Mike grew up in Adams, ND and attended Thief River Falls College, where he earned his degree Auto Body Repair. In 1984 he worked at Modern Auto Body in Grand Forks until he accepted a position in farming with Robert and Mike Sweeney. He began his career with Gowan Construction in 2010 referred by Noel Shirek, while in the process of starting a tractor restoration business. Noel knew his rich history of painting, welding and farming.
Mike’s role at Gowan Construction is to service and repair equipment, mostly Peterbilt and Kenworthy trucks, and light duty pickups. He feels VERY fortunate to be involved with designing and building projects to better improve the efficiency of the company, with his favorite projects being the concrete trailer stacking system and the breakaway windboards on the belly and dump trucks. His other favorite task is putting new supervisors pickups together to ensure they are uniform with the rest of the fleet and adding personal touches for each supervisor.
On his off time Mike enjoys spending time with his wife, Rhonda and daughters, Julia and Izzy. He feels blessed to be part of a big family and enjoys helping them with projects they are working on and just hanging out with them. Keeping up with his yard work is his relaxation and anything involving a John Deere of any size.