Mark Gould grew up in the Roaring Fork Valley surrounded by the kind of essential maintenance work most people only notice when it stops.

Water lines. Sewer systems. Storm drains. Roads. Bridges.

Now, he leads one of the valley’s longstanding family companies: Gould Construction. For Gould, his work has always been more than business — it’s a commitment to the place where he was born and raised. Born at Valley View Hospital in March 1984, Gould grew up in Glenwood Springs and attended Glenwood Elementary, Glenwood Middle School and Glenwood Springs High School. After graduating from the University of Colorado Boulder, he returned to the valley in 2006 and joined the family business.

Gould Construction’s roots stretch back nearly five decades. Norman and Nancy Gould, Mark’s grandparents, moved to the Roaring Fork Valley from upstate New York in 1977 with their four children and incorporated the company in 1979. Gould said that over the past two decades, he has held nearly every role in the business. He became president in 2015 and in 2018 was promoted to CEO.

Today, the company employs about 100 people, primarily providing civil infrastructure services between Vail, Aspen and Grand Junction.

“We do mostly civil infrastructure. Bridges, roads, underground utilities, water, sewer, lift stations and treatment plants. Almost anything that involves dirt work we get involved in,” Gould said.

For Gould, one of the most rewarding parts of the job is knowing the company’s work positively impacts his community  daily , even if much of it remains underground and unnoticed.

“I find it incredibly rewarding to build something tangible that impacts our community every day with what we build,” Gould said. “A lot of what we build is underground, so it’s not easy to see, but that’s where taking care of our clean water with storm drains that end up making it to the river happens. That’s where handling of sewage happens, so that we can have a sanitary living environment. And that’s where our clean drinking water comes from that we install so that everybody can have nice, clean water in order to sustain themselves.”

That sense of purpose extends beyond the projects themselves. Gould said he values the relationships built through his work just as much as the finished products — with employees, trade partners, engineers, inspectors, private developers and public agencies.

“We like maintaining those relationships and not having our business be simply a transactional business,” Gould said. “We like to enjoy our successes together with the entire project team as well as our community.”

That mindset also shapes how he views public projects. Gould said the company never loses sight of the fact that many of its jobs are funded by taxpayers.

“The bottom line is that a lot of times our real customer is, in fact, the taxpayer,” Gould said. “We don’t take that lightly. We put a large responsibility on ourselves for being responsible with that money.”

Despite the company’s longstanding presence in the valley, Gould pushed back on the idea that it deserves recognition. Instead, he said the goal has always been to operate in a way that reflects the family’s values and the kind of contractor they would want to see in their own community.

“We don’t want recognition,” Gould said. “We don’t deserve recognition. We mostly operate the business in a manner which we think is right.”

To Gould, that legacy is about more than construction. It is about stewardship, community involvement and giving back through service, philanthropy and leadership.

“Between my grandparents, my parents, and my wife and I, our greatest responsibility is to give an opportunity to the next generation to enjoy the place that we’ve enjoyed for so long,” Gould said.

That idea of carrying something forward also applies to the people who work for him. He wants his employees to take pride in what they build and to feel that their work matters.

“Our employees are proud of the place they work for, proud of the work that they put in place, proud of the product that they build every day, that they can point to their kids and say, ‘Look, son and daughter, your mom or your dad built that,'” he said.

His days are rarely predictable. Gould described a routine that shifts between checking in with his management team, problem solving, spending time in the field, handling administrative work and planning for the company’s future. He said he also spends time considering workforce challenges, future opportunities and the broader direction of the trades industry.

“I don’t sit still very much,” he said. “I definitely have a work hard, play hard mentality.”

Outside of work, Gould enjoys golf, travel, sailing and spending time with family. When asked about his favorite golf courses in the valley, he pointed to Ironbridge and Aspen Glen, both of which carry family significance because his father helped build them.

Even with those outlets, Gould said the demands of the construction business can make for difficult days. But he always returns to the same motivation: the team around him, the value of the work and the responsibility of preserving opportunity for the next generation.

“There’s definitely hard days in which it makes one think, man, is this really worth it?” Gould said. “And of course, it is.”

Part of what keeps him going, he said, is making sure the company remains strong for the next generation, whether that means his children or other future employees.”I was given that opportunity, and I feel like I need to ensure that opportunity is available for the next generation,” Gould said.

That future, in Gould’s mind, is not only about his own company. He said he wants to help improve the construction industry  so it’s more accountable, attractive to workers and grounded in community relationships and follow-through.

“My next mission is to take what I feel like I’ve been able to grow from what my grandfather and my father did into making our business better, to start to make the industry better,” Gould said. “We want contractors that do what they say they’re going to do, contractors that take care of their teammates. We want contractors that are working on providing value to their customers.”