Tristate Underground, Inc. & the SBDC Student Team

Rick Hess, Owner and President of Tri-State Underground, Inc. has been working with the SBDC since 2017, and closely with the SBDC student team for three semesters. The flagship program is the SBDC’s Lerner College Student Management Course. The course, taught by SBDC advisors in the fall and spring, pairs student groups with small businesses to craft solutions for real business challenges.

In spring of 2018, Rick began working with University of Delaware MIS students to redo his website. The student team aided in the design elements and implementation of Rick’s website, putting in a total of 47 hours! They created a professional and well thought out presentation for Rick with solutions for his business. In spring of 2019 he worked with MIS students to migrate his Quickbooks from desktop to the cloud. The students also have created surveys for Rick to send back to his customers to collect feedback and reviews. Rick then continued to work with students from the BUAD444 class in the fall of 2020 to develop a budget for his business for 2021. They did so by creating a financial ratio, break even, and SWOT analysis for his company.

Rick brings years of directional drilling and management experience to the company. He oversees the day to day operations as well as financial management of Tri-State. Rick’s vision is to continue to grow the company so that the name Tri-State Underground is synonymous with all types of underground construction.

Check out the site to see the student team and Rick’s amazing work: https://www.tristateug.com/