Most drainage contractors grow up in the business. Nate Ludvigson and Dustin Nelson didn't. With a borrowed plow and a cousin's backhoe, Nate started Ludvigson Tiling near Madison, Minnesota almost 20 years ago. Dustin launched 605 Tile & Drain in 2021 near Summit, South Dakota, jumping in with both feet after years of farming and seeing the difference tiling made on his own farm.
Host Jamie Duininck and Prinsco's Karl Guetter sit down with Nate and Dustin to have a tailgate talk about the sacrifices of starting a business from nothing, balancing farming with contracting, the hardest jobs left in the industry, and what they hope the next 10 years look like. Near the end of the conversation, Dustin turns the tables by asking Jamie and Karl a question– wondering how AI might change the relationship between contractors and manufacturers.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:30 Meet Nate and Dustin
01:24 How Nate got started
03:23 Dustin's path into drainage
05:38 Early sacrifices and challenges
07:48 Growing the farm and the business together
09:42 What Dustin would do differently
10:44 Why rural America is different
11:50 The hardest jobs left in the industry
12:47 Working in high water table conditions
13:24 Looking ahead 10 years
15:00 Turning the questions back on Karl and Jamie
15:53 How AI might change the industry
19:42 Closing thoughts
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