An Old Lunch Pail Reminds This Founder to Embrace the Tough TimesWorking through setbacks and overcoming hurdles sometimes yield the greatest lessons.

I grew up in the 1970s in a small town in central Pennsylvania and spent a lot of time at my grandparents' house, a railroad-style home just down the street from my parents. My grandfather, Charles, would come home from a long day's work, covered in dirt and oil, and share a sugary sip of coffee from a thermos he kept in a banged-up aluminum lunch pail.

My grandfather was an entrepreneur. After serving in WWII as a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers for the U.S. Army Reserve, overseeing construction projects across France and Germany, he returned home and realized there was a need for his skill set in the localcommunity. He started his own custom grading and excavation business and got to work. And the work was hard.