Chapter 2 - Caleb Was Supposed to Leave the Family Business Before Emma Was Born
Caleb Hartman was thirty-three when he died.
He had worked for Hartman Excavation & Sitework since he was nineteen.
His father, Robert, started the company with:
one used excavator,
one dump truck,
and the belief that every problem in Ohio could eventually be solved with diesel equipment.
By the time I met Caleb, the company had:
twenty-seven employees,
eight excavation crews,
municipal contracts,
commercial sitework,
a small concrete division.
Robert was still technically president.
Caleb’s older brother, Drew, ran operations.
Caleb handled:
estimating,
field coordination,
safety documentation,
project scheduling.
Their mother, Marianne, did bookkeeping and payroll.
It was a family business in the truest and worst sense.
No one completely left work.
Christmas dinner included:
equipment leases.
Birthdays included:
receivables.
Arguments started at jobsites and ended in kitchens.
When Caleb and I started dating, I thought it was charming.
Everybody knew everyone.
Employees attended:
weddings,
funerals,
graduations.
Then Robert died from pancreatic cancer.
He was sixty-three.
The company changed almost immediately.
Robert had been the one person Drew listened to when somebody said:
slow down.
After his death, Drew became:
president,
majority shareholder,
the person signing most operational decisions.
Caleb received a thirty percent interest through their father’s estate.
Marianne retained fifteen.
Drew held fifty-five.
On paper, reasonable.
Emotionally?
Drew treated majority ownership like:
Dad chose me.
Caleb treated his thirty percent like:
I’m not your employee.
The tension worsened after I became pregnant.
Caleb wanted out of day-to-day field work.
Not because he hated the business.
Because we were having a baby.
He had already missed:
two prenatal appointments,
one weekend trip,
most of my birthday dinner
because something broke or somebody quit.
One night, he said:
“I don’t want Emma thinking Dad lives in a truck.”
I laughed.
Then:
“You don’t even know it’s Emma yet.”
We had not officially chosen the name.
He put his hand on my stomach.
“She looks like an Emma.”
“You’re looking at my stomach.”
“Exactly.”
He planned to step back after one final commercial project.
That project was Westover Commons, a forty-two-unit townhome development.
His job was supposed to finish six weeks before my due date.
Instead, schedule slipped.
Rain.
Utility conflicts.
A subcontractor problem.
Then Drew started pushing:
overtime.
Faster excavation.
Shorter pauses between phases.
Caleb hated it.
I knew that.
May you like
What I did not understand was how serious the fights had become.
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