We're Going to Be Okay
A profile of Pat Allen, Operator, Foreman, New Era Excavation
Portrait of Pat Allen in Las Vegas, Nevada at ConExpo 2026. Shot on 35mm Kodak Tri-X 400 film with Leica R6.2.
Pat Allen has been in construction for 20 years, since he was 18. But it started years before that, back when he was a kid tagging along with his dad.
"Well, my dad's a carpenter. He would drag me along to his jobs doing carpentry. And I'd just be looking out the windows, looking at the excavators all day, all day long. So when I had the chance to get away from him, because he yelled at me too much, I went and started to labor for an excavation company and worked my way up."
Today Pat is an operator and foreman at New Era Excavation, and he's from Canterbury, New Hampshire. The way he describes the job is simpler than the title.
"I run equipment, run jobs, help do whatever. Labor, shovel, it doesn't matter. I do anything."
Having Fun Now
The road to where he is hasn't always been smooth.
"It's been challenging, parts. It's not always easy, but got myself at this point, pretty good place in a good company. Things are good. We're having fun now."
For Pat, having fun at this point in his career comes down to the crew.
"There's still challenges and stressful days, but just having a group of guys I can work with and we're getting stuff done, but we're still having fun doing it, joking, shitting on each other, you know, whatever. Just kind of ball busting and going. But the guys that I work with, there isn't a single one that wouldn't be available if I said, 'Hey, we got to work until 7 tonight to get this done.' It's fun to have people that are equally minded."
Building a crew like that, he says, is partly out of anyone's control.
"I think some of it is just sheer luck. Just sheer having the right people available. And then some of it is just kind of within the company showing the new people how we operate and hopefully they kind of go into that the same way. But sometimes it doesn't work out and that person doesn't fit in the group. As long as you can get a good fit and they see what everybody else is putting in, you can get a lot of work done with a small amount of people, because we tend to run pretty lean."
A Pile of Rocks
What Pat is most proud of comes down to the before and after.
"Just being able to look back at a project and know that we started with a pile of rocks or trees and woods or whatever it is and then going, 'Oh look, that's a finished job. It's what the customer wanted.'"
And the path that got him here, the decisions and the years of work? Pat has his own way of looking at it.
"I don't really know if it's changed me. It's more like built me. I am who I am today because of the path that we've gone down with decisions I've made. Bad decisions, good decisions. That's how we got built, right?"
Everything Has to Be Built
Pat has a request for anyone who's ever been stuck behind a lane closure.
"I wish people would look as they're driving down the road, maybe not be as upset when there's road construction going on, because we're just trying to make things better for you guys. And most of the time we're not the ones making the decisions to shut down that lane of traffic on the day you need to go to the doctor. So it's just, look at us like, 'Hey, they're doing what they need to get done to make our lives easy.'"
When he thinks about the work building the community around him, it comes back to one idea.
"There's a great sense of pride in it. If you look around anywhere, it has to be built first. We're not sleeping in caves. We're in houses, there's sewer, there's... everything needs to be built... Every thing has to be built, serviced, maintained, and then rebuilt."
The People
Of everything in the industry, Pat's favorite thing is easy to name.
"The people. The people you meet. Meeting people out on the jobs and talking and telling war stories and telling, 'Oh, look, this happened here. Oh yeah, that guy did that.' And then you get to come out to Vegas and do this show [ConExpo] and talk to more people from all over the country. And no matter how differently you do your dirt work in your area, it's all the same at the end of the day."
And he's clear about how much it matters.
"You can be the best operator in the world, but if you can't work with the people around you, you're useless. You can't do this job without talking to people. Hopefully you enjoy the people you're working with."
We're Going to Be Okay
How does Pat feel about being a blue collar person?
"I love it. I love it."
But he remembers when he wasn't so sure.
"When I was younger, all my friends were going to college, getting their degrees. I was a little nervous about it. You know, 'Am I going to be in a shibby shack?' But after everybody got out, I realized some of the degrees were just garbage. Now they have loans on stuff that they're not even doing, or jobs that don't pay anything near as much as they were told they would make. And I started building my career while they were a couple years behind me."
At some point, the worry went away.
"It's a good feeling to just know that at a certain point, and there's no exact time I knew, but I remember kind of sitting down and being like, 'Okay, we're going to be okay. We got a house, we got family, we got decent vehicles. Bills aren't crazy. Bills are figured out. We're going to be okay.'"
It's Just Work
For anyone steering clear of construction because of the stigma, Pat keeps it short.
"Can't be a chicken shit. There's a lot of drama [in construction]. There's no lie, there's drama. My wife says it all the time, 'This could be a drama. It could be a Bravo show.' But there's nothing to worry about. It's just construction. Or any other blue collar job, but it's just, it's work. Enjoy it."
Pat Allen is an Operator and Foreman at New Era Excavation, based in Canterbury, New Hampshire..
