01/16/2026
GRAHAM EXCAVATING TURNS 10!!!
Yesterday, January 15th, 2026, Graham Excavating quietly celebrated its 10th anniversary. 10 years of literal blood, sweat, and tears have been poured into this company that started with a dream and desire for self-improvement. I can’t thank you all enough for the continued support and encouragement.
Jason here:
I wanted to reflect a bit and just look back on our story to be more appreciative and grateful for Graham Excavating’s toddler years. The memories I’ve made in the last 10 years have become irreplaceable. I often recall the early days of Graham Excavating and think to myself 'how did I ever get by with so little.' We started with so little and if anyone knows the excavating world, you know how expensive the simplest tools can be. They say that necessity is the mother of invention. Well, we took grasp of that concept very early on and came up with new ways to perform our daily duties and requirements without skipping a beat and without sacrificing our dignity and integrity. I also realized early on how much advantage I could have over my competition by utilizing technology and taking a modern approach to the millennia-old occupation of moving the earth. The grind was REAL during year ’16 and ’17.
By spring of 2018, my projects and clientele were rapidly growing, so I quit my full-time job as I quickly started to realize that my nights and weekends were for spending with my family and not on my own project somewhere. That was the greatest decision I had ever made besides marrying my wife.
2019 - I hired my first full time employee and we hit the ground running with multiple large residential projects that year. We also purchased our first large excavator and dozer this year which expanded the amount of work we could perform.
2020 – COVID just about wiped me and my business off the map. Winter and Spring of 2020 were very difficult for us but somehow, we made it to summer and by June we couldn’t keep up with the amount of work on our plate thanks to some local general contractors.
2021 – We landed our first 6 figure contract and thanked our lucky stars that we had the opportunity to work for the Noble Local School District. This year we also had 2 employees on payroll. A big step for us, but a necessary one.
2022 – We continued our steady upward growth and starts concentrated solely on commercial clientele and contracts. This was a gamechanger but not easy to do by any means. We often performed work for free or at cost just to get our foot in the door with new contactors. Our goal was to let our clients see that working with us was a no-brainer. This led to clients seeing our potential and often hand picking us to perform work even without upfront cost discussions. Technology played a key part in our success during this year as we upgraded to GPS base/rover layout systems with took the guesswork out of the equation.
2023 – Continued with upward trend and concentrated on branching out to new General Contractors which led to multiple 6 figure contracts this year. We also upgraded our technology systems to not only GPS but total station layout and design. We started building pads, roads, and parking lots with up to 1/8” accuracy. Very few in even OHIO at the time utilized this tech. By the end of ’23 we had 4 full-time employees.
2024 - We spent a lot of time learning our new technology and figuring out new ways to utilize it based on what our needs were. By this time, we had several local and not local contractors, businesses and organizations that relied on us for daily projects. We built our shop and finally had a place to perform maintenance and call headquarters. ’24 saw a slight dip in the growth curve but nevertheless we managed to have our best year to date despite the election year.
2025 – 2025 was by far our best year yet. The booming economy had pulled us in just about every direction you could think of and at our busiest point we had 3 crews running (5) different 6-figure contracts. This led to A LOT of sleepless nights, 7-day work weeks, 12-hour workdays, equipment and mental breakdowns, and tough learning experiences. It seemed like we had more work than manpower and equipment could provide. This was the year I reluctantly learned how to tell people “NO”. My passion for being a people pleaser was taking a direct hit and it started to affect everybody. I knew changes needed to be made and by the end of the year we had things in place to be able to combat these issues for future projects. We also exceeded our gross revenue goal by 15% which was bittersweet despite the growing pains throughout the year.
2026 is looking to be another breakout year with some new faces, opportunities, and collaborations in the pipeline. The expected growth, upgrades, and need for better provisions is leading to business opportunities that we didn’t think were possible ten years ago thanks to the continued dream and shared vision of our team members. We’ve never stopped paying it forward and giving back to local charities, nonprofit organizations, ball teams, go-fund-Me’s, etc. as we believe that after all, it’s the community that we live in that has put us where we are today. We’re looking forward to being a part of a growing community and making Southeastern OHIO a better place to work, play, and live.
Thank you and love you all - Jason
