They say a building is only as strong as its foundation. Well, a foundation can only be strong if the site it’s built upon is properly leveled and prepared for development. This is known as excavation, a crucial process of removing unstable earth and creating a trench, hole, or face in the ground to support a building's substructure.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the importance and purpose of excavation work in construction and analyze some of the top contractors for the job.
Excavation and Site Preparation Overview and Outlook
Excavation is an important part of nearly every construction project and is always in demand. The excavation contracting industry has grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 0.9% over the last five years, reaching $118 billion in 2023. It’s expected to grow an additional 3% this year.
There are nearly 235,000 excavation and site development contractors in the US. These companies are responsible for tasks such as:
- Removing soil and other materials to provide stability for building foundations
- Providing access for underground utility installation, such as sewage pipes and electrical cable
- Identifying and removing hazardous materials found buried on a developing site
- Altering the elevation of an area through a process known as earthmoving
- Clearing obstacles such as trees and large rocks, ensuring a clean, level site
- Completing mass excavation for deep foundations required by large industrial projects
Top 25 Excavation Contractors
As you’ve gathered, this industry is vast, with countless excavation contractors to sort through. If you’re trying to identify the top excavation and site development contractors, you may find yourself searching lists like:
- ENR’s Top 600 Specialty Contractors
- IBIS World Biggest Excavation Contractors in the US
- Statista Biggest Excavation and Foundation Contractors
- GC Magazine’s Best Excavation Contractors
But I have good news for you: We sorted through the companies that made these lists to bring you a carefully curated selection of the 25 top excavation and site development contractors in the US, all generating over $100 million in revenue. They range from family-operated teams with long histories in excavation to national corporations at the forefront of geotechnical engineering that offer specialized industrial excavation services.
6 Fastest Growing Excavation and Site Development Contractors
We’re always fascinated by looking at the intersection of size and growth. Six of these contractors stood out as truly exceptional. In an industry that has experienced only modest gains in recent years, these leaders grew by at least 30%, as reported by ENR’s Top 20 Excavation and Foundation Firms.
Here’s a closer look at the six top excavation contractors to keep an eye on.
1. WT Byler Co
Headquarters: Houston, Texas
Annual Revenue: $462.7 million
YOY Growth: 183%
WT Byler Co. is a privately owned full-service site development contractor in the Gulf Coast region. It offers a wide range of site preparation services for the industrial, petrochemical, commercial, and railroad industries, including mass excavation and embankment, site clearing and grubbing, debris removal, soil stabilization, and more.
The company was founded in 1973 with a dedication to a simple principle: Build it right the first time. Since its humble beginnings, WT Byler has grown into one of the nation’s largest site preparation and excavation contractors, employing hundreds of construction personnel. WT Byler prides itself on industry sustainability, striving to use machinery that is compliant with EPA standards designed to reduce carbon emissions and lessen environmental impact.
Learn more on WT Byler’s website.
2. Morris-Shea Bridge Co. Inc.
Headquarters: Irondale, AL
Annual Revenue: $150 million
YOY Growth: 88%
Morris-Shea Bridge Co. is an industry leader in deep foundation work, serving clients across the US, the Caribbean, and South America. The firm installs everything from foundations required for maximum earth retention, to marine foundations, and even temporary bridges to make construction site access more manageable. Its core areas of focus include industrial manufacturing plants, heavy civil construction, and power plants.
Morris-Shea Bridge strives to stay current with cutting-edge geotechnical engineering technologies. It presently holds the installation rights for Dewaal Piles, one of the ideal deep foundation systems for wetlands, dense urban environments, and any other area where the ground is prone to shifting or collapsing due to natural stress.
Learn more on Morris-Shea Bridge’s website.
3. Goettle Inc.
Headquarters: Cincinnati, OH
Annual Revenue: $199 million
YOY Growth: 73%
Goettle is a national geotechnical contractor specializing in deep foundations, earth retention, and marine construction. It is capable of handling any design-build scope of work and formulates solutions specifically for each project site. Goettle strives for maximum efficiency and seamless communication between engineers, project managers, and installation personnel.
Richard Goettle started Goettle Inc. in 1956 as a small general contractor. Driven by industry demand over the last 65 years, Geottle has expanded from its home base in Ohio to operate offices in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Florida.
Learn more on Goettle’s website.
4. Veit & Company Inc.
Headquarters: Rogers, MN
Annual Revenue: $222.6 million
YOY Growth: 51%
Veit is one of the nation’s leading specialty contractors. Its excavation services include everything from earth retention and deep foundation laying to routing electrical and sewage utilities. It also offers demolition, disposal, and industrial clearing services. Veit serves 17 different sectors across commercial, industrial, energy, municipal, and public markets.
Founded in 1928, Veit is a third-generation family-owned company. It started as a solo contractor with a single truck. Thanks to its commitment to never settle and dig deeper, the company has grown into a team of 800+ people across the Northern Midwest.
Learn more on Veit & Company’s website.
5. Beaver Excavating Co.
Headquarters: Canton, OH
Annual Revenue: $299 million
YOY Growth: 50%
The Beaver Excavating Company is one of the largest and most respected excavation, site development, and civil construction contractors in the Midwest. It offers services such as mass excavation, earth moving, concrete and geotechnical foundation, underground utility services, soil stabilization, and reservoir construction.
Since its founding in 1953, Beaver Excavating has been built on the core values of quality, customer service, and community service. Named after nature’s engineers, Beaver aims to meet every demand the excavation industry faces while maintaining top safety standards. The firm is consistently recognized by multiple contractor associations for its high quality and safety standards.
Learn more on Beaver Excavating’s website.
6. Menard
Headquarters: Carnegie, PA
Annual Revenue: $250.1 million
YOY Growth: 32%
Menard USA, a subsidiary of The Menard Group, specializes in ground improvement for sites with problematic soil conditions, including loose earth and arid terrain. Its services span the construction and insulation of support columns, earth moving, and proprietary earth compaction technologies.
Menard has been at the forefront of the geotechnical engineering industry since its founding in 1984. It is responsible for innovations that revolutionized the way foundation construction is completed, such as the pressuremeter to accurately test design parameters required for building foundations and the concept of dynamic compaction, which helps compact and densify loose earth to provide structural support to a building.
Learn more on Menard’s website.
What Every Contractor Can Learn from These Leaders
With the tumultuous market demand for excavation and site preparation services over the last few years, many contractors have a hard time standing out amongst the masses. These rapidly growing contractors demonstrate key factors that help them stay on top.
- They prioritize building strong reputations with general contractors, creating a solid working relationship, delivering exceptional service, and ensuring future business.
- They invest in growing geotechnical engineering solutions to adapt to the changing demands of excavation services.
- They’re smart with their resources and take hold of their financial processes to build stability when the industry faces undesirable conditions.
Many excavation contractors use tools like Siteline—a construction billing software built specifically for subcontractors—to ensure healthy, predictable cash flow and shorter billing cycles. See how it changed the financial forecast for site development contractor Vallencourt Construction.
If you work for a specialty contractor that needs new tools to thrive in an ever-changing market, schedule a demo of Siteline today.
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