06/01/2026
TK here, taking over the social media posts for today… Sorry for the VERY long post, but I hope you read the whole thing!!! There is a lot to learn about our story!
Today marks 18 years of the Diamondback Land Surveying story.
For any Metallica fans out there, their album 72 Seasons is a great analogy. We are 18 years old as a company, which means we are officially 72 seasons into this business. 72 seasons of risk, growth, stress, wins, losses, long days, late nights, lessons learned, and a whole lot of dedication.
Lisa and I started Diamondback Land Surveying on June 1, 2008, right at the bottom of the economy. Looking back, it probably wasn’t the “perfect” time to start a business, but it was the time we chose to bet on ourselves, our family, and this profession.
At the time, I was the only household income. Lisa was a stay-at-home mom, and we had two young kids, ages 4 and 10. I walked away from a six-figure-plus salary with a family depending on me. That was a very big decision. It was scary, stressful, exciting, and motivating all at the same time. But I knew 120% that I could make it!
We risked everything to build this business. We leveraged every credit limit on every credit card just to survive. We put a line of credit against our house. I did not take a paycheck for the first 10 months, and when I finally did, it was for $1,000. After walking away from a steady income, that first $1,000 paycheck felt like a huge win for our family. It may not sound like much to some people, but to us, it meant we were still standing.
Diamondback started with one desk in our master bedroom. From there, we moved to the garage, then to the back of a mailbox store that Mom and Dad owned. After that came one small executive suite, then the suite next door, then another one, until eventually we had most of the second floor filled up. Then came our first real office, then a bigger office, and now we are coming up on 10 years in our current office this summer. And even here, we had to add more offices about 5 years ago.
It seems like every 5 years or so, we outgrow the space we are in. And honestly, that is something we are extremely grateful for.
What started as a business to support the 4 of us, Lisa, myself, and our two young kids, has grown into a company with 36+ team members. When you include their families, Diamondback now helps support 90+ staff and family members. That is something Lisa and I do not take lightly. It is the kind of responsibility that keeps us up at night and drives us to keep pushing forward every single day. Every decision we make affects more than just us now, and that makes it more motivating than ever! And it makes us even more determined that we will NOT fail!
Since 2008, we have had the opportunity to work with almost 2,000 clients and complete just shy of 10,000 projects, totaling more than $65 million in professional land surveying work.
You do not do almost 10,000 projects with almost 2,000 clients without repeat business, referrals, trust, patience, dedication, and support. To our clients and partners, thank you for supporting us year after year and project after project. You have trusted us with your projects, your deadlines, your problems, your questions, and your personal referrals. We know there are so many other choices in our profession, and we are extremely grateful every time you choose our Diamondback team!
Of course, none of this happened overnight.
This company was built with dedication. It was built with very long hours, late nights in front of a computer, countless hours sitting in traffic from project to project, and more working vacations than I can count. Building this business meant vacations were rarely just vacations. There were emails from hotel rooms, phone calls from the road, projects, plans, and RFPs reviewed before breakfast, proposals sent late at night, and jobs being handled while trying to make family memories at the same time.
For many years, I did every single thing I possibly could. Fieldwork, office CAD work, proposals, client calls, project management, billing, collections, and sending out every single invoice for the first 13 years. That took a level of dedication that is hard to explain unless you have lived it every day!
But one of the biggest lessons I have learned as a business owner over the last 18 years is that sometimes you have to remove yourself from certain day-to-day tasks so the business can grow. As owners, we can become the bottleneck without even realizing it. Hiring someone to handle accounting and invoices may sound like a simple change, but it made a huge difference for us. Once I got out of some of those daily tasks and focused more on building the business, leading the team, and looking ahead, Diamondback grew in ways we had never seen before.
In fact, we have now done more revenue in the last 5 years than we did in the first 13 years combined. That did not happen by accident. It happened because of dedication, trust, the right people, and learning when to step in and when to get out of the way.
Lastly, one of the things I am most proud of is the team we have built and the dedication they have shown to Diamondback, our clients, and each other.
We have 3 people with over 15 years of dedication to this team: Robert Carrington, Lisa, and myself.
We have Rob, Kevin, Ron, Ken, Noah, Jordan, Rachel, Todd, and Aaron all over 10 years.
We have Jason, Ryan, Todd Ruske, Heather, Joe, Deion, Amy, and Connor F. all over 5 years.
Today, 20 of our 36 staff members are over the 5-year mark, and by next year, 27 of our 36 (75%) staff members will be over the 5-year mark.
That is something Lisa and I are extremely proud of! 😊
This is what leadership, support, opportunity, and career growth look like. People do not stay that long by accident. That does not happen unless the company culture is thriving, the team feels supported, and the business is built for long-term success. We have worked hard to create a place where people can grow, provide for their families, buy a house, build their careers, and be proud of the work they do.
Diamondback was built out of love for this profession. The land surveying profession has given so much to us, and we have always believed in giving back. Over the years, we have been blessed to support numerous 501(c)(3) charities through donated time, services, and financial contributions. Our charitable giving has now reached well over $5 million.
We have also invested well over $10 million into advertising, outreach, and promoting the land surveying profession through everything we do. We believe this profession deserves to be seen, respected, and promoted, and we have tried to do our part every chance we get.
But the truth is, none of this is possible without the people around us.
To our clients and partners, thank you again for trusting us year after year and project after project.
To our team, thank you for showing up every day, working hard, caring about the details, and helping build Diamondback into what it is today. Your dedication means more to us than we could ever put into words, and we are truly grateful for everything you do.
To our family, thank you for standing behind us through all the long days, late nights, missed dinners, working vacations, stressful seasons, big wins, big losses (because those will happen), and everything in between.
18 years. 72 seasons. One incredible ride!!!
Lisa and I are proud of where we started, proud of where we are, and excited for where we are going.
Thank you for being part of the Diamondback story.
