010 - Shay Stutsman

The Sandbox Just Got Bigger

A profile of Shay Stutsman, third generation owner, Stutsman-Gerbaz Earth Moving

Portrait of Shay Stutsman in Las Vegas, Nevada at ConExpo 2026. Shot on 35mm Kodak Tri-X 400 film with Leica R6.2.

Some people find their way into this work. Shay Stutsman was born into it.

"I was born into construction. I grew up in the back of a 955 Cat trackloader with my dad, head bouncing around on all the metal and the glass."

He got to run his first excavator at three years old. But when he was old enough to actually go to work, he started where everyone starts.

"Started at the bottom, started working with a shovel. Didn't take long to get out of that. Started running machines, being an operator."

For Shay, none of this was a career decision. It was the only life he knew, and the only one he ever wanted.

"For me, it was a way of life. It's the only thing I ever wanted to do. I feel super fortunate. I'm like a giant kid in a huge sandbox. The only thing different is my sandbox and Tonka toys just got bigger."

Entrusted

The sandbox has a history. Stutsman-Gerbaz Earth Moving was started in 1960 by Shay's grandfather and his brother-in-law, two families and one name, out of Aspen, Colorado. Shay is the third generation. He went full-time after college, worked his way up to superintendent, and in 2021 he bought his family out.

"[I'm] just proud to continue on a 66-year legacy that my family has entrusted with me."

Buying the company was the moment the kid in the sandbox became the man responsible for it. Ask him what he knows now that he didn't when he started, and the answer comes fast.

"How hard it was going to be. Everybody wants to be in charge. Everybody wants to be a superintendent. Everyone wants to be a project manager. And it's really hard. The days are long, but that's also the beauty of it. It doesn't matter what comes up, we can handle whatever it is. So it's the good and the bad of it."

The Right Team

Most days now, he isn't the one on the shovel or in the machine. Ask where the satisfaction comes from in that role, and it isn't about the seat time. It's about assembling the pieces.

"In this role now, it comes from putting the right team together, putting the right equipment together to do the job."

The challenge is the part he loves. Every job is a new problem, and for Shay the problem is the point.

"Every day is a challenge. What's going to be the problem today? How are we going to solve for that problem? And then that feeling of accomplishment once you've solved those problems, once you've built a team and you've accomplished something together."

What makes that scale unusual is where they do it. Stutsman-Gerbaz is based in Aspen, one of the wealthiest towns in the country, where high-end residential work runs bigger and more complex than most small companies ever take on. The outfit is small. The projects are not.

"We're entrusted with massive challenges, challenges that most companies our size wouldn't really get the opportunity to do. Really being able to provide successful projects for our clients gives me and my team a real strong sense of accomplishment. And I don't think that can ever be recreated."

And when a hard one is finally finished, he lands the feeling in his own words.

"Once you're done, you turn around and you look back, you're like, 'Holy shit, we did that. We made this. We got done.' And all of that stress, all of that pain was all worth it."

What does that feel like?

"It feels like pride. It feels like an accomplishment. 'I did this. We did this.' And that's the beauty, is working with a team, doing something together and having your own individual part of that team."

1000% the People

Ask Shay his favorite part of the work and he doesn't hesitate, and he doesn't say the machines, or the projects.

"My most favorite, 1000%, is the people. The people that you get to meet in this industry are some of the most genuine, some of the most honest, some of the just best humans you could possibly interact with."

The people he hires, he chooses for one thing above the rest.

"I always look for people who care deeply. Who have passion, who have drive, who have the fortitude to want to make the industry better. Being able to surround yourself with people that are better than you at what you do, and I get to learn from them."

The Default

The work they do is essential, and Shay knows it. When a town calls in the middle of the night, they go.

"Towns can call us if there's a fire, emergency, whatever it needs to be, a broken waterline in the middle of the night. We respond to that, and people are grateful when it gets fixed."

That kind of work matters. But Shay has come to notice that mattering and being respected aren't always the same thing. A few years ago, he took his whole executive team to Switzerland to see how the work gets done over there. They came back with plenty. The thing that stayed with him most wasn't in the methods or the machines. It was in how the work is regarded.

"The workers over there really had a sense of pride, a sense of accomplishment. And even from a societal perspective, it seemed that they were a lot more respected over there. Not that they're not respected here, but I feel like it's a little bit different."

Back home, he says, the trades have spent too long being sold short.

"Construction has been the default for a lot of people for a lot of years. 'If you don't know what to do, or you can't do anything else, go to construction.' It's just really not true. There's so much opportunity in this business."

That's the one thing he'd change if he could change anything. Not the pay, not the hours, but the story people tell about the work.

"This is more than a job. It can be a career. If you really take the opportunity to invest in it, you can be very, very successful in this industry, with a lot of hard work, with a lot of grit, with a good attitude."

Ask him how he feels about being a blue collar person, and the giant kid in the bigger sandbox doesn't hedge.

"I love being a blue collar person. Wouldn't want to be anybody else. It's hard work, but it's rewarding work. And I don't think there's any other way that you can get the reward that you do in any other industry."

Sixty-six years, three generations, one name that still carries both families that built it. Shay Stutsman started out as a kid riding in the back of that trackloader. Now the company is his, and he's got a whole crew riding with him.

Shay Stutsman is the third generation owner of Stutsman-Gerbaz Earth Moving, based in Aspen, Colorado.