Mike Green of Green Construction has worked in heavy construction since 1992. Over the years, he has seen many fluctuations in the economy and has learned to adjust to them. But this recent downturn has caused him to diversify in some unexpected ways, just as it has done for almost every business owner today.
he focus of his work had always been private residential work, but since the market dropped in 2007, he has taken on many jobs for local governments: “I never even looked at municipal work before, but when the larger private work dried up, I started bidding them.” Over the past year, he has taken on projects for the City of Camas, Washington; the City of Washougal, Washington; and the Underwood Conservation
District among others. For Underwood, Green Construction installed a bridge near Trout Lake, ripping out an existing culvert, doing stream restoration, and adding the bridge. The timing was critical because they had to complete the project between salmon runs in the stream.
Green also found a surprising amount of demolition business in 2008, including work for the City of Camas, the Port of Camas/Washougal, and Tarr LLC in Portland. Using the machine he calls the backbone of his company, a John Deere 120C, Green and his crew make quick work of these tear downs: “ We can put it in a house, tear it down, and separate it in no time flat.” Recently, they demolished two houses and a couple of out buildings for the Port in about 12 hours total. Doug Ziegler is typically at the controls on these jobs, a young operator with lots of talent as Green puts it.
TCG recently caught up with Green and crew at a demolition site in the rolling hills outside Washougal where a fire in December had gutted a beautiful multi-level home. Using the thumb and bucket Zeigler easily separated large chunks of debris into piles, nimbly moving through the interior of the house as he worked his way toward the chimney stack. The 120C may be small by comparison to the larger machines, but its good sized reach comes in handy. After maneuvering the 120 up on to the second level Zeigler he easily brought down the chimney with a few swipes of the bucket.
The 120C, which has been replaced by the D series, is a very mobile 30,000 pound machine and as Green put it: “We don’t need flaggers to move them, and they’re more efficient than our 200.” He has been very impressed with its power: “It’s only a four cylinder but it can pretty much dig out and knock down anything you throw at it.” It’s clear that Green’s equipment allegiance lies squarely with John Deere. The company has a 35D mini, and two 120Cs with about 1,000 hours on each, certainly enough
time to get a solid read on their value. Green also had the foresight to invest his money wisely right down to the additional plumbing he requested as part of the purchase. “Even though I knew it was unlikely I would utilize the additional plumbing I did it anyway for the machines resale value.”
Each machine is fitted with the Irish manufacturer Dromone’s hydraulic quick hitches which is distributed through the Canadian manufacturer CWS. The Dromone quick hitch is a fully automatic locking system that’s visibly safe without having to leave the cab. The quick hitch hydraulic kit uses five port system which only permits operation when attachment is in the safe (fully curled in) position, and the lock is independent of hydraulics and will not drop the bucket even in the event of a complete hydraulic failure. Another great cost benefit to this coupler is that it will pick up attachments of varying pin diameters
within the same weight class therefor reducing your bucket inventory.
For a small company like Green’s, the John Deere line of mini and midi excavators has been a smart choice but equally important has been the support from Pape Machinery. Over the years he had developed a strong relationship with his salesman but a couple of years ago the salesman left Pape Machinery to break out on his own. “But that was ok because the salesman set up shop just down the road from my yard, and he regularly comes in to give me a pep talk especially during these tough times.”
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