$100 Million in Sales and a Bet on Downtown Midland 

Episode Description:

There’s no way to outwork a math problem — but you can outthink one.

This week on Talk Midland, Logan sits down with Nate Heyboer— real estate investor, developer, and CEO of a $100M+ employee-owned company — to talk about what it actually takes to build at scale.


From growing up on a dairy farm in Jamestown to launching DHE Plumbing, to converting the company into an ESOP (employee-owned), Nate shares how diversification, discipline, and long-term thinking shaped his approach to business.

The conversation dives into:

  • Scaling a company to 220+ employees
  • Why employee ownership changes everything
  • Fixing the skilled trades pipeline
  • Workforce housing and why it doesn’t “pencil” without incentives
  • The real story behind major downtown Midland acquisitions
  • How development actually works — from first idea to breaking ground


Nate doesn’t sugarcoat it. Development is a puzzle. Financing is tight. Cash flow matters. Municipal buy-in is critical. And sometimes you get chased in a parking lot at your first planning meeting.


But at the center of it all is a simple philosophy:


“Treat people right. Work together. For me to win, no one else has to lose.”


This episode is about business, risk, leadership, and what it really means to invest back into a community.

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