015 - Tom Gardocki
So Many Ways to Dig a Hole
A profile of Tom Gardocki, co-owner, New Era Excavation
Portrait of Tom Gardocki in Las Vegas, Nevada at ConExpo 2026. Shot on 35mm Kodak Tri-X 400 film with Leica R6.2.
Tom Gardocki has been around this work since he was ten years old.
"My parents owned a landscaping business for about 45 years. So I worked for them every summer since I was 10. And then they sold the business a couple years ago and I started my company 11 years ago. So I kind of just, family, grew up in it."
Ask him if he ever considered doing anything else and there's no hesitation in the answer, and no story behind it either.
"I didn't really ever consider doing anything else. I just like being outside every day. I like being in the dirt. I like running equipment. So it's just really what I like doing. And I don't really think I want to do anything else."
Pressed on why, on what it is about the work that holds him, he goes to the variety.
"I really just like the work. Every job is different. Even if it's the same task, but you're at a different job site, it could be totally different. So every day's different. Every day's a challenge. Always trying to, especially as an owner, figure things out, adapt, overcome, keep the guys moving, figure out what we can do when weather plays a role in our work or unknowns. It's construction. It's always different. It's always changing. It's always evolving. And I think that's what keeps me interested in it."
The Dirt Ninja
There is a second thing Tom does, and a lot of people in this industry know him for it before they know anything about his company.
"I'm also The Dirt Ninja on social media."
He's been at it a long time.
"It's just a social media that I've been doing since 2010. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and kind of just show off our job sites. It's been a big benefit to our work, getting jobs. I get to travel all over the world and the country for it, forming relationships with other businesses in town and global companies. So it's been a pretty cool experience."
Harder Than It Looks
So ask a man who has spent fifteen years showing people the work what he knows now that he didn't know when he started, and the answer is about what the showing leaves out.
"What I know now is that running a business is a lot harder than it looks. There's just a lot of different things to it, everything from dealing with customers, employees, equipment breakdowns. There's a lot to it. Being on social media a lot, everything can look a lot better than it really is in real life with a lot of these companies. And at a trade show like this [ConExpo], you talk to other owners and everybody has the same problems. So it's tough. It's a tough industry. I don't know. I think it's rewarding."
No Matter What
That's the honest version. It isn't a complaint, and he doesn't leave it sitting there. Asked how he keeps his head up when the work gets hard, he lands on something he says doesn't read on the outside.
"I think I'm a competitive person by nature. Might not show very well, but I really am inside. And I'm just somebody that says we're just going to get this done no matter what. There's always a way to do it. Whether it's completely changing the plan or doing it a different day or something like that, there's always something that can be done to overcome the problem."
Asked what the work demands of a person, he gives the same trait a different name.
"I think it demands your ability to change and adapt. I think that's really what it comes down to. If you want to be successful, you can't just have one outlook on things. You have to be able to look at different ways of doing things, going about things different ways that maybe you haven't ever done before or maybe not be the industry norm, but maybe you have a unique project that needs to be taken care of. I just think that you got to be resilient, I think, and you've got to not give up. I think that's a big part of it. You can have some really challenging days for sure. But there's always tomorrow, and [you can] change what you're doing, come up with a different way of doing it, and usually you can get it done."
Covered Up
For a man with an audience built on showing the work, the thing he's proudest of is the part nobody gets to see.
"I'm most proud about the jobs that we get to do. Some of the clients that we work for and really seeing that finished product for the customer. You might not always see all the work that we do because a lot of it's underground and it gets buried and covered up. But to know that you are part of the project and be able to drive around with your family and say, look at a house or a little road or a little commercial job that we've done in the past and say, 'we did that, we built that, we helped with that.' So I think that's what I enjoy the most, is I get to see, for the most part, the end product of what we did. And I think that's very rewarding."
Ask him how he feels about being a blue collar person, and he takes the question somewhere bigger than himself.
"How do I feel about being blue collar person? I don't think I've ever been asked that question before. I love it personally. Like I said, I like the work. I think we sometimes get a bad rap, but I think a lot of people forget the work that we do. I think it's becoming more prevalent in the last couple years with the state of US infrastructure and all those things that need to be replaced or updated. And I think the blue collar world, whether it be in construction or plumbing or electrical or anything, I think those fields are becoming more widely known and accepted and people are getting more interested in it. I also think it'll probably be one of the last fields to be totally automated. So I think more people are maybe looking at that. But yeah, I'm very proud to be a blue collar worker and do the work."
A Level Head
The work has shaped him, and when he traces how, it doesn't stop at the job site.
"I think dealing with all the challenges that we face, and if you are the type of person that can overcome and think outside the box and to come up with solutions to these problems, at least for me, it's shaped me into how I am now with dealing with anything. I have two young kids and a wife and we have issues and problems, kids and everything that happens every day. I think in this industry, if you want to be a leader, you have to have a pretty level head and not get maybe too excited in one way or in one direction or the other when things happen. And I think that's translated into my personal life with my family. When you face adversity at home, you stay a nice steady course. I think that's helped a lot."
So Many Ways to Dig a Hole
Ask Tom his favorite thing about the industry and he names two. The first is the reason he went out on his own in the first place, and he's honest that it hasn't fully survived the growth.
"Number one is I love running equipment. That's why I started my own business, and so I could be in equipment more. Doesn't always happen now that we're growing."
The second is the one that took a kid who never considered doing anything else and put him on the other side of the world watching people do the same thing he does.
"And then I like meeting other people in the industry and either locally or at a show like this [ConExpo] across the country and just talking to them and seeing the problems they have or how they go about even doing certain things. And it's amazing to me, especially, I traveled to Japan and Sweden with some of these manufacturers to see facilities and talking to other customers that they bring in or they take us to see customers in those countries and see how they go about tasks. And it's amazing to me that digging a hole can happen in so many different forms or different ways of doing it all across the world and across the country."
"And it's eye opening and it's very interesting to learn all that. So for me, just learning is, I love it. Always trying to be better."
Tom found his work early and never went looking for anything else. What he found instead was that the work kept getting wider. Different job sites, different owners carrying the same problems, different countries doing the same task a way he'd never seen. He's still digging holes in New Hampshire. He just knows now how many ways there are to do it.
Tom Gardocki is co-owner of New Era Excavation, based in Londonderry, New Hampshire.
