Eagle Rock Excavating

David Gerovac opened the doors of Eagle Rock Excavating (Eagle Rock) in 2001. Gerovac, a mechanical engineer with a degree from the University of Arizona, started Eagle Rock as a small utility company in Tucson with big hopes. To Gerovac’s delight, Eagle Rock has grown into one of the leading contractors in the area for site construction.

Gerovac invited Matthew Hazen, a fellow University of Arizona alumnus with a degree in civil engineering and the current general manager of Eagle Rock, to join the team from the get-go. “I’ve been here from the very beginning,” says Hazen with a smile.

Hazen has seen Eagle Rock grow – adapting to suit the needs of clients – into a full-service site contractor. Eagle Rock now employs around 110 people to serve southern Arizona. Projects involve a wide range of site specifications, ranging in size from one to 200 acres. Clients include residential developers, retailers, schools and municipalities, demanding a one-stop shop for site work.

What Full Service Really Means

Eagle Rock stands ahead of the competition because, Hazen says, “We can do just about anything our clients need in house.” The company even has two sister companies that come into play when clients are looking for something extra. Ventana Landscaping, a soft- and hard-scape specialist, performs landscaping work, while Canyon Building and Design offers vertical design-build services. Site preparation remains the key focus of the company, and Eagle Rock does it all.

From the ground up, Eagle Rock performs full site work, including sewer, water and storm drains, as well as conduits for dry utilities. “All of the excavation and grading is done in house,” says Hazen.

To top it off, Eagle Rock has civil concrete capabilities that span a variety of applications. “We’ve done handicap ramps, bridges, curbing, scuppers, sidewalks and anything of that nature, as well as storm drain, drainage riprap and shotcrete,” explains Hazen.

In the same vein, the team at Eagle Rock boasts an in-house paving and asphalt maintenance division. “We kind of branched out into paving for new construction, as well as paving maintenance, which includes seal coating just so we can serve our clients with the services they require,” says Hazen, explaining how that division also continues to grow.

A multitude of divisions benefit both Eagle Rock and its clients by pulling several components of a project from one source. “A lot of these bigger outfits don’t have all of these divisions,” explains Hazen. “It allows us to offer more services while meeting schedules and maintain much tighter control of the job.”

Turnkey Projects

Eagle Rock’s specialty is putting together a fully developed site for developers and builders. “We take care of all of the site work needs, so that a developer can come in and build from the ground up and do what they do best,” explains Hazen.

One of the company’s recent projects is with BASIS Schools, a charter in Arizona that is expanding across the country. “We help them with site selection, we do all of the engineering and design, and all of our companies take part in the building from beginning to end,” says Hazen. “One just opened. It was a very fast-track project.” As of March 2012 the structure for BASIS North Tucson was only conceptual. Eagle Rock and its other divisions worked with the organization through the entire design-build process. The school opened in August after only five months of construction.

Other current private sector projects include work for the University of Arizona, which is expanding the football stadium. “They are moving all of the offices, weight rooms, locker rooms, media rooms, etc., into the stadium in the north end zone expansion,” says Hazen. “We’re doing all of the site work on the project, which means in this case a total realignment of water lines, sewer, storm drains, structural excavation, curbing and paving.” The job is another fast-track operation, which the Eagle Rock team began in January 2012. The team’s success has garnered selection by the university to perform several on-call projects to follow.

The economy has affected the amount of private projects Eagle Rock has been picking up over the last few years, but Hazen says it looks like the market is starting to make a turnaround. “A lot of the private work dried up and we had to delve more into public roadwork,” he explains. “That can be difficult and there’s not a lot of margin there.” Fortunately, the company’s diversity has kept Eagle Rock on track for sustained growth.
The company has performed several public road projects, including a $10 million project in Tucson. “We put in two brand new two-lane bridges on LaCholla Boulevard over the Rilitto River,” says Hazen. The project wrapped up in summer 2011, and continues to be a standout portfolio piece with complex engineering, concrete and horizontal construction components today.

The Eagle Rock team maintains steady business by catering to customers through well-planned projects and growth. A wealth of reliable services keep clients happy and projects on schedule, proving that diversity can be a powerful tool. The company has no grand plans of expansion, but Hazen says Eagle Rock Excavating is on track to keep providing a high level of service, safety and professionalism to partners and clients alike.