Thomas F. “Tom” Siebert II As a high school and college student raised in Rochester, N.Y., Tom spent summers working for the family business, R.C. Siebert, Inc., a utility construction company that focused on underground conduit systems. He attended the University of Denver to study business management and play soccer. To the dismay of his family, he returned a few years later as a ski bum and college dropout. Nonetheless, they put him to work as a subcontractor mowing lawns inside substations and painting. To supplement his income, Tom obtained a real estate license and rented properties. He fell in love with a beautiful tenant, and in 1987 they married and had a baby within the year. Needing steadier work, Tom took a job performing dedicated crew service response, cable pulling services, and expressway pole, telephone, and subway work. He joined KBH in the summer of 1995 as a foreman, bringing with him expertise in these areas. He became a vice president in 2004. Tom helped to bring John Cleveland aboard, recognizing the value that he could add to KBH with his holding authority and cable experience. One of Tom’s major contributions to the company was his ability to make sure our employees always had work. Tom had a persuasive air, and, like Jack Streeter, he was frugal. He saw the fuctuations in the construction budgets of the utility companies and the inefciencies of their other contractors. He was able to show enormous labor cost savings when he requested the opportunity to bid on some new lines of work. Tom was successful in this efort, adding maintenance, nitrogen delivery, and manhole and handhole frames and covers to KBH’s book of work. When the utilities started a major initiative to drive down prices, other contractors were pushed out, but Tom was adept at keeping our prices competitive and work coming through the door. Many stories have been told about Tom’s frugal nature. Jason Buchinger recalls the time Tom told him that if he and his crew could set fve light poles in one day, he would buy them cofee and donuts. Jason and the crew met the challenge, and Tom showed up the next day with a box of day-old donuts and a cofee pot and cups he brought from home. As a reward for personal administrative work I did for him, Tom once gave me half a candy bar he had left in his truck. He insisted it was fair pay because it was purchased at the airport on his way back from vacation, so it was expensive. Tom is an avid golfer and would occasionally slip away to putt a few holes, thinking it was unnoticed. One day while golfng with business associates in a prestigious tournament with media coverage, he was lucky enough to hit a hole in one. To his dismay, this was announced on the radio, and many within the company heard the news—He was busted! Back in the ofce, Tom looked up to his mentors Joe McGloin, with whom he worked in the late 1980s, and Dick Mack. When a young Pat Goodwin joined the company in 2014, he was fortunate to be tucked under Tom’s wing. True to the organizational culture of trust, Tom placed a great deal of confdence in Pat. When Tom felt confdent in Pat’s ability, he decided to step back to focus on his personal life. His children were having children, and it was time. Since Tom retired in 2020 at the age of 67, he and Pat have continued to talk business. Tom spends his time golfng, skiing, playing tennis, and wintering in Florida. The Next Hundred Years 17
