‘Your Hole Is Our Goal’
Diamond Drilling Company cuts and cores its way to multigenerational success
Founded in 1974, Broomall, Pennsylvania-based Diamond Drilling Company was the brainstorm of two then 24-year-olds, Gary Haas and Charles Myers III.
With an eye on independence, the pair sought to establish a company that could provide a comfortable living for them and their young families, while doing something interesting and worthwhile. The following 45+ years have been a testament to their quality craftsmanship and family focus that now span generations.
Philly-Focused
In the late 1960s, Haas and Myers had worked for United Tool & Equipment Company, a business with expertise in concrete drilling and saw cutting.
Haas, President of Diamond Drilling, says, “It was there that we learned the ins and outs of the concrete drilling and cutting industry.”
They took full-time positions at the company when they graduated, though both had entrepreneurial visions.
“One evening after work, we started formulating ideas to use our learned skills in a business solely focused on construction.”
Soon after, Haas and Myers founded Diamond Drilling Company with a $4,000 loan that they used to buy two drill rigs and several diamond core bits of varying diameters. And, as only young men can do, they came up with the witty slogan “Your Hole is Our Goal,” a tag line that has since become synonymous with the company name and services.
They leased two vans and set up a small shop, while using one bedroom in Haas’ home as an office, and even sweet-talked Haas’ wife into becoming the bookkeeper. Finding jobs at the time in Philadelphia and the surrounding areas required considerable face-to-face meetings with general contractors and various subcontractors.
Haas says, “There wasn’t a lot of competition for concrete drilling and saw cutting in those days, but it still took a few years to make a name for ourselves.”
By 1987, Haas hired Debbie Tomassetti to take over the bookkeeping—much to his wife’s relief and joy.
Meanwhile, Haas and Myers continued to build strong relationships with general contractors and also the mechanical and electrical firms that were working on educational, hospitality and health care facilities as well as water/wastewater treatment plants.
Haas says, “At the time, we were largely hired to drill holes in concrete—jobs that sometimes required 1,000 cores or more for primarily plumbing and electrical contractors. We made sure that we drilled with precision and left the job site spotless, something that has been a fundamental part of our services even today.”
Core Values
The focus on quality and care helped the company win new contracts. The biggest in those early days was the renovation of the historic English Renaissance-style Warwick Hotel, first constructed in 1925, in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood of Philadelphia.
Haas recalls, “This project required thousands of core holes and hundreds of saw cuts for duct openings for the different trades. Besides the scope and scale of the project, we hired our first employee. After that job, the phone started ringing and hasn’t stopped.”
By 1982, the two bought a building in the Lawrence Park Industrial Center that included office space, a shop, warehouse and loading dock, which became the new home to the company.
A renovation job at the Hotel du Pont in Wilmington, Delaware, helped expand the company name beyond Pennsylvania. Haas hired a few more people to help with projects and bought a few more trucks, always with an eye on managed growth and family.
“I had a family with two children who both played sports,” Haas says. “I wanted to be at their games and other school events. We hired people with similar values.”
One of those individuals was Bob Kelchner, better known as Big Bob. He started with the company in 1988 with no drilling or cutting skills, though he had a strong work ethic. Through on-the-job training, Big Bob (now retired) learned from Haas and others all about core drilling, wall sawing and slab cutting with quality and safety. Similarly, Al Taylor, better known as Diamond Al for his extraordinary skill at drilling core holes with precision, joined the company in the first few years. Mike (Waz) Wasilewski was later hired to perform drilling and sawing, as well.
This team of family-oriented men grew. Big Bob’s teenage son, Bob Kelchner III (Bob), started working part time as a helper as did Haas’ son, Bryan, in the early 1990s. Bob and Bryan were hired full time in 1995 and 2001, respectively. That cycle is continuing. In 2019, Bob’s son began working part time for the company, adding a third-generation Kelchner to the mix.
A Cut Above
Today, Diamond Drilling is still small, just 10 people, but it is a fixture in Pennsylvania and the surrounding states for high-quality concrete drilling and sawing services. Led by Diamond Al, Waz, Bob and Bryan, the company has worked on a vast range of new projects and renovations of varying scope and scale for commercial, industrial and residential customers.
For instance, at the Pencader Corporate Center in Newark, Delaware, the Diamond Drilling crew had to cut a 325-foot by 190-foot concrete warehouse floor into 5-by-5-foot blocks to facilitate removal. “It was a saw cutter’s dream job,” Haas says. “Over the course of six days, our crews had four saws working extended hours to stay ahead of the contractor handling removal and disposal.”
The company’s biggest drilling job was the Kalahari Resorts & Conventions’ water park in Pocono Manor, Pennsylvania. As part of an expansion project, Diamond Drilling crews drilled 11,000 core holes for mechanical, electrical and plumbing trades throughout the eight- and nine-story buildings over a three-year period.
The renovation and upgrade of a wastewater treatment facility in Chalfont, Pennsylvania, is another memorable project. Haas says, “We were tasked with removing the interior walls from two 80-foot by 50-foot tanks. The tanks looked like a giant corn maze with a number of walls interspersed throughout. Each wall had to be cut into 10-foot by 8-foot blocks, picked up by a crane and placed on flatbed trucks for disposal.”
Today, Diamond Drilling is part of the team working to renovate the historic Strawbridge & Clothier warehouse in downtown Philadelphia into a mixed-use, multifamily structure. Constructed in 1918, the 400,000-square-foot building will include a 10,000-square-foot gym, a coworking space for tenants, a music studio, rooftop pool, children’s play area and a dog run. For this project, the Diamond Drilling crew enlarged numerous 20-foot-wide window openings to accept larger windows, drilled a line of 30-inch-diameter cores up through the 10-story building to accommodate a new trash chute and cut several large floor openings for new loading docks, stairways and a two-story lobby.
Haas adds, “There’s a lot of competition these days. Some people think anyone can drill a hole, but not everyone does it with precision and neatness. When we leave the job, the contractor should not be able to tell we were there except for the holes we’ve cored or the concrete we’ve removed. That’s the advantage of staying small—we have the ability to maintain high standards.”
It’s a business philosophy shared by Diamond Drilling’s growing multigeneration team and will likely hold the company in good hands for decades to come.