When Nick Howell was a kid, his father owned his own construction company and worked as a heavy equipment operator. “He’d put me in the dump truck or the water truck and let me ‘drive’,” Howell said. “I always liked driving big trucks.”
Howell has carried on his father’s legacy, and is now celebrating a decade of working as a truck driver himself.
During high school, Howell worked on the side, both at the Dublin Livestock Auction and at David’s Supermarket. He wanted to graduate early and begin working full time, so he transferred to the Paradigm Accelerated Charter School and graduated a year early, in 2009.
After graduation, Howell found a job at the Food Plaza gas station in Stephenville as a stocker. While he didn’t want to make a career out of it, Howell appreciated that he learned good customer service skills from his job at Food Plaza. “It taught me a lot,” he said.
The income from his job allowed him to rent his own apartment, and he spent the next few years enjoying his independent life and working odd jobs around town. “I jumped from job to job trying to find a career,” he said.
When he was 22, Howell decidedtogethisCommercial Drivers License, and began working as a truck driver. He started out driving for Sigma, a company that delivers food to restaurants such as Taco Bell. Howell enjoyed getting to see the country with his job. “I got to go to Missouri, Arkansas and places like that,” he said.
After five years at Sigma, he found another driving job forUniversalForestProducts, where he drove a flatbed and picked up lumber from mills in Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma.
“I got to see different parts of the United States, I met a lot of cool people and I’ve seen a lot of cool things,” he said.
He stayed there for three years, then briefly drove for McCoy’s Building Supply before he found his current job at Badger Infrastructure Solutions in their daylighting division. “It’s a hydroexcavation company,”Howell said. “We look for utilities in the ground or if there’s a storm, we go dig holes for power lines and stuff like that.”
Daylighting is a term used to describe the uncovering and exposing of underground utilities, cables and pipelines to daylight. Badger uses high pressure water and a vacuum to remove the soil and debris from around the utilities.
Howell found the job through a friend he’d met at Universal Forest Products. His friend had started working at Badger, and really enjoyed it. “It’s a really safety-conscious company, and they really take care of us,” Howell said.
So far, he’s done well at the company, even earning CDL Driver of the Year. “I’m supposed to be up for promotion to be a mentor, which is training new hires and other people and helping out with that,” he said. “Hopefully one of these days, I’ll become a manager for them and just try to keep moving up the chain.”
Howell also works with the local Volunteer Fire Department. In 2020, his younger brother Kenny was killed in a car accident. “It made me want to join the fire department, because if I get there in time to help somebody fast, it might change somebody’s life,” he said.
When he’s not working, Howell enjoys spending time with his family and friends. He’s been with his wife, Kolby, since he was 18. “She’s just a great person,” Howell said.
The Howells met when Howell was working at Food Plaza. “Her family is really big into rodeo, and we kind of hit it off,” Howell said. “She’d always come in to see me and she’d always tell me my pants were too tight back then when I was wearing Wranglers. She’s just never in a bad mood. She’s always smiling. It’s one of the things I love about her.”
Howell and his family currently live in Covington, Texas, a small town less than an hour south of Fort Worth. The Howells have two children, Patti Mae, 10, and Weston, 6. The family enjoys having cookouts and going riding together.
Howell’s parents, Kimberly and Stephen Howell, still live in Dublin.
Howell’s advice to Dublin graduates is to put their trust in their faith. “When times get tough, just keep pushing,” he said. “Everything’s in God’s hands. If he didn’t want you to have it, you didn’t need it.”
Editor’s Note: This column chronicles what Dublin graduates have done since high school. If you have any suggestions for other grads, email publisher@dublincitizen.com.