s
$15,000 investment. The company
purchased a portable crushing plant and
specialized in paving, curb, sidewalk,
sewer, and water projects.
Initially, Nesbitt Contracting worked
on small sub-divisions and improvement
districts in the East Valley. “We just grew
from there,” Tom recalled. “Once you
start acquiring equipment and have
people working for you, you have to keep
working.” Amazingly, the company only
experienced one day without work in its
first 35 years.
The company’s first big contract was
to provide the materials for a runway at
Williams Field in 1957. Working as a
sub-contractor
for
M.M.
Sundt
Construction, Nesbitt worked 24-hours a
day to finish the job.
For these jobs, Tom supplied his own
aggregate base but not the hot mix
asphalt or concrete. “I didn’t believe in
doing that then, which may have been a
mistake, although I did help other people
go into these businesses.”
Nesbitt Contracting worked in
Chandler, Mesa, Tempe, Phoenix, Safford,
and Prescott. The same year, they
overlaid all the roads in Payson. “I’ve been
on both sides,” he says, referring to his
experience as a City Engineer. “I was
taught engineering was doing the best job
for the least amount of money.”
While Tom kept the Valley projects
going, highway jobs from Douglas to the
Navajo tribal lands, from Ehrenberg to
Springerville, became part of the
company’s work in the 1960s. “I know
where every gravel pit in the state is,”
Tom commented in 1990. ”When I drive
the highways, I’m always comparing the
ones we did with everyone else’s.”
Tom had a unique management style,
traveling up to 70,000 miles yearly to
check on his company’s projects. At one
time, he flew a plane to visit the jobsites.
“No matter how big a business you have,
if management isn’t interested in what’s
going on at the job, it isn’t going to work.
You’ve got to see it. Even today, I can
drive through a job and quickly tell what
needs to be done.”
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