Deconstructing the past to build a brighter future

When Jason Nuckolls was 12, he knew he wanted to work for himself — most likely inspired by his great grandfather, who built a lucrative business selling fresh fish out of his truck.

A rare cancer diagnosis

What Jason didn’t know is that at age 24, his solid career in construction would be interrupted by a rare cancer requiring two and half years of treatment. Thankfully, it eventually went into remission.

Balancing dreams

Later, the Nuckolls decided to start a family. Jason wanted to get back to construction, but he also wanted to be an attentive father and husband — so he insisted on limited travel.

Securing the loan to rebuild his career

In 2012, Jason was hired as the deconstruction manager for Home ReSource, where he discovered that his expertise in construction and excavation was exactly what the decon market needed. In 2017, he opened negotiations to buy the company’s decon business with its current staff onboard, powered by financing from Clearwater Credit Union.

Now just one year in, Montana Deconstruction Services and its sister company, Montana Excavation Services, are burgeoning businesses with strong support from the community and 11 full-time employees — including Rich Schaub, Jason’s father-in-law, a partner and employee.

Professionalism, cleanliness, safety, and punctuality are just a few of the tenets that guide Jason’s team every day. And all the materials recovered in deconstruction get redistributed to the community through sales at Home ReSource.

"Securing a loan from Clearwater Credit Union was like borrowing money from my parents. It was about making the dream come true, sharing a seat at the table, and figuring out the rest later."

— Jason Nuckolls, President MDS & MES

Building a brighter future

While market trends point to significant growth for Jason’s bottom line, he’s more excited about using his business as a tool to educate customers, contractors, policymakers, neighbors, and employees on how we can reduce our construction waste over the next 100 years.