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HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | DECEMBER 11, 2023 19 trying to add products that would enhance landscaping." The company sells innovative products, including specialized soil for rain gardens — a landscaping feature that is growing in popularity with newly constructed homes, espe- cially in Fairfield County. Rain gardens are sunken areas of lawn that collect rainwater runoff from a roof or driveway and allow it to be reabsorbed by the soil. In addition to selling crushed stone and custom soils, the company produces playground surfacing for schools, recycles construction fill by turning it into topsoil, and composts leaves collected by the town of Farmington and local landscapers. Dunning Industries has developed creative recycling techniques, such as converting damaged asphalt and discarded shingles into fine powders that are sold to asphalt manufac- turers to produce new pavement. The company also offers a mobile rock-crushing service. Its customers include contractors, homeowners, manufacturers and municipalities across the state. The crash Dunning had a rocky start to his post-college life when the engine failed in the small, home-built aircraft he was flying with an instructor, shortly after taking off at the now-shuttered Johnnycake Mountain Donna Dunning annually commemorates the plane crash that severely injured her husband, Benjamin Dunning, nearly three decades ago, by making a cake on the day's anniversary. PHOTOS | CONTRIBUTED Meadows Airport in Burlington. The plane went into a tailspin and nose-dived to the ground at about 85 mph, Dunning said. His legs were pressed into the ground, and emergency responders had to dig him out. People who witnessed the crash ran to his aid. As he recovered from the trauma, doctors reconstructed one of his legs and induced bone to grow to fill a 3-inch gap. His left leg remains partially paralyzed and he has a curvature in his spine, but he can walk with a cane and has devised a method to operate heavy machinery with a clutch. Although he still has constant pain — he said he's developed a "high tolerance" for it — he's grateful to be living a full life, he said. The crash has imbued him with fortitude and resolve that drives his business philosophy. "I think, because of the obstacle of learning to walk again, it made him realize that with any obstacle, he can get over it," Donna Dunning said. "He's just like, 'It's an obstacle. I can get around that. I can do something.'" As a reflection of that attitude, every year on June 9, the anniver- sary of the crash, Benjamin and Donna Dunning have a tradition. She bakes a cake each year to commemorate the occasion, always with the nose of an airplane figurine stuck into the topping. "We never dwell on the accident," she said. "We celebrate it."