SPOTLIGHT JEFF SALMON / SALMON BROS., INC. MEMBER

Salmon Bros., Inc. has been around a long time. How long? Long enough that the crew worked on building New Jersey’s first concrete highway, route 57 in Warren County. Since its launch by Herbert King Salmon and his brother Jerre in 1896, Salmon Brothers has been responsible for the construction of several key New Jersey infrastructures. Among other projects, the company constructed the Morristown Sewer Plant in 1910, built the Landing Road bridge over the Morris Canal and railroad for $12,000 around 1910, and built route 206 (then route 31) from Netcong to Andover in 1928.

And in all those years, the company has remained a family business. From Herbert and Jerre, the business passed to Herbert King Salmon Jr., Bill Salmon, and Jerre Riggs, and then to Tom Salmon, Tim Salmon, Jeff Salmon Sr., Jetur Riggs, and Jerre Riggs Jr. These subsequent generations expanded the company’s services from mostly road building to golf course construction. In the 1960s, Salmon Brothers built Bowling Green Golf Course in Oak Ridge, and did site work for Crystal Springs Golf Course in the late 1980s. Today, the company does bridge and dam work, pond dredging, stormwater management, and snow removal.

Jeff Salmon Jr. is now the fourth genera tion to be involved in the family business. He un officially began working for the company when he was 12, visiting job sites and running a backhoe, or working around the shop. At 18, he officially made the payroll as a labor and equipment operator before moving to the office in his early 20s. Today, Salmon does the estimating, project management, and site supervision for the company, working alongside his dad, Jeff Sr., and his uncle Tom, who is semi-retired. (And at 82, is still a great bowler.)

Recent projects include a dredge and dam repair for Colonial Park in Somerset County, various culvert replacements for Morris County, and an electrical improvement project for a veterans’ affairs hospital in Salisbury, N.C. When paper company Compac Corporation experienced flooding issues, Salmon Brothers removed the dam behind Compac’s factory to stop the problem.

Salmon believes having more than 120 years of experience in the industry is what sets the company apart from others. While the older generation of Salmons are mostly retired, they still can usually be found around the office and are a great sounding board for ideas, as they’ve encountered most situations that come up when running a business. But in recent years, NJLICA has also played a role in the success of Salmon Brothers.

“Not only do I enjoy networking with companies we typically wouldn’t deal with, but ever since they’ve started the apprenticeship program, that’s been a big help to us to be able to continue to do public work,” he says.

But for Salmon, the most important aspect of the business is the family that has run it for the past 120 years.

“That older generation was very big on handshake agreements meaning as much as signed contracts do,” Salmon says. “They really have taught me the importance of that relationship with customers. I love that I’m carrying on the family tradition.”

Kelley Freund is a freelance writer based in Virginia.

Photos previous page:

Top photos, l-r: oiling a roadway in the early 1900s; snow removal in the early days of Salmon Bros., Inc; a dragline crane on a jobsite.

Photos t-b, l-r: Herbert King Salmon; Herbert King Salmon Jr.; a fleet of company trucks; the crew on a Sussex County bridge; culvert work.

Top right photo: construction of St. Michael's Church in Netcong.

Photos this page: Top left: a CAT D8.

Bottom l-r: Christmas float; culvert work

Top right: Jeff Salmon and family

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