While the Moss name has decades of utility experience and history behind it around the DFW area, Garrett Moss, President of Moss Utilities, still had to start from the ground up.

Garrett’s grandfather was a general superintendent at Cullum Construction in the 1980s. His grandfather worked for Cullum before him. As is common in construction, Garrett’s father followed in his dad’s footsteps and went to work in the utility world too. In 1989, Garrett’s father thought he could start his own business, and with the help of his father and brother, he launched Moss Construction.

While only starting with manholes, the new construction business saw a lot of success over the ’90s and early 2000s while Garrett was growing up. All Garrett knew was utilities like his father and his father before him, and he naturally assumed he’d one day take over the family business. Unfortunately, when the economic troubles of 2008 arrived, Moss Construction was ill-prepared for an enormous downturn, and the company eventually closed its doors.

While unfortunate for the family business, Garrett moved on and thought he’d pursue a career outside of construction after graduating from UT. Despite his best shot at running from utility construction, after working for a manufacturing business and mechanical contractor for a few years, he ended up right back where it all started -- at a local utility contractor in DFW. Garrett is now the 5th generation Moss to work in this business.

While working there, Garrett met Case Whitfield, who’s today the COO of Moss Utilities. After watching the business they worked for treat people poorly and make decisions they disagreed with, Garrett and Case figured they could start a utility business on their own. They quit abruptly and never looked back.

Before meeting one another, Case was involved in a long-time plumbing business with his dad, Curtis, who is also a massive part of the Moss success story. Even though Garrett was relatively inexperienced at the time, he figured he could run the business side of things. Meanwhile, Case leveraged his decades of experience in plumbing and utilities to run the field. Although Moss Construction was forced to shut its doors, the Moss name still had an extraordinary reputation in the DFW area, so they chose to run with the Moss name once again as Moss Utilities.

Aiming for a slow start, they surprisingly took off at almost an unsustainable rate thanks to the Moss reputation, their care of their people, and attention to customer service.

Instead of beating everyone up over production, they want everyone at Moss to genuinely enjoy working here. They believe if they take care of people -- by providing them with great equipment, safety training, and culture -- they’ll take care of their customers.

Even though the ride hasn’t always been a smooth one, Moss knows that taking care of their people and customers will win long term. Not only is it good business, but it’s the right thing to do.