Midwest Mole founder Leonard (Len) Liotti, 77, of Apollo Beach, Fla., passed away on Nov. 23.
Liotti was retired from Midwest Mole, an Indianapolis-based trenchless technology and tunneling company he founded in 1982. His son Dan Liotti is now president.
Liotti was born in Buffalo, N.Y., and graduated from Purdue University’s School of Civil Engineering in 1957. He was a licensed professional engineer in the state of Indiana. He became involved in the tunneling industry when he was a sales engineer with Armco Steel back in 1961. Armco had a construction division, which at that time was the largest specialized boring, jacking and tunneling contractor in the nation. Liotti was fascinated with the technology to install casings and tunnels and requested to be transferred from the sales department to the construction division. He took off his coat and tie and went from being a sales engineer to a boring and tunneling superintendent.
In 1971, Len joined Affholder Boring and Tunneling as a regional manager working out of Indianapolis. By the 1980s, Indianapolis, along with the rest of the country was in a recession and Affholder closed its Indianapolis office. Liotti saw an opportunity to open his own business — Midwest Mole in 1982.
Over the next two decades, Midwest Mole pulled together an assortment of trenchless technologies to power its growing customer base in Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and Kentucky. In 2002, Liotti retired from Midwest Mole and his son Dan purchased the company from him.
Liotti is survived by his wife Dianna (Hoeping) Liotti; son, Dan and daughters Jennifer and Diane (Holmes) Liotti and five grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Jane (Moser) Liotti.
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