An up-and-coming contractor, Josh Trudeau, builds his DEVELON fleet for upstate New York developments. Trudeau Construction relies on its versatile machines and attachments to stay productive.
Josh Trudeau previously worked in a municipal job before he decided to start a construction company. Since making the entrepreneurial leap, he’s successfully landed numerous projects and his business stays busy year-round thanks to versatile machines and attachments.
His general contracting firm is based in Tupper Lake, New York, approximately 150 miles north of Albany, nestled in the Adirondack foothills. Although it’s a relatively small community, there’s plenty of work to keep his operators busy.
“We do development, right-of-way clearing and excavation: residential mostly,” Josh says.
Enter DEVELON Equipment
Prior to owning DEVELON equipment, Josh was unfamiliar with the brand. Now his company is the first in the area to own DEVELON machines, and he couldn’t be more pleased with the level of support from his local dealer: Equipment Rentals Inc.
“I was working on a deal at another dealership on a different brand,” Josh says. “Vic Natali from Equipment Rentals showed up at the garage, hot and ready to work, and I told him what I wanted. He was aggressive, got the job done and made it happen.”
Online research was part of Josh’s decision when considering the DEVELON brand. He visited the DEVELON website, social media channels and “any places we could find information about them.”
At the site of a new residential community being built near Tupper Lake, Josh and his employees use a variety of DEVELON machines to prepare the area for development.
DL280 Wheel Loader
At a staging area, the DL280-7 wheel loader lifts, carries and loads materials that will eventually be used in the development of the new community. In addition, Josh uses DEVELON wheel loaders to feed the company’s screening plants to get road sand ready for the busy snow removal season. The area regularly receives more than 100 inches of snow.
DX380LL Road Builder
A DEVELON road builder lifts landscaping boulders with a bucket and thumb combination.
“We do right of ways and build new roads; and being in swampy muddy areas, the road builder helps us keep our traction,” Josh says. “The machine gives us a lot more weight, and we can pull stumps without getting light in the tail end.”
DX35 Mini Excavator
Lifting and moving logs is no problem for the DX35-5 mini excavator paired with a bucket and thumb.
“We use the DX35-5 a lot for feeding our small chipper. We also have a lot of residential work close to houses and buildings,” Josh says. “We use that where we can’t fit our bigger machines.”
DX85R Mini Excavator
Clearing roadside growth is a snap with a DX85R-3 mini excavator and a flail mower.
“We have quick couplers on all of our machines because our machines are all very versatile, and we’re jumping from road building to ditching and using several other attachments like mowers,” he says. “We have to be able to use one machine on several different jobsites.”
DX140LCR Excavator
Set up along the road, the DX140LCR-5 crawler excavator uses an angle tilt bucket to excavate and load the dirt in a DA30-5 articulated dump truck (ADT). The ADT transports the dirt to another area where it is unloaded and kept for future use.
“Performance wise, DEVELON excavators have a lot more power than the Caterpillar excavators we’ve had in the past, especially the mid-size machines,” Josh says. “The Caterpillar excavators lack hydraulic power breakout force when lifting stones and heavy objects. We’ve had two very new machines side by side. The Caterpillar machine, which was a little bigger, couldn’t pick up the same stump that the DEVELON DX140LCR had no problem with at all.”
Learn more about DEVELON reduced tail swing crawler excavators like the DX140LCR.
Performance wise, DEVELON excavators have a lot more power than the Caterpillar excavators we’ve had in the past, especially the mid-size machines.”