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July 21 2019
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Vol. IV • No. 15
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Hettinger Comes Out of Retirement, Builds New Company Some folks count the days until they’re able to retire, while others retire and then count the days until they can go back to work again. Mark Hettinger, co-owner of M&G Contractors of New Braunfels, Texas, fits firmly into the second category. After selling a company that he founded in Gillette, Wyo., and grew to be one of the largest pipeline contractors in the west, Hettinger planned to do what most people would — retire and move south. He and his wife chose the San Antonio area as their retirement destination, but the retirement was short lived. “I just couldn’t do it,” Hettinger said. “I couldn’t stay home every day, and I didn’t want to play golf.”
Mark Hettinger (L) has found new life in Texas after selling his successful Wyoming pipeline company, Hettinger Welding (later Hettinger LLC). Hettinger said Chris May (R) and the entire Texas VermeerLouisiana team have been a huge asset for his new company, M&G Contractors.
Boredom soon set in and he decided to start all over. Fast forward just a couple of years: Hettinger and partner Gary Harlow run an excavation and pipeline company that is a force to be reckoned with in the Austin and San Antonio markets. Hettinger has chosen to build his new company around the Vermeer brand, with help from Vermeer Texas-Louisiana, the local dealer for the trenching/drilling line. M&G has 40 employees and continues to grow. Time will tell whether M&G reaches the heights of Hettinger’s former company in Wyoming which had 1,000 employees and $200 million in annual revenues at its peak. see HETTINGER page 16
Vermeer D40x55DR Solves Big Problem When the discovery of flint rock threatened a gas pipeline project outside of San Antonio, Texas, M&G Contractors turned to Vermeer’s D40x55DR S3 Navigator horizontal directional drill (HDD) to complete the job. “We were running a month past due,” recalled Mark Hettinger, M&G president. “The flint rock just under the surface was slowing us down and ripping up teeth on our Vermeer T855 trencher at a very expensive rate.” After the rock chewed up $3000 worth of teeth in about five minutes, the contractor looked at options. They had drilled other portions — primarily under huge oak trees — of the 4-mi. line with the Vermeer D60x90 directional drill, but the flint, nearly as hard as granite, created problems with steering for the machine. “Chris May of Vermeer Texas-Louisiana had been telling
me that their new dual rod D40x55DR would perform well in this type of environment, so I asked him to bring one out,” Hettinger said. “The machine did exactly what he said it would do, so it will help get us back on schedule.” On one 500-ft. stretch through granite, Hettinger figured it would have taken eight days trenching and $20,000 worth of teeth. The D40x55DR drilled the distance in about 10 hours. “The D40x55DR features dual rod technology that uses an inner rod to provide torque to the drill bit, while the outer rod offers steering capability and rotational torque for reaming,” said May. “We’ve seen it perform well in a variety of conditions.” Although about 75 percent of the 4-mi. line was cut with the Vermeer T855, the remainder had to be drilled, either due to the trees or because of the flint. see ROCK page 16
Vermeer’s D40x55DR horizontal drill was the solution to hard flint rock in the Texas Hill Country.
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