It seems a familiar story, one reminiscent of Northwest corporate powerhouses from Microsoft to Russell Investments.

But in this case the subject is a small excavation company, Rickabaugh Pentecost Development.

The company, known as RPD, has grown from two guys working out of a house to a 45-employee company tackling some of the area’s largest housing developments.

Along the way co-owners Ben Pentecost and Marc Rickabaugh, both 27, have created an unusual company culture focused on investing in employees. To them, happy people are better employees and those employees do work that has earned RPD a reputation for quality and professionalism in their field.

Pentecost is being honored for his work this month with the University of Washington Tacoma’s Milgard School of Business Small Business Leader of the Year award.

SUNDAY SUITS AND A PLAN

Pentecost and Rickabaugh have known each other since their freshman year at Tacoma Baptist High School.

They each have some background in construction. Pentecost started washing dump trucks as a teenager. And Rickabaugh grew up working for his father’s construction company.

Their friendship segued into a business partnership when the pair

found themselves working for the same excavation company in 2001.

Pentecost had spent a year at Biola University in Southern California – he studied business, but left school after realizing it wasn’t for him.

Rickabaugh, too, attended Pacific Lutheran University but found himself coming back to his construction roots after a year of school.

The two found themselves laying pipe and building roads together for another employer. They talked about starting their own business.

The challenge of running a company appealed to them, Pentecost said. And Rickabaugh recalled thinking they could “do something they both loved to do, be good at and help people – both customers and the people we hire,” he said.

The pair gave their notice, and then went on the hunt for funds to get their dream off the ground. Specifically they needed a $35,000 line of credit to help them buy a small excavation company.

Pentecost and Rickabaugh met every morning for two weeks, hatching a business plan to present to the bank.

“It was like a high school project – we had a business plan, but it was awful,” Pentecost said. “We just put our Sunday suits on and went into the bank.”

They got the loan. They’ve since lost the original business plan, but Pentecost said the vision has stayed the same.

“We want to grow as big as we can, as long as the quality and culture of the company stay the same,” Pentecost said.

RPD started in Rickabaugh’s basement. The men were 21 years old. They had two huge desks that took up most of the 190-square-foot office.

“There wasn’t much room to move around,” Rickabaugh said.

They spent the first year scrapping together any work they could find. The company’s first job was a sewer hookup for a single-family home in Puyallup.

RPD faced a few hurdles, particularly in the youth of its owners.

In an industry that values experience and name recognition, some raised their eyebrows at the two 20-somethings heading the excavation company.

Marc’s father, Jon Rickabaugh, ran his own construction business for 20 years before coming to work for RPD as the company’s general manager and a father figure of sorts to many employees, who call him Pappy.

Jon Rickabaugh said that in the early days of RPD his phone would ring after his son and Pentecost bid for a job.

“Some of the old-timers would call and ask, ‘Can they really do it?’” Jon Rickabaugh said.

Turns out, they could.

‘DON’T TELL THE OLD MAN’

In its first four years, RPD grew from one employee to more than 45.

The co-owners found their strengths complemented each other. Pentecost has a knack for bidding and is the “people person,” the face of RPD, Rickabaugh says.

Rickabaugh’s passion is the company’s operations. He spends most of his days on job sites.

Both are driven to succeed. The company grew at a furious pace.

The co-owners were in the office morning and night. In the first years, they spent the days working side by side with the people they hired.

They pushed the limits of the company at every level from the number of people they needed to do a job to the number of jobs RPD could do.

Jon Rickabaugh said the co-owners’ decisions made him nervous at times. He’d always been conservative with his own company, choosing to keep it small.

“If they had taken two-thirds of my advice they probably wouldn’t have grown at that rate,” Jon Rickabaugh said. “They have insulated me from a lot of those decisions. … It was kind of like, ‘Don’t tell the old man. He’ll have a heart attack if he knows what we are doing.’”

The co-owners wanted to instill confidence in their new customers.

In the first year, that meant putting magnets with the company’s logo on the side of rented trucks and equipment so RPD appeared to own it.

“It was four years of living on the edge constantly,” Pentecost said. “The only reason it worked was because we didn’t know what we were doing.”

‘SERVANT LEADERS’

Pentecost and Rickabaugh aren’t big on titles – their business cards just note their names. Pentecost believes in being a “servant leader,” a philosophy in which leaders see themselves as stewards of an organization’s resources and aim to serve the company by making decisions that benefit employees.

Both men deflect any praise almost immediately, crediting their success to luck, “the man upstairs,” and most often – “the guys.”

That would be their employees. When the pair talks about their goals for the company – at the start and now – employees come up first.

“We felt like we could offer something to help people, our core purpose is investing in people,” Rickabaugh said.

That investing shows in small ways. They throw Christmas parties and take the foremen on hunting trips. They send their staff on retreats to learn team building and better communication.

And then there’s the big things: RPD takes risks on hiring people who, Pentecost says, “have been thrown by the wayside.”

“They might be struggling to find their passion,” he said, adding that most employees succeed once they get into the right position for them to succeed in.

RPD evaluates every employee – from manual laborers to managers – every six months. They encourage older employees to mentor the younger ones. And they promote almost exclusively from within.

The culture surprises people, especially those used to working in the rough and tough construction world.

“Even our own guys joke about it – they’ll say, ‘As long as we don’t have to sit in a circle and hold hands,’” Rickabaugh said. “We are not out there singing ‘Kumbaya,’ but this is a group of guys that cares about each other and that absolutely goes against the grain.”

It also keeps people around. The company estimates its employee turnover is 4 percent.

Kye VanHoof started at RPD five years ago. He took a step down from being a foreman at his previous job to laying pipe and laboring for Pentecost and Rickabaugh.

“I thought it was a haywire outfit at first,” VanHoof said. “But I liked working for Ben and Marc. They had a good attitude.”

VanHoof, now a superintendent, is a self-proclaimed “hard-ass,” but even he’s bought into RPD’s culture.

There’s little tolerance for drama or talking bad about fellow employees. VanHoof has even cut down on his cussing.

“It throws guys for a loop at the beginning,” VanHoof said. “But all they want is for guys to get along and make them better people – they don’t preach to you.”

And they do support each other.

Last month, an RPD employee was killed in a car accident on the way home from work. Pentecost and Rickabaugh flew back from a trip early when they heard the news.

The company shut down for a day to talk and grieve the loss of a friend. Employees then pitched in to help the surviving family and set up a memorial fund for the man’s son.

Stuff like that sticks with VanHoof.

“As long as they don’t go bankrupt, I’ll be there forever,” he said.

THE QUALITY

The company now counts most of the region’s major developers as clients. Its work stretches from Interstate 90 to Centralia.

The nation might be in the midst of an economic downturn, but RPD hasn’t noticed. The work keeps flowing in.

Greg Zetterberg, vice president of Zetterberg Quality Homes, hired RPD to work on two of its housing developments.

He noted the company’s professionalism. In the dirt industry, many bids come in handwritten on pieces of paper. RPD provides an itemized list and once on a project, they keep it under control.

On one project, RPD came in under budget and credited the developer the difference.

“They don’t just build a project, they manage it. There’s a big difference,” Zetterberg said.

And even customers notice something unique about the fledgling excavation company now coming into its own.

“Deep down inside, everybody wants to know there’s something deeper than just doing work and making money,” Zetterberg said. “Deep down you have to respect (RPD) because of the level they take that to.”

Kelly Kearsley: 253-597-8573

Ben Pentecost

Award: Small Business Leader of the Year

Company: Rickabaugh Pentecost Development

in Spanaway

Title: Co-owner with Marc Rickabaugh

Business: Excavation and utility contractor

Founded: 2002

Employees: About 45

Age: 27

Family: Pentecost is married with two sons. Business leadership award winners

The Milgard School of Business at the University of Washington Tacoma has named three recipients of its seventh annual Business Leadership Awards. This year the school will honor the Nonprofit Leader of the Year, Business Leader of the Year and Small-Business Leader of the Year. The Sunday business section of The News Tribune is profiling the winners.

April 13: George Cargill, chairman of the board of the United Service Organizations of Puget Sound

Today: Ben Pentecost, co-owner of Rickabaugh Pentecost Development LLC

April 27: Michael A. Tucci, chairman of the board of Tucci & Sons