Suchocki and Son, Inc.

His father, Tim, had been a CT D.O.T. inspector, then left that job in 1994 to start his own small excavation business in Preston, CT, doing mostly residential work. Josh came along in 1996, grew-up with the business, and knew it was something he wanted to do as well. Now, Suchocki and Son, Inc. is located in a larger headquarters in Old Lyme, and instead of small residential jobs, most of the work they do is for local municipalities and the Sate Department of Transportation. Two things helped make that possible: Josh’s degree in Construction Management from a local college, and the company’s decision to invest in engcon. “When I came out of school I came on board as an operator and laborer and worked in the field,” he said of when he joined his father’s business in 2018.

After that, he put his degree to work, moved into the operations and estimating side, and suggested to his dad that the company move in the direction of more municipal and D.O.T. work. “He backed me 100%,” he remembered. “He wanted to see where the company could go.”

Suchocki and Son, Inc. has grown substantially since then, now has 25 employees, and about 85% of its work is government contracts for everything from road reconstruction to bridges, dam removals, large retaining walls, even wetlands restoration. This summer’s Waterford job was for a variety or work including “streetscaping.” “We put new sidewalks in, new granite curbing, a sod grass strip, and new street lighting,” he said of the work, much of it done with engcons that helped minimize traffic disruption along busy Route 156 in Waterford.

The overall job included improvements to an adjacent public park in Waterford, where the company dredged a pond, disposed of contaminated material, regraded, added 20,000 square feet of sidewalks, and put up new site lighting. It was a big job.

Suchocki has four workers who can operate their two encons, an EC214 and an EC219, and they’re considering getting another engcon to put on a smaller machine (a 307.5 Caterpillar) for tighter spots. With anywhere between five and seven jobs in progress at once, it pays to have several engcons and talented operators available. They got that first engcon in 2018 when the Suchockis were researching new equipment, and were impressed with the number of available attachments and capabilities of the machine. “The durability of the engcon has been great,” the 28-year-old Suchocki said. “We have multiple operators, and we’re still running our original engcon from 2018 and it has about 4,000 hours on it.”

Mike Rubino was one of those operators on the Waterford job, and he was ripping up asphalt using the engcon EC219 on the Volvo EC180. “I love the engcon on this rubber tire excavator,” he said. “I think the weight and the balance on it is very precise, especially with working on the roadways for smooth travel while excavating and grading.”

Rubino also uses an EC214 on a CAT 315 excavator. “I think the engcon for that machine is ideal for certain situations,” he said, noting that it’s a great combination for jobs that require a long reach. “But what I really like about the EC214 is the two easy buttons to change the implements. I really love the engcon because it reduces the labor help you need on any job.” Winning bids from the state and towns can mean working along busy roads with lots of traffic, and the mobility with the engcon helps keep the traffic moving. “It’s huge,” Suchocki said. “The engcon has a great effect on the movement of the machine…we can sit in one configuration… and do multiple things from one position with the excavator.”

There was a traffic control flagger on-site in Waterford, but she easily kept things moving because the excavator never moved into traffic to change angles. That’s because the engcon can approach the work from any angle while the excavator stays in one spot. “It saves on wear-and-tear, it’s huge on safety, and it saves on labor,” Suchocki said, because “the more we can do with a smaller crew, the better off we are.”

Saving on labor is an advantage on any job, but it becomes more important when the job is up for competitive bid. State and town contracts, by law, must be awarded to the company that offers to do the job for the lowest cost. “It definitely gives an advantage at bid time,” Suchocki said, because lower labor costs means a more competitive bid. And bidding on contracts is a big timeinvestment in terms of the time it takes to prepare and submit one. “An average bid for us takes anywhere from 16 to 40 hours.” “It’s a nice advantage to me on bid-day knowing I have this technology to facilitate the work,” he noted.

State, town and city jobs are also more involved on an organizational and management level. “You’re held to a higher standard,” he said. “There’s a lot more oversight on us, there are inspectors watching everything we do.” And occasionally they get an inspector who hasn’t seen an engcon at work before. “They say things like, ‘That thing is so cool, I can’t believe what you guys can do with that!,’” he says with a laughs. “Once you have it,” Suchocki said. “…it’s hard to do without.”