Moving on up: How a 17-year-old high schooler started Varsity Haulers to be his own boss

For many high schoolers, finding a job entails working at local restaurants, stores or golf courses. But Ralph Lowen, 17, was thinking bigger and decided to try a different course.

Last spring, Lowen founded Varsity Haulers, a junk hauling and moving business in the valley.

“We wanted something better than what other teenagers were doing,” Lowen said.  “There’s more learning than in a restaurant because you’re problem-solving on your own and you’re brainstorming on your own. It takes a surprising amount of creativity in what we do.”

“We’ve had so many mentors, but this is a fully teenage, local, high school-run business,” Lowen added.

Varsity Haulers offers junk removal, yard hauling and moving services. It will take a variety of “household junk,” including furniture and mattresses, appliances, yard debris and more. Plus, its services are available for moving.

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While Lowen said he could “point out a million little things” that inspired the business, the direct idea came from a similar, teenage-ran business in Austin, Texas, where his cousin worked.   

“When I heard about that idea down in Austin, I thought ‘Why couldn’t we do that here,'” Lowen said.

From there, Lowen reached out to Nathan Rak, another Battle Mountain student who graduated this spring. Rak has been with the business from the beginning.

“When Ralph told me about this idea, I didn’t know if it was going to be successful, but I wanted to do it for the experience and learn a lot, and I did learn a lot,” Rak said.

Starting last spring, they moved to capitalize on the spring-cleaning mood and a “huge demand of people trying to get rid of stuff,” Lowen said.

“I don’t think most of the waste disposal companies can handle these smaller jobs so there was an empty space that we wanted to fill,” he added.

Today, Lowen said Varsity Haulers offers a “cheaper alternative,” adding that it is “able to pretty inexpensively move people from house to house or get rid of junk they otherwise wouldn’t be able to.”

‘Every day we have to problem-solve’

Since last spring, there’s been a learning curve to figure out the ins and outs of running the business. This has included everything from learning how to back up a trailer to how to train their peers and how to price their services.

“Every day we have to problem-solve. Every day we run into a new issue and we need to work as a team to figure it out. Every day is a bit of a surprise,” Rak said.

At the start, this problem-solving included figuring out everything from who their target market was, how to advertise to how to get the work done, how to quote people based on their costs, and how to communicate professionally with adults.

At first, Lowen said it was a “little bit difficult finding people who take us seriously because we are teenagers.”

However, since then, through experience, Rak said they’ve learned to communicate clearly and come off as professionally as possible — and now have a body of work to show for it.

“We’ve done so many jobs in the valley. Over time, we’ve come to work with local businesses. We’ve worked with Perch Vail. We’ve worked with a ski storage place in Avon. There was a doggy daycare place in Edwards, where we helped them move out so they could become a normal child daycare,” Lowen said. “We’ve left a huge footprint in the valley and we’ve gotten more confident in what we’ve done, and through that confidence, we’ve been able to overcome that bias.”

In addition to building confidence and professionalism, Lowen and Rak said they’ve learned a lot from running Varsity Haulers and created a good company culture. The business has relied on their peers to help with jobs, hiring somewhere between 12 to 15 teens so far, Lowen said, four of whom he described as the “core guys.”

“We’ve developed this sort of camaraderie with each other because as much as we love working, it’s not an easy job,” Lowen said.

“Every day we run into a new issue and we need to work as a team to figure it out. Sometimes it’s figuring out how do we fit everything into this truck and trailer? How do we get this down the stairs without damaging anything? How do we split up to do this the most efficiently? There’s so much communication between us and so much problem-solving, you wouldn’t believe. It’s just made us all grow up so much faster,” he added.

The growth and problem-solving is something they hope to expose other teenagers to through engaging them with Varsity Haulers.

‘I want other kids to have that same experience that I had’

Not only is a big goal of Varsity Haulers to find ways to “help all these kids save up for their future, especially college,” but also learn these valuable skills, Lowen said.

“I want to start bringing more kids into this and see who all we can get involved because on top of being able to earn them money and impact the community, we’re learning and teaching a lot of kids a lot of great life lessons just by working,” he said. “It’d be great to help all these kids develop these skills so their future is a little brighter, hopefully.”

Beyond expanding their impact, Lowen and Rak also have plans for future growth.

After graduating from Battle Mountain this spring, Rak is planning to attend the University of Colorado in Boulder this fall. The goal is for him to build a Varsity Haulers business while there.

“I want other kids to have that same experience that I had. I want them to learn because it’s important in life to have those skills,” Rak said.

And next year, when Lowen graduates and looks to go to college, he’ll be hoping to keep the business going.

“I want to keep more kids coming in and just see how we can run this without me or with me minimally touching it,” Lowen said.

Until then, they plan on staying as busy as possible this summer and continuing to have a positive impact on the community.

“By the time we leave, we’ll be able to say, ‘We’ve helped an enormous number of people move homes. We’ve supported local businesses. We’re ingrained in the history of some places.’ It’s a great feeling and that’s our greatest accomplishment,” Lowen said.