VETERAN OWNED BUSINESSES: William R. Barry, Owner of One Cut Above, LLC, Fulton

U.S. Army

By Stefan Yablonski

William R. Barry has transformed his love of the outdoors into a vocation.

He was an E-4 specialist in the U.S. Army for six years as a reservist. He was stationed in Oswego, the 444th Engineer Company.

“Any time during those six years you can be activated,” he said. “Mine was one year active in Afghanistan, 2012 to 2013.”

“I was supposed to be a mechanic,” he added. “I was with a combat engineering company. Our job in Afghanistan was road clearance — we had to search for IEDs. If anyone got hit by one of them, my job was to recover the asset.”

He was wounded himself and is a Purple Heart veteran.

Barry said that he “wanted to serve most of my high school years — so I did it!”

He has also worked at Lowe’s and Home Depot.

“I worked at CSX after my discharge. I was out there for a good five or six years or so,” he said.

However, his PTSD got “real bad because of all the noise from the trains,” he said.

“My brain was like. it’s another bomb type thing,” he said.

So, he started his own business.

“Now I own my own company — opened the business in 2020.”

One Cut Above, LLC, does lawn maintenance, landscaping and excavation site prep work, Barry said.

“I like being outside. I like to make something that looks like ‘meh’ look better,” he said.

“I have a machine, but I haven’t got to play with it yet, that does like sidewalk jobs [like landscape curbing],” he added. “It’s really expensive, so I really don’t know how well it will go over in this area. But as Micron comes in there will likely be projects that I could use it on.”

Barry said he doesn’t have any staff right now “ but hopefully soon.”

“I do have a nephew that helps me. There’s another veteran friend that I can call on if I need help. And there is a friend from high school,” he said. “But, most of the time I am by myself. The work isn’t there right now for me to be able to employ a bunch of people. It’s mostly just here and there type of stuff. But I’d love to be able to keep those guys full time.”

His business has been certified by the Office of General Services’ Division of Service-Disabled Veterans’ Business Development.

Barry and his wife, Erin, have three children, a girl and two boys.