If you think durable companies are built on flash, this conversation will change your mind. We sit down with excavation leader Matt Bachtel to unpack a 26-year journey powered by humble starts, careful decisions, and an unwavering investment in people. From mowing lawns and delivering filters at a dealership to running multi-crew water and sewer work across Northeast Ohio, Matt shows how steady growth and clean execution beat speed every time.
We dig into the early years, mentors who opened doors, a chicken coop yard organized like a showroom, and the hard choice to rent equipment until the numbers said buy. Matt explains why he dumped spreadsheets for industry software long before it was cool, and how proper cost codes, AIA billing, and change-order discipline turned a small firm into a professional outfit. You’ll hear how foremen were grown from parts runners and pipe layers, how GPS skills evolved into drones and precision layout, and how a modest barn operation matured into a facility that earned customer confidence without losing its roots.
Then the playbook exploded. A culture scare, a sudden retirement, and COVID-era shocks collided with inflation and supply shortages. Matt walks through promoting young standouts to foremen, adding a fourth crew, and rebuilding systems that broke under rapid growth. The customer-facing quality never slipped, because the team communicated, adapted, and kept documentation tight.
Looking to 2026, we break down the firm’s two-year public service line replacement contract for 1,245 homes, the five-page procedure that makes it possible, and the personal discipline that keeps momentum alive when January hype fades.
If you’re a blue-collar owner or manager trying to scale without losing your soul, this is your field guide: know your market, hire for humility, rent smart, promote from within, and turn repeat pain into written process.
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More About this Episode
Building a Blue-Collar Business That Lasts: Lessons From 25 Years in Excavation
In this business, too many stories are curated to impress rather than inform. That’s not what we’re doing here. If you’re in the trenches of building a blue-collar business, especially in excavation or utility work, you know the reality: success is a grind. It’s slow, gritty, unforgiving work. But it’s also the most rewarding path I know. That’s why sitting down with Matt Bachtel, president of Bachtel Excavating, meant so much to me. Because this isn’t a story about overnight success. This is 25 years of grit, growth, and doing it the right way.
Matt didn’t build his company off hype. He built it off humility, blue-collar values, and surrounding himself with great people. Whether you’re just getting started or trying to navigate that next level of growth, there’s a lot here to learn from.
Let’s break it down, not as a recap, but as hard-won lessons from a man who’s lived every phase of the excavation business.
From Yellow Iron Dreams to Entrepreneurial Reality
Matt’s story begins like many of ours do: a kid fascinated by equipment. The yellow iron drew him in, but what kept him was something deeper. He started mowing lawns in the seventh grade, working for an excavator at 15. But every old-school operator told him, “Go to college, you don’t want to do this.”
He went. He got a degree in business marketing from Ohio State. But he couldn’t shake the call of the dirt.
While others may have used college to escape the trades, Matt used it to enhance his understanding of them. During his time at OSU, he hustled part-time at a heavy equipment dealership, learning the industry inside and out. From parts runs to pressure washing, from updating client lists to landing his first full-time sales territory, he earned every inch.
It was in these early days he got a critical look at the back end of the business; inventory management, customer relationships, the structure behind the shop. Most guys never get that education, but for Matt, it laid the groundwork.
Then came the decision that defines most business owners: he walked away from a dream sales job, sold his house, bought his first mini-excavator and dump truck, and launched Bachtel Excavating in May 2000.
Conservative Growth, Rooted in Discipline
Here’s where Matt’s story diverges from many others in the excavation world.
He didn’t chase revenue. He didn’t try to scale too fast. He was methodical, intentional, and maybe most important, financially conservative. In a world obsessed with flash, Matt focused on foundation. He watched others go from one crew to five to thirty, and flame out. That was never going to be his path.
He rented before he bought. He ran lean. And he invested in people more than machines.
In the early days, it was Matt and a few close friends. His brother, a high school buddy named Keith, and eventually a small, loyal crew. One of them worked for free the first summer just to be part of something they believed in. That same guy is now the operations manager. That’s what loyalty and vision look like when they come together.
And when his wife, an accountant by trade, got involved, things only got sharper. From helping implement QuickBooks to eventually leading the charge on migrating to a full construction-specific software platform, she brought in financial discipline that most excavating outfits never build until it’s too late.
This wasn’t just a business. It was a mission, and the foundation was being laid stone by stone.
Scaling the Right Way: From the Ditch to the Foreman’s Seat
If there’s one theme that carries throughout Matt’s story, it’s growth through people.
Not just hiring, but building.
He didn’t go looking for hotshot foremen. He didn’t bring in “30-year guys” who didn’t align with the culture. He developed his team from within. One guy started as a parts runner and floor sweeper while attending OSU’s construction management program full time. He’s now running crews.
Another showed up at Matt’s house after being told he needed a CDL. A year later, he was back, with a license in hand. Hired on the spot.
This is the heart of the Bachtel philosophy: grow with great people, not just warm bodies. Promote when it's earned. Train when it’s needed. And lead with humility, not ego.
That’s how Matt went from a one-crew operation to running multiple crews with foremen who are not only skilled but fully bought into the culture. These are guys who, when they leave (if they ever do), Matt would write a glowing reference without hesitation. Because they gave their all, and he did too.
Surviving, and Thriving, Through Chaos
Every contractor remembers where they were in 2008.
Matt had just grossed over a million in 2007. By the next year, the economy crashed. Two well-established excavators in his area folded, even though they hadn’t missed a single payment. Why? The banks pulled their lines of credit.
Matt, by contrast, was financially sound. No flashy overhead. No bloated payroll. No bad debt.
He watched those companies go down and learned a critical lesson: cash is king. And growth without a plan is a liability.
But that wouldn’t be the only test.
The last five years have been some of the most chaotic in blue-collar business history. Starting in 2019, Matt had just come off a record year when personal issues with a key foreman surfaced. A difficult transition followed. Then came COVID-19.
His team kept working. But like all of us, they were hit with material shortages, labor market swings, inflation, equipment delays, and uncertainty at every turn. He lost a key estimator. They promoted from within, again. They rewrote their playbooks in real-time.
And here’s the key: the customers never noticed. Internally, they knew they were breaking systems, but they were transparent about it. Their office team knew. They communicated with their field. They made sure their people knew the “why” behind the changes.
That kind of cultural integrity? It doesn’t happen by accident.
Operational Maturity: Data, Discipline, and Development
One of the most under-discussed factors in excavation success is back-office maturity. Most guys start with what they know: how to move dirt. But if you don’t evolve the systems behind the work, you’ll break under the weight of your own growth.
Matt saw this early.
QuickBooks and spreadsheets only took them so far. With more commercial jobs and AIA billing requirements, they needed robust cost coding, job costing, and real-time data.
That’s when they invested heavily in construction-specific software. They didn’t just buy it. They brought in consultants. They rebuilt processes. They overhauled their operations.
It wasn’t easy. It took two years. But it unlocked growth they couldn’t have achieved otherwise.
Today, Bachtel runs like a company twice its size because the systems support the team, not the other way around. And Matt’s still writing new procedures today, 26 years later. Not from a whiteboard. From a jobsite need.
Because that’s what leadership looks like.
What’s Next: 2026 and Beyond
For Bachtel Excavating, 2026 is all about execution.
They’ve landed a large-scale public works waterline replacement contract involving over 1,200 houses. That’s not just digging, it’s scheduling, customer relations, logistics, and precision.
So, they’re writing the playbook before the job starts.
Four pages into the procedure and counting, the entire leadership team is involved. Because they understand one truth that applies to every blue-collar business: if something happens more than once, it needs a system.
This is what operational maturity looks like in practice. And it’s how you go from surviving to scaling.
Final Takeaways for the Blue-Collar Business Owner
If you’re stuck, struggling, or just trying to find your next gear, here’s what Matt Bachtel would tell you:
- Know who you are. Don’t chase someone else’s dream or scale just to say you did. Grow in alignment with your market, your culture, and your values.
- Invest in your people. Not just with training but with time. Let them grow into leadership. Promote when it’s earned.
- Respect the business side. Equipment moves dirt. But systems, software, and financial discipline build companies.
- Don’t wait for perfection. Procedures can be written today. Processes can be improved in real-time. Start now.
- Use the hard times as a launchpad. 2008, 2020, 2023, none of them broke Bachtel Excavating. They refined it.
- Take care of your people. Your crew is your culture. Build something they’re proud of, and they’ll build it with you.
- Stay humble. If you think you’ve arrived, you’re probably one mistake away from a lesson. Be willing to learn, every day.
At the end of the day, this isn’t a flashy story. It’s a real one.
And in a world full of fake-it-til-you-make-it posts and contractor bravado, Matt’s 25-year journey reminds us that doing it the right way still matters.
You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. You just need to stay true to who you are, and build it brick by brick, person by person, job by job.
That’s how blue-collar legacies are made.
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