When Leo Vecellio, Sr., Enrico Vecellio and Gene Grogan founded Vecellio & Grogan in 1938, the final section of the famous Route 66 was just being paved. There was no national highway system yet, but the federal government was beginning to discuss the idea. No one had heard of globalization or biodiesel fuel, bulldozers were still a relatively new invention and there was no such thing as a personal computer. It was a different time.
Even so, the company values at Vecellio Group have remained constant through the years. Integrity, quality and service were the building blocks upon which Vecellio & Grogan was founded, and those values remain the cornerstones of all the Vecellio businesses today.
Founding A Legacy
In the early part of the 20th century, Enrico Vecellio — grandfather of current CEO Leo Vecellio, Jr. — built a successful masonry contracting business before transitioning to road construction. During the 1920s, he and his partners in Gilbert Construction became leaders of the emerging highway construction industry in West Virginia.
In 1938, Enrico’s son, Leo, returned home from college with a civil engineering degree and the desire to start his own company. Father and son founded Vecellio & Grogan with Gene Grogan, who had married Leo’s sister Erma. Enrico contributed support and expertise, while Leo and Gene managed the projects, and the young company began to prosper. Gene’s health soon began an unfortunate and premature decline, however, pulling both him and Erma away from the business. After Gene died in 1949, Erma came back to run the office for many years, making crucial contributions to the business’s growth. Also having considerable impact on V&G’s early success were Norman Trevillion, Mac Smith, Al Janutolo and Howard Lane, among others.
