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If you run a horizontal directional drilling crew, you didn't get into this business because you love invoicing. You got into it because you're good at what happens underground — reading soil conditions, threading a bore under a highway, hitting depth and grade without a single utility strike. That's the craft. That's what makes a drilling company valuable. But somewhere along the way, most HDD contractors end up running two businesses at once: a drilling company, and an offi

Few construction topics have generated as much local heat in 2026 as data centers. Town hall meetings that used to draw a handful of residents are now standing-room-only. Zoning votes that would normally pass quietly are getting pushed back, tabled, or paused outright. And the debate isn't confined to any one region or political lean — it's showing up in Texas, New York, Michigan, Kansas, North Carolina, and dozens of places in between. This piece isn't about whether data cen

Rural broadband has been a policy talking point for years. In 2026, it's finally becoming a construction schedule. The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program — the largest federal broadband investment in U.S. history — is moving out of the planning phase and into the ground, and most of that ground is rural. For HDD crews, underground utility contractors, and the subcontractors who support them, this is the biggest multi-year construction opportunity the indu

If you run drilling crews, manage subcontractors, or bid fiber and utility work for a living, 2026 has been a loud year in Washington. Money is finally starting to move on the country's biggest broadband program, federal rules around pole access just changed, permitting law took its biggest hit in decades, and material costs are swinging on tariff news almost monthly. None of it happens on a job site, but all of it eventually shows up in your bid sheet, your schedule, or your