Jerad Hutchens on Building Summit Contracting: Culture Is How You Feel on Sunday Night

RATCHET-UP with Allan Breidenbach · Sep 29, 2026 · 51m

Jerad Hutchens is President of Summit Contracting, an agriculture-focused post-frame and grain systems contractor based in Platte, South Dakota, with locations across South Dakota, Nebraska, and beyond. Since joining as a partner in 2014 — when the company had about a dozen employees — Jerad has helped grow Summit to nearly 200 employees, growing 20–30% year over year. In this conversation with host Allan Breidenbach, Jerad shares how Summit self-performs almost every phase of a build to control quality and margins, why he had to learn to stop making every decision himself, and how a serious…