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Hill & Hammer was founded by Jonathan Marshall and Dustin Withers in 2020. Jonathan and Dustin became friends in 1996 while playing music together at Austin High School.

Dustin is a father and native Austinite, and completed the Champions School Home Inspection Program in 2020. Dustin has been building and repairing homes locally since 1997, receiving training on the job from his father and brother, both incredibly skilled builders in their own right. From 2005-2019 he was director of the Children’s Discovery School. He brings organizational wit, motivation, the patience of a daycare director, and a caring spirit to all of our projects. Dustin spends his free time exploring the great outdoors of Central Texas with his two children, Max and Emma, and his partner Karina and her son Emmet.

Jonathan began his career as an artist, designer, craftsman, and builder over 20 years ago. His passion is to envision, plan, and execute projects with diverse groups of tradespeople, delivering quality projects safely and effectively. Jonathan has built and remodeled homes, managed fabrication shops, built and designed furniture, and made countless works of art. A lover of all things made by human hands, he has years of experience managing teams of creatives and craftspeople to deliver high-quality work. He spends his free time painting and building things with his children, Jack and Amelia, and his wife, Haley.

I realized that Dustin and I were friends when he called me at my girlfriend’s house from my home phone, to see if I could help him change a flat tire. My mom was on the other line.

‘Your friend Dustin is here. He says he has a flat tire and doesn’t have a jack.’

This was probably in 1997. We had recently turned 16. No one had a cell-phone, and I had my mom’s car that night, with the jack. Dustin lived around the corner from us in Central Austin. We had walked home together from Austin High a handful of times after marching band practice.

Later that year we formed a garage band with our friends from music classes and marching band. We spent the next seven years playing house parties, bars, music venues. We even managed to get into SXSW once. We recorded two full length albums. 

The band went its separate ways in 2003, but we all remained friends. Dustin and I developed a shared love of music, craft, and Big Bend National Park, which sustained our friendship over the years, even though we weren’t always living in the same city.

At the end of 2020, Dustin called me and said that he wanted to start his own handyman business. I told him that I would like to do that with him.  The unemployment payments I had been collecting during the Pandemic were nearing their natural end, and Dustin wanted to work with his hands again after more than a decade directing a daycare. Since then we have accomplished so many things together. Namely, we’ve stayed in business, and made so many new friends along the way. Hopefully, we will leave our city a little better than we found it, in the process.

-Jonathan Marshall

Co-owner, Hill & Hammer, LLC