C and E Trenching has been digging dirt for 25 years

Curtis Wray can be pretty self-effacing

and humble.

When asked what he sees his company, C

and E Trenching LLC and himself doing in five years, he said he doesn’t know

how to do anything else.

His father, Everett Wray, bought the

business in 1994 — then called Deano’s Trenching — from Dean and Pam Gilmore.

“I think he bought this trenching

business to keep me out of trouble,” joked Curtis, now in his 40s. “He probably

didn’t think I could do well in college.”

Curtis graduated from Pasco High in

1994, a month after the Wray family took over the company.

Since then, Curtis has become the major

owner of a business that has grown at a pretty steady rate, including the

recent acquisition of another Tri-City company. C and E also built a new

3,300-square-foot office at 3815 N. Glade Road in Pasco last year.

C and E offers three major services:

industrial contracting, helping companies with a from-the-ground-up project or

to make improvements on an existing plant or warehouse; commercial excavation

services, such as developing raw land, building a new commercial building, or

helping improve a parking lot; and agricultural trenching services, like

working on a main irrigation line or system, ponds or stack yards.

Back when it started, the small-family

operation had a few employees. They’d dig trenches for the agriculture industry

around the Columbia Basin.

“I was part time up until 2000, then I

went to full time,” Curtis said.

Today, “we have 30 to 35 employees,”

depending on the time of the year.

Digging trenches has been in the family

blood for years.

“My grandpa was a dairy farmer back in

Kansas,” Curtis said. “In his 50s, he decided he wanted to start a backhoe

business. Why? That’s not something you do in your 50s. My dad helped him

some.”

By the early 1990s, Everett moved to

Pasco with his family and began managing a dairy farm before buying the

trenching company.

In 1997, C and E became licensed to

install septic systems in Benton and Franklin counties.

Last month, C and E completed the

purchase of Ray’s Twilight Septic Tank Co., changing the name to Ray’s Twilight

Septic Service.

“Ray’s was an opportunity that popped

up,” Curtis said. “Ray’s started in 1954. We heard in 1998 that he was selling

and we offered to purchase the company. But another man bought the company and

ran it until now.”

This time, C and E bought the small

company, which has one employee and a single truck.

“But we get calls frequently for septic

tank work,” Curtis said.

It’s another opportunity for

Curtis to work on another business.

“I haven’t ever really started a business,

but I really like refining them,” he said.

It’s about adapting and growing. Do the

job and don’t worry so much about success.

“The key to our success is we have very

slowly grown over the years, slow and steady,” Curtis said. “This area is great

to do business in. We started working for the local farmers. As their needs

grew, we grew. The majority of our work is government, roughly 60 percent.

Agriculture is maybe 20 percent. The rest is commercial.”

The company recently finished work on

the first phase of the Vista Field development project in Kennewick. Curtis

said most people may not know what his company does for a project, but he and

his employees get satisfaction as they drive by a job site knowing they played

a role.

“It’s great when you take it from raw

land and turn it into something,” Curtis said.

The work may not involve a lot of

housing subdivisions for C and E, but it does involve streets and farmland,

especially irrigation and main lines.

“But we really enjoy building ponds,”

he said, explaining that ponds are the kind that hold thousands of gallons of

irrigation water for farms. “We try to fit in where the customer needs us.”

Curtis’ job is to find those

customers.

“Part of my job is to go out and get

bids,” he said. “But three of our guys also do estimates. And we have three

guys who are project managers.”

He trusts his people to get the job

done.

“We have been blessed,” he said.

“We’re not an overnight sensation. We have a great team. We have profit

sharing. It’s the kind of philosophy we take in this business. Give a team a

stake in the business by sharing the profits. That’s a huge thing. Because I

want partners.”

He’s also expecting more partners down

the road.

“If we hit normal percentages (of

revenue), we’ll add a couple more employees this year,” he said.

And maybe Curtis didn’t spend much

time in college, but he’s found a way to be creative. He writes stories on the

company’s website under the title, “Latest Dirt.” They could be about an

interaction he had with a person he just met or longtime residents. But

whatever it is, it gives his company a more personal feel.

“This Basin has been good to our

family,” Curtis said. “I still talk to some of the original pioneers, although

there are not as many of them anymore.”

But in his way, Curtis feels he is

providing a valuable service to those pioneers, many of whom are customers.

“It is fun to add value to people’s

lives,” he said. “We’re not too proud to dig dirt. We have done it and we enjoy

it.”

That’s why the company proudly states

on its website: “Digging dirt since 1994 in Eastern Washington.”

C and E Trenching: 3813 N. Glade Road,

Pasco; candetrenching.com; 509-545-6940; Facebook.