{"id":5417,"date":"2021-06-05T17:15:52","date_gmt":"2021-06-06T00:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.daily.construction\/?p=5417"},"modified":"2021-06-05T17:16:20","modified_gmt":"2021-06-06T00:16:20","slug":"ive-got-a-doctorate-in-hard-knocks-how-this-colorado-contractor-has-weathered-the-ups-and-down-of-the-oil-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/ive-got-a-doctorate-in-hard-knocks-how-this-colorado-contractor-has-weathered-the-ups-and-down-of-the-oil-field\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019ve Got a Doctorate in Hard Knocks.” How This Colorado Contractor Has Weathered the Ups and Down of the Oil Field"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ups and downs of the oil field \u2013 always a factor in the Grand Junction, Colorado area of the country \u2013 can create a feast-or-famine cycle for the local contractors.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Rick Davis, president, Mountain Valley Contracting, has had plenty of practice riding those economic cycles: he started working summers in his father\u2019s excavating firm when he was 15.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

He also knows there is always a job for anyone who can read plans, run a crew, hustle and understands how a job works. He\u2019s been out of a job before, but never for long.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a doctorate in hard knocks,\u201d Davis says with a laugh. \u201cReading plans came naturally.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

His father eventually retired \u2013 an event that was quickly followed by a local oil bust. \u201cThe old-timers call it Black Sunday,\u201d Davis says. \u201cThis town turned into a ghost town. You couldn\u2019t buy a job.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Still, Davis managed to stay busy for a time. \u201cWe had an excellent reputation for our abilities in utilities, and people started to call us to close out projects,\u201d he says. During this time, a flood wiped out the water lines going to several smaller communities, which also provided work.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

But everything dried up in about two years. With no jobs in sight, Davis closed his doors and headed for then-booming Phoenix.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/span>But he eventually headed back home, hating the 10-hour drives it took to see his family every other weekend. At home he could make good use of the network he had developed after years in construction.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI went back to my local pipe supplier company at the time and told them I was back in town and looking for work,\u201d he relates. He quickly got a call.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Davis likes to tell this story about his job progression: \u201cThey made me a laborer and found out I couldn\u2019t do that, so they made me an operator, and I couldn\u2019t do that, so they made me a foreman and found out I sucked at it, so then they made me a superintendent.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe time is right.\u201d
\n<\/h3>\n

A city inspector\u2019s question prompted Davis to take the next step. \u201cWhen are going to go into business again?\u201d the inspector asked.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe time is right,\u201d the inspector continued. \u201cThere\u2019s a bunch of work coming up and we need qualified contractors, and we don\u2019t have them.\u201d\"MountainMountain Valley crews install a 114-inch diameter plate arch culvert at the Eagle Airport in Eagle, Colorado.<\/span>Mountain Valley<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

So Davis started Mountain Valley with two partners in 1996, doing concrete alley improvements, utility, demolition and grading work. He soon was running a single-owner operation.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Today the $10 million to $12 million firm does a variety of primarily government projects, including civil construction, road construction, utilities and asphalt milling. \u201cWe thrive on involved, complex jobs,\u201d Davis says. \u201cA lot of people do not like high-intensity, complicated projects, and that just moves us up on the scale of being able to get them.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Others have observed the company\u2019s willingness to tackle challenges. \u201cMountain Valley will take on any project, but they seem to excel at the more difficult projects,\u201d says Kevin Boggs with Wagner Equipment. \u201cThey are always looking for ways to differentiate their business from the other contractors.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Field of operation
\n<\/h3>\n

As with many contractors, Davis\u2019 natural habitat is in the driver\u2019s seat of his pickup.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Mountain Valley usually works within a 200-mile radius of Grand Junction, with more than $10 million in projects completed for the city of Montrose, about an hour south.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cMountain Valley is typically viewed as the \u2018ones to beat\u2019 given their solid reputation as a competitive bidder,\u201d says Scott Murphy, Montrose city engineer. \u201cThey\u2019ve always worked to bring cutting-edge equipment technologies to our projects, which has saved us large amounts of money and oversight time.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

No sitting around\"BackfillingBackfilling and grading operations over the plate arch culvert at the Eagle Airport in Eagle, Colorado. In this photo, crews were nearing final elevations.<\/span>Mountain Valley<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/h3>\n

Mountain Valley\u2019s equipment yard is south of the city on a 2-acre lot. \u201cI\u2019m of the philosophy that if my equipment is sitting in the yard and not working, I don\u2019t need it,\u201d Davis says.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

While Mountain Valley crews perform minor equipment fixes, Davis has Wagner Equipment maintain his machines. \u201cThe first year we did that, our maintenance costs were cut in half,\u201d Davis says, \u201cand our costs are now predictable.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Mountain Valley took on asphalt milling after Davis observed there were no milling contractors between Denver and Salt Lake City.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

He asked the local road contractors why they hadn\u2019t added milling services. The response: none of them individually had enough work to pay for an expensive milling machine. But, they added, if a contractor who wasn\u2019t a paving competitor took it on, they would use that contractor.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

To do a toe dip into the milling market, Davis rented a milling machine for a $13,000 two-day job that didn\u2019t cover the $15,000-a-month rental. \u201cI told my dealer that he had to carry me on it,\u201d Davis relates. \u201cYou’ve got to start somewhere.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

He ended up buying the milling machine, and a few years ago moved up to a larger, half-lane Cat PM200.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Integral to success\"LeadLead crew: Davis with Vice President Tracy DiGesualdo (left) and Operations Manager Lane Johnson (center).<\/span>Equipment World<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/h3>\n

Vice President Tracy DiGesualdo and Operations Manager Lane Johnson are integral to Mountain Valley\u2019s success.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cTracy has grown with the company and been a tremendous help through good and bad times, holding everything together,\u201d Davis says.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cLane walked into the office one day during the recession,\u201d Davis comments. \u201cHe came from Kiewit, and he\u2019s been a huge catalyst to this company. He had worked there on the first generation of machine control and brought that knowledge to us. He knows it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Because of his knowledge, in 2013 the company served as a product tester for a Trimble 3D milling machine control system. A client asked them to profile mill \u2013 essentially take out the humps and bumps \u2013 on a job before white topping a road.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Johnson reached out to Trimble for a solution. Mountain Valley used a Trimble GCS900 grade control system with a universal total station installed on the milling machine. The project was written up in a Federal Highway Administration white paper.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Mountain Valley went on to beta test a Trimble 3D machine control system on its Cat 135 grader the company uses for finish.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Johnson soon convinced Davis they needed a machine control system for the dozer. To pay for it, Davis persuaded a client to pay him half of a project\u2019s budgeted survey costs, saying he\u2019d take care of the survey needed for his own work.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThat gave me enough money to pay for putting the controls on the dozer plus a little more to do the modeling work,\u201d Davis says. The company accomplished what would have taken eight hours to get the project to grade in 30 minutes, he says.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Since then, Mountain Valley has added 3D machine control to some of its excavators.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have innovative thinking and practices,\u201d Boggs says. \u201cThey are always thinking outside of the box.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t do that, it becomes boring,\u201d Davis says. \u201cSometimes ideas work great and sometimes not. That\u2019s where we have our fun, in trying to find different ways to do things.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

For example, Davis has long examined the issue of dealing with manhole castings during milling. \u201cWhen you mill you have to come up to them, lift up, go over and set the milling rotor back down, and you leave the asphalt around it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

He now uses a custom truck-mounted manhole cutter that can be remotely controlled and comes with a selection of cutter heads.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Avid networker<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

Along with being innovative, Davis is an avid networker. He values the contacts he\u2019s made throughout his career and has served as president of the Colorado Chapter of the National Utility Contractors Association and is actively involved in the Western Colorado Contractors Association.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The shared information has also proven valuable, and Davis has many stories on how experiences of one member have saved money for other members.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

After the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Mountain Valley saw two large projects postponed. \u201cIt was painful,\u201d Davis says. \u201cWe missed our prime season, and we were down 36% in revenues.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t forget that Davis is an expert surfer of construction\u2019s cycles.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year is looking a lot better for us, and it looks like we\u2019re going to be back up to $12 million,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The Contractor of the Year program has been sponsored by Caterpillar for 21 years. For more information, click here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ups and downs of the oil field \u2013 always a factor in the Grand Junction, Colorado area of the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2383,"featured_media":5419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[963],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-equipment-world","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2383"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}