Hi Neighbor meets Hello Neighbor’s Mike Jordan
For the last quarter century, Mike Jordan has been maintaining his own driveway. Sometimes neighbors would approach him and ask if he’d be willing to help them out. He’d drive over to their homes and greet them with a hearty “hello, neighbor,” so when he decided to put his tractor skills to work on a commercial basis, Hello Neighbor is the name he chose for the business.
Jordan started Hello Neighbor last July. In 2023, he completed 34 projects over the course of 571 hours, working in seven towns from Cambridge to Duxbury and spreading 1,124 tons of gravel from six different quarries. He has two trucks, a skid steer and tractor with a Harley Power Rake, a roller-compactor, a box blade and pallet forks, as well as a number of finishing tools. His work is all the more impressive when you learn that Jordan is also a full-time member of the Burlington Fire Department.
Jordan’s original career was as a graphic designer. He got his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Hartford Art School, but while working as a designer, he got the urge for more physical work. He began volunteering for the Charlotte Fire Department in 2008 and a few years later applied for a job with the Burlington Fire Department. He is a firefighter and advanced emergency medical technician and continues to do design work for some long-time clients.
Jordan’s firefighting schedule is two days on and four days off, so he looked for additional work to fill his schedule.
“I recognized that there was a shortage of people in the trades,” he said. “It’s hard to get people to call you back for projects.”
Jordan had always enjoyed doing tractor work, so he thought he’d give the driveway business a try.
Because he still works for the Burlington Fire Department, Jordan doesn’t take emergency calls, but he prioritizes people who have impassible driveways. Otherwise, he bids on projects and coordinates scheduling for his days off. He works alone but sometimes gets help from his firefighting colleagues. He notes that there is already a degree of trust because he works, eats, cleans and sleeps with them at the station and knows that they have undergone background checks.
Jordan focuses on gravel driveways but crosses over into what he refers to as light or finished excavation work which is usually connected to a driveway. This includes tasks like leveling an area to build a gravel pad for a shed. His driveway work involves ditches, culverts, swales and other ways to address drainage issues.
Last year, several of Jordan’s Charlotte customers said they were seeing greater volumes of water or water in new places around their houses.
“More and more people who have lived in their homes for decades are having problems they’ve never seen before,” he said.
This year, he took jobs in Orwell, Lincoln and Middlebury. Jobs that far away have their challenges, including drive time and finding new suppliers, but Jordan enjoys going to new places and meeting new people. As his business grows, he has updated his equipment so he can do work faster and better.
Jordan’s preference is doing finishing work like grading and making things neat and tidy, but he has been getting more and more requests for bigger projects that involve replacing and repairing driveways. Still, he enjoys the work.
“I think the feeling I get is similar to what most people get from mowing their lawn,” he said. “You start something, and you finish it, and it looks good when it’s done.”
Jordan hasn’t left his graphic design background entirely behind. In the past he designed merchandise and websites for others, but they always made the final decision, so he relishes having the last word in designing his own T-shirts, hats and website.
Hello Neighbor has garnered 19 five-star Google reviews and Jordan noted that having people appreciate his work is an added benefit of his venture.
“This job checks a lot of boxes for me,” he said. “I like running a small business. There are challenges and rewards, and there is obviously a need because the phone keeps ringing.”