Working in the Big Sky, Montana area as a contractor has
its advantages. The views are spectacular, and the work
has been plentiful with the influx of wealthy people/families
that are buying lots and putting up homes and lodges in the
mountains in the area.
Mario Mitchell, owner of Dynamic Excavating, moved to
Montana about 6 years ago. “I grew up in California where
about half of my family was involved with farming and
agriculture, and the other half was in construction,” explained
Mitchell. “Equipment and construction is something that I’ve
always been around. I understand it well and enjoy
the industry.”
Mitchell originally moved to Montana to pursue a business
opportunity that didn’t pan out. After working construction
in the area for a few years, Mitchell went out on his own and
hasn’t looked back since.
“We’ll take on just about any type of construction project in the area,” he said. “We work on roads and excavating projects, water lines, rough and final grade – just about anything that you run across on a jobsite that involves moving dirt and material. We do a lot of our own projects and also do overflow work from other contractors that are short iron or knowledge/manpower to complete the job.”
A lot of the projects that Mitchell and his company are working on or have completed involves work on challenging slopes. “Most of the work we do is at 7,000’-8,500’, with steep and rocky terrain,” said Mitchell. “It takes the right equipment and the right operator using good, solid techniques to operate on many of the jobsites we’re on. You need to have a plan of attack to safely complete your project on this kind of terrain.”
Finding the right operators is a key concern for Mitchell. “Not everything we do is up on
the side of a mountain, but a lot of it is,” he explained. “It takes a seasoned operator to work on some of these jobsites. If you take somebody that’s used to working down on the flatlands around Bozeman and put them on some of our jobsites up in the mountains, they are going to be a little apprehensive until they’ve had time to get used to working like that. Part of the solution is having good equipment and keeping it in that way by staying up on the maintenance and repairs. You do not want equipment failures at 9,000’.”
For equipment, Dynamic Excavating has a growing fleet of Case Construction equipment purchased and supported by the local Titan Machinery dealerships in central and western Montana. “We’ve migrated away from some of the other brands of equipment and are now pretty much only running Case equipment on our jobsites,” said Mitchell. “It all comes down to service. I get exceptional service from the Titan Machinery dealerships in the area. All the Titan Machinery dealerships that I work with work together and treat me like a local customer, whether I bought the equipment at that location or not.”
One of the latest purchases has been a Case 1650M dozer equipped with dual slope boards and a 3D Leica machine control system. “That dozer is really a versatile machine,” said Mitchell. “It’s about 39,000lbs, and we use it for everything from building roads to doing rough and final grade. It’s got great power and stability on the slopes.”
Titan Machinery worked with Mitchell to put a dozer package together that exceeded the
machine specifications that he was looking for and was a first for Case dozers. “This is the first Case 1650M dozer to be equipped with dual slope boards and a 3D machine control system,” explained Keith Henry, Equipment Sale Consultant for Titan Machinery. “It took a little work to get everything integrated and functioning properly but we’ve got the right team here at Titan and Case provided us the help and resources to deliver the right machine solution for our customer.”
“With the slope boards and the Leica 3D system, this machine is a beast”, said Mitchell. “When we’re building roads we have the power to blast in where we need to go without going to a bigger machine. The slope boards allow us to dress up the sides and sweep the slopes back to where we need to be. The accuracy of the Leica 3D system allows us to get the grade so close that it only takes a pass or two with the grader to finish. We’ve also found that we can use the slope boards to increase our pass width on jobsite final grade work – shortening up the time on those jobs. It’s everything we were looking for when we went to Titan with our machine requirements.”
Overall, the experience that Dynamic Excavating has had with the equipment they’ve
purchased from Titan has exceeded expectations. “Case makes great equipment. We’ve had excellent performance from all our Case equipment. And we’re working that equipment – the jobsites we’re on are difficult operating environments whether it’s the altitude or the slope or the rocks. There’s no question in our experience that Case equipment will compete toe-to-toe with any other brand on the market today.”
What does the future for the construction industry hold for the Big Sky area? “There doesn’t seem to be any let-up in the demand for housing and infrastructure in the area,” said Mitchell. “We’ve got a lot of big names that have bought property in the area – all the way from Bill Gates to Tom Brady. There doesn’t seem to be any slowing down in the demand. It’s funny – I grew up in California and now I’m living in the middle of Montana and seeing a lot of the names you’d normally associate with California buying and building in this area. It’s a beautiful area – I love living and working here.”