Content area
Full Text
Former excavator markets virtually all resources encountered in land clearing bulk reduction and site
remediation.
ROWING up on a farm, David Zwicky learned that in nature, there is no such thing as a waste stream. After starting an excavating business in his hometown of Robesonia, Pennsylvania, Zwicky changed gears and founded a wood recovery and processing operation in 1989. The business is owned and operated by Zwicky's family, with his son Chris in charge of land clearing, his daughter Jodi heading up sales, and his wife Mary the secretary and treasurer. From land clearing to bulk reduction to site remediation, Zwicky coordinates the different facets of the operation to complement each other and make end products from virtually every material encountered. The company, W. D. Zwicky & Son, Inc., services over 500 customers in eastern Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. The business has grown from four employees to 22 and looks to keep expanding the boundaries of its 32-acre site by three to five acres each year.
Zwicky's entrepreneurial career began at age 14 when he purchased a backhoe. He moonlighted by digging ditches for farmers and taking on whatever jobs his neighbors needed done. A few years later, he acquired a dump truck and a loader, and found somebody to work with him. That evolved into an excavating company with 12 employees. After two decades with that business, Zwicky saw the tree stumps brought back from jobs covering much of his land and became convinced there was a significant need to process wood. He phased out the excavating business altogether a year later.
MOVING INTO LAND CLEARING
The new business began with existing equipment and the purchase of a grinder to process tree stumps and wood brush. Raw materials were sold wholesale to mulch producers. The second equipment purchase, a tree chipper, enabled Zwicky to expand into land clearing and process the wood from that operation. He started making a rough landscape mulch and erosion control material he used on job sites. Momentum kept building and Zwicky bought more machines, and also adapted existing equipment with different fittings and attachments. Now they have 70 pieces of equipment - most of it mobile - including four excavators fitted with grapples, three...