By Jim Misunas
jmisunas@gbtribune.com

LARNED — If you’ve built it, G&G Dozer will bulldoze it.
Gary Gozby’s company started as a part-time venture with a bulldozer.
G&G Dozer of Caney, Kan. has matured into a multi-faceted business that takes on some of the state’s biggest demolition projects.
Gozby launched the business when he was working as an architect. He missed spending time outdoors and bought a bulldozer.
“I started doing bulldozer work with oil field work during the oil boom,” Gozby said. “I got tired of being inside.”
G&G Dozer’s latest demolition work involves tearing down the old Pawnee Valley Community Hospital building.
At one corner, Gozby has little room for error since it’s 18 inches from the new Pawnee Valley Community Hospital. That’s still 6 inches more than Gozby had when tearing down Salina’s Great Plains Building.
“The hospital is tricky because 18 inches of clearance makes it tough,” he said. “What makes it easy is the people we meet in rural areas are exceptional people. Mike Smith, the general manager for the project, and everyone has been really good to work with.”   
Gozby is a hands-on owner/operator who enjoys working on the job site. He said his 37 years of demolition experience is valuable. It takes a newcomer with mechanical aptitude about a month to feel comfortable with the heavy machinery.
Every building is unique.
“When you are tearing down buildings, many of the design ideas are similar, but no two buildings are exactly the same,” he said. “You may start a certain way and change your thought process once you get started. Experience always helps in dismantling a building.”
G&G Dozer is scheduled to complete the two-month project sometime in June. Eight full-time G&G employees and four local workers are assisting with the work. G & G Dozer  also tore down the north addition of the former St. Joseph Memorial Hospital, which made room for the new hospital.
On site are two excavators, two skid loaders and four trucks. A recycling machine, valued at $500,000, will help with the cleanup that will reuse the concrete. Each piece of equipment is worth several thousand dollars.
“The project pays us to recycle the concrete, which will be used by Pawnee County,” Gozby said. “The machine grinds the concrete into 1-to-2-inch pieces of gravel. A metal pile will be recycled to a scrap yard.”
Wood products won’t be recycled.
“There is very little material that won’t be recycled,” he said.
Gozby expanded G&G Dozer into a full-time demolition business in the 1980s. G&G performs demolition work in Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Colorado. The business also tears down houses in various communities.
“We needed to diversify and we developed our business into a company that does demolition work,” Gozby said. “We realized we needed to grow the business. Most of our business is through referrals from a city or county we’ve worked with.”  
G&G Dozer demolished Hawthorne Elementary School to make room for Hawthorne Village in Salina. Employees have done work in Fort Riley, Hays, Dodge City and Osawatomie. Gozby said G&G will do demolition work in Burdett and Rozel later this summer.