McDonald Excavating, Inc.

“McDonald Excavating’s commitment to meeting project goals in the face of a changing scope of work on the Instate 205 MAX light-rail extension is one of several qualities that set the company apart.” According to Mark Bodyfelt, project manager for Stacy and Witbeck, one of the lead contractors on the project. “While McDonald Excavating’s original work scope and contract amount was on a smaller scale, their planning and performance were exceptional,” Bodyfelt said. “Even as their work scope increased, McDonald’s project team stepped up to meet every challenge.”

Project Manager Ryan McDonald said the extension was one of the largest projects the company had undertaken up to that point, and there were plenty of lessons learned along the way. “I would say the single most important lesson we learned was the importance of coordination,” he said. “We learned really quickly that on a project of this magnitude and with as many trades represented on the project site, it was vitally important to diligently coordinate out work with the prime as well as other subcontractors. If this did not get done, it would cost us, the prime, and other subs time and money. What was unique about it to us was how we were able to solve problems in the field. It is always very satisfying to have a problem on a project and be able to put your heads together with the prime and the designer, come to a solution then and there, and move forward.”

            We initially received a $216,000 contract to build an Ultrablock retaining wall however, the contract rose to $2.8 million as the scope expanded to include additional wall construction, storm utility work and construction trucking. The I-205 light-rail extension was not only our first mass-transit project, it was our first design-build project as well.

Sometimes even the most basic jobs can run into problems along the way, as we found out while working on the Hamilton Portland Yard Facility. The four-acre site houses a 2,200 square foot building and is mostly made up of a gravel storage yard with a landscaped perimeter. Our $251,710 contract included clearing and grubbing, excavation, building an embankment, site grading and preparation, installing a storm drain, sanitary sewer and water service, and base rock installation.

The project started in August 2008 and was completed in February of 2009, during that time the prime contractor experienced financial difficulties that threatened to derail the project schedule and cause costly delays. However, as Hamilton Construction Co. noted in its DMWESB TopProjects nomination, “the latter company maintained its commitments as the key subcontractor and kept the project on track despite the disruption.”

To aid in avoiding costly materials we were able to propose the use of recycled base material, caped with base rock in lieu of the planned full section base-rock requirement. “This revision provided a greener finished product, as well as a substantial monetary savings on the project,” Hamilton Construction said in the nomination.