Traer resident Mark Urban pictured recently alongside his excavator. Urban founded his own excavating company Urban X L.L.C. last December. Photo courtesy Mark Urban

Mark Urban of Traer has dug quite a few trenches through the years doing plumbing and HVAC work for various companies including his parents’, but with the founding of his own excavating company Urban X L.L.C. this past December, he’s ready to dig those trenches for his own customers.

“This is the first time I’m stepping out where it’s just me,” Urban said on a brutally cold day in early February as he sat down at the Traer Public Library for an interview about his new business. “[I received] a lot of experience growing up watching my dad and mom run the operation of their company.”

Urban’s parents founded Urban Heating & Air Conditioning in Cedar Falls. For years Urban worked with both his dad and his brother in the heating and cooling business.

More recently, Urban worked for Bergen Plumbing, Heating, & Cooling in Waterloo before spending the last three years apprenticing under Matt Bear with the Meskwaki Apprenticeship Program for HVAC.

“I’ve had a lot of different experiences over the years but now I want to concentrate in one area I like to work in,” Urban said.

Urban said those varied experiences have collectively given him a strong work ethic that he is more than ready to dedicate to the community he calls home.

“My goal is to build a company that has a great base with great local people,” Urban said. “Bring a local excavator to the area. There’s always concrete that needs digging up.”

Urban described a typical job for Urban X as concrete work, dirt work, building berms, digging trenches, posthole digging, gravel for a driveway, replacing a culvert, or even “stuff on their ‘honey-do’ list that they don’t want to do.”

Essentially anything his machines – a mini excavator and a skid loader – can do.

In early February during Urban’s sit-down with the Telegraph, he had tentatively sold a few projects and was about wrapped up on his very first project which he was excited about even in the subzero temperatures.

“I was very humbled to get that first job.”

Urban said he has a good, competitive rate for the area with the work behind it.

Goals for the company in 2022 include acquiring a building to establish a home base – right now Urban works out of his home office – and hiring a local journeyman but he said those are lofty goals and he’d be “very humbled to just break even.”

For now he’s taking the venture of being in business for yourself one day at a time and keeping it local.

“There’s plenty of work around the three [Tama, Grundy, Benton] counties right now,” Urban said.

To request a free quote from Mark Urban with Urban X L.L.C., call or text 319-215-0375 or message him via his business’s Facebook page, Urban X L.L.C, and use the ‘Book Now’ button.