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An Old Lunch Pail Reminds This Founder to Embrace the Tough Times Working through setbacks and overcoming hurdles sometimes yield the greatest lessons.

By Jason Minick

This story appears in the July 2020 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

Minick Photographer

I grew up in the 1970s in a small town in central Pennsylvania and spent a lot of time at my grandparents' house, a railroad-style home just down the street from my parents. My grandfather, Charles, would come home from a long day's work, covered in dirt and oil, and share a sugary sip of coffee from a thermos he kept in a banged-up aluminum lunch pail.

My grandfather was an entrepreneur. After serving in WWII as a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers for the U.S. Army Reserve, overseeing construction projects across France and Germany, he returned home and realized there was a need for his skill set in the local community. He started his own custom grading and excavation business and got to work. And the work was hard.

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