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Twenty-five years ago, HICO America looked very different.
There were 5 employees, two fulltime HICO America employees. Jason Neal and one of his earliest teammates shared a laptop. Internet access meant taking turns using a dial up connection in the office. Four weeks after Jason joined, the team was already preparing for one of the industry’s largest events with a booth that reflected just how early the company was in its journey.
There was no guarantee HICO America would become what it is today.
For Jason, that was part of the opportunity.
He took a chance on a young company entering the U.S. power equipment market. Twenty-five years later, his career grew alongside HICO America, from a small team working to establish itself to an organization of more than 700 employees with even bigger goals ahead.
Taking a Chance
Jason’s career began in engineering, where one of his earliest experiences placed him alongside seasoned professionals on a large corporation’s enterprise-wide project and contingency planning effort. Being trusted to contribute ideas, take ownership and learn from people with decades of experience made an impression on him early. It showed him the value of giving people a voice, even when they are still finding their footing.
A few years later, Jason found himself looking for a new opportunity. Around that same time, his father, who had spent his own career in the utility industry, mentioned a young company that was beginning to build its presence in the U.S. power equipment market.
At first, it was almost ironic. Jason was an electrical engineer, but the utility industry was never where he pictured ending up. Even so, the opportunity caught his attention enough to meet with the team and learn more.
What he found was a company that was still very much in its early stages. There was risk in joining, but there was also the chance to help build something. Jason had recently gotten married, and with the support of his wife Melanie, he decided it was worth taking that chance.
Lookingback, he considers it one of the best decisions he ever made.
Building From the Beginning
The early days of HICO America required everyone to do a little bit of everything.
Jason and his teammates researched and recruited sales representatives, traveled constantly to meet customers and suppliers, booked orders, managed logistics helped support installation, maintenance and service.
There were not large departments or established processes behind them. When something needed to be done, they figured it out.
One of the company’s early sales goals felt almost unreachable at the time.
Jason remembers how much persistence those first wins required. For one early opportunity, he wrote directly to leadership across an entire electric cooperative network of 12 companies to help earn the business.
Winning the order was exciting.
Seeing the equipment manufactured at the factory, and finally delivered made it real.
“That gave us confidence,” he remembers.
Those first successes helped prove that HICO America could build trust, compete and grow.
Creating a Culture of Opportunity
The lessons Jason learned early in his career from Mr. DJ Song the first chairman of the HICO America board, and Henry Paik the first president of HICO America still shape the way he thinks about HICO in the early days of HICO – the swift boat analogy that still holds true today, and the model of partnership – and was important to Jason’s development and the development of HICO’s business in the US as it set the groundwork for decades of success.
From the beginning when he took his first leadership role as a VP, Jason saw the valueof giving people the opportunity to contribute, even if they did not come fromthe power industry or have decades of experience behind them. To him,curiosity, effort, accountability and a willingness to learn can matter just asmuch as a traditional background.
That belief has become an important part of HICO’s culture. Jason values bringing together people with different experiences because those perspectives often lead to better questions, new ideas and better ways of solving problems. Just as important, he believes people need the freedom to make decisions, take calculated risks and learn along the way.
“We have to give people the freedom, the same freedom I was given in the earlier days of HICO” he explains.
For Jason, growth is not about expecting perfection. It is about creating an environment where people are trusted to contribute, encouraged to speak up and supported as they develop. Over time, that approach has helped create a team where many employees and leaders have been able to grow alongside the company.
What We Do Matters
One belief continues to come back throughout Jason’s story: What we do matters.
He sees HICO’s success as the result of people taking ownership of their work andtrusting one another to do the same.
Small ideas matter.
Big ideas matter.
Not every idea has to become the answer, but people should feel comfortable bringing them forward.
That entrepreneurial mentality has helped HICO continue to evolve and improve over the years.
For Jason, creating that environment is one of the things that has made the journey so meaningful.
A Competitive Spirit
After 25 years, Jason is still motivated by a healthy sense of competition.
That drives tarted long before HICO.
He played basketball and volleyball in high school before joining track and later competed in jumping events in college as well as volleyball. He and his wife have also spent time leading and coaching youth basketball, where competition comes with an equally important lesson: knowing when to push and when to helps omeone develop.
Jason carries that same mindset into work.
He believes success rarely requires one dramatic moment.
It comes from focusing on the work in front of you, doing your job well and trusting that when everyone does the same, the larger result will follow.
“You don’t need to win by a mile,” he explains. And he is inspired by the famous quote from Bill Russell (although he was a Lakers fan) - Success is a result of consistent practice of winning skills and actions. There is nothing miraculous about the process and no luck involved.
Sometimes, you just need to keep finding the small advantage.
Family at the Center
For all of the growth and competition that have shaped Jason’s career, faith and family remain at the center of his life which was instilled by his mother and father.
His father helped connect him to the industry he once thought he would avoid.
His wife supported him when joining a small company meant taking a real risk early in their marriage.
Together, they built a family while Jason continued building his career.
Today, their daughter Sarah is in her second year of PA school, and their son Samuel is in his third year of college studying engineering.
When Jason talks about what matters most personally, the answer is simple: faith family and trying to be a good person.
Those values have stayed consistent, even as nearly everything around HICO has changed.
Looking Ahead
After 25 years with HICO America, Jason has seen the company grow from its earliest stages into an organization with a much larger presence, broader capabilities and new opportunities ahead. What excites him most is not simply the scale of that growth, but what it represents.
For Jason, the future is about continuing to create jobs in the United States, onshoring more of what HICO offers in the market, strengthening HICO’s ability to support customers and building a company that people are proud to be part of. With a relentless focus to position HICO to provide speed and certainty to its customer base and building the organization in the US to make that happen. He is energized by the momentum behind the business and by the opportunity to keep pushing it forward.
Even after 25 years, that drive has not changed.
“Godwilling, another 20 years with HICO would be outstanding.”
Behind the Power
Jason’s story is closely tied to the story of HICO America itself. He joined when the company was still building its foundation, when the team was small, resources were limited and every new opportunity helped shape what came next.
Over the years, HICO has changed dramatically, but many of the principles that guided those early days have remained the same. Give good people opportunities. Trust them to learn. Encourage new ideas. Keep improving. Provide consistent leadership andmessaging. Celebrate milestones and successes together. And never lose sightof the fact that what we do matters.
Jason took achance on HICO America at a young age. In the 25 years since, he has helped grow that opportunity into something far bigger than what existed when he firstwalked through the door.
