A Utah company brings on a KPI-JCI crushing plant to complement its excavating business.

For some people, going into business for themselves can be a lifelong ambition. But for others, it's fate that puts the opportunity in front of them, ripe for the taking.

The latter was the case for Doug Cowley and his son Robert. After more than a decade working for Union Pacific, Doug's position had come to a conclusion, and Robert was working for Doug's brother-in-law at the time. "There weren't too many paths open to me at the time," recalled Doug. "It was either go to work for my brother-in-law, or start out on my own." So Doug partnered with his son (and brought in a third, silent partner for financing) and founded HOG Excavation in 1998.

The plant acquired by the company is a KPI-JCI FT 2650 jaw crusher, which feeds a secondary FT 300 tracked cone.

Robert serves as company president with Doug filling the vice-president role. "HOG stands for Honest, Outstanding Ground work. That pretty much sums it up for us," Doug explained. "We wanted to make it perfectly clear that we are a company of integrity that customers could depend on for quality excavation services."

Based in Heber, Utah, about 45 miles east of Salt Lake City, HOG Excavation started as humbly as many other construction service businesses – with a track hoe and a dump truck. But with a little luck, and an enormous amount of hard work, Doug and Robert have turned HOG Excavation into a very profitable, robustly growing business.

"Every year that we've been in business we have probably doubled," Doug admitted. "Last year we probably tripled our business." While success has come swiftly, the father-and-son team has been smart in how it handled the growth.

Building the business

The company can now effectively leverage its portable crushing capacity.

For the first 6-7 years in business, the Cowleys focused exclusively on building their excavation business, avoiding the potential of becoming distracted from their core mission. "We got started like most other excavation businesses, digging residential basements; but we continued to get more opportunities and eventually started doing commercial work, and ultimately got into managing full developments." But as the company continued to grow, Doug and Robert recognized the opportunity, and necessity, to diversify.

A little more than three years ago, HOG Excavation launched its pipeline division to install and service the high-pressure gas infrastructure in the oil fields out here. "Randy Hairston had been working for another company, and was not happy with how that job was going, so he was looking to branch out on his own just as we were looking to get into something like that," he said. "We're really fortunate to have had him come work with us."

Not surprisingly, the pipeline division of HOG Excavating was a quick success as well, and for the next three years, Doug and Robert again put their heads down, worked hard and established a solid foundation for the new business center. A decade into its effort, HOG Excavation now has satellite offices in Trinidad, Mack and Rangely, Colo., and depending on the current outstanding contracts in the pipeline division, can employ a team of over 150 people at a given time. So this spring, Doug once again recognized an opportunity for diversified expansion, and starting in Vernal, Utah, launched their sand and gravel division.

"Vernal is an oil-patch town, and housing is hard to come by because of the boom," Doug explained. "We were doing a subdivision out there and needed a source of gravel ... which is also hard to come by in Vernal. Basically there was one source, and they could ask any price they wanted."

But unlike the launch of their pipeline division, which was founded on the shoulders of Randy's experience, Doug actually brought the crushing experience to HOG Excavation himself. "Robert knew I had experience in crushing, and I loved the idea of getting back into it, so it just fell into place."

With Doug's experience in crushing also came his experience with KPI-JCI equipment. In a beneficial twist of fate, a company that HOG Excavation had recently done business with was in the position to sell a hardly used KPI-JCI mobile plant they bought from Goodfellow Corp., but quickly outgrew. "We took one look at the plant and knew we wanted it right away. Back in my crushing days we used KPI-JCI equipment almost exclusively, so getting a KPI-JCI plant for HOG Excavation was an easy decision."

Portable process

The portable plant acquired by HOG Excavation is anchored by a KPI-JCI FT2650 jaw crusher, which feeds a secondary KPI-JCI FT300 tracked cone. Separation is performed by a 6-ft. x 20-ft. triple-deck FT6203OC tracked screen. All the machines were acquired still under warranty, and prior to delivery, KPI-JCI and Goodfellow went through the equipment quite thoroughly to ensure everything met KPI-JCI standards.

"KPI-JCI just finished working on the jaw crusher a bit for us to keep it at top performance." Doug has been extremely satisfied with the support he has received, even though the machine was not purchased as new. "Since they fulfilled the deal, Goodfellow supports our crushing equipment now.

"They had actually just sold this plant to another customer who outgrew it in just a few short months and wanted a more permanent set up. So they bought another new plant from them and we were able to get this one. They've been great to work with and have left us every confidence that our crushing plant is in good hands."

Needless to say, Doug and Robert have been very pleased with the performance of the KPI-JCI plant, and have put it into full-time service since the day it came online. The initial task for the mobile plant was in the subdivision development project in Vernal. They were able to crush on a location near the subdivision to pull gravel for their own needs, as well as perform contract crushing services for the owners of the pit.

Since that first effort, HOG Excavation has hopped between subdivision developments, revisiting the Vernal site occasionally to perform more contract crushing. Having the mobility of the portable plant makes the entire process possible.

"This has worked out very well for us," Doug continued. "Being able to relocate easily has allowed us to meet periodic demand at the sites where we're doing other work." As most subdivision developments now require the construction of waste-water containment system, storage ponds and other water-management infrastructure, excavation of these features are one of the first tasks conducted on the sites.

"When we do [containment] ponds, we'll process the overburden and get all the rock out of there that we can pull. Most of that material is cobble rock." HOG Excavation then reemploys the aggregate they produce back into the projects on which they work – none of that aggregate enters the general market.