Editor’s Note: Since this story was written, Travis Taylor accepted a new position as chief operating officer for another hydroexcavation company based in Kansas City, Missouri, leaving Superior Hydrovac on good terms. 

Travis Taylor and colleagues came to the newly formed Superior Hydrovac without any equipment inventory of their own, and they were using their parent company’s hydrovac trucks.

But they came with something more important: a sterling reputation for competence and exceptional customer service. As of last October the company, launched in January 2024 as a division of Superior Pipeline Services, had 67 team members and a fleet 43 hydroexcavation trucks serving broadly diversified market segments from home base in Kansas City, Missouri.

The founding group included Taylor (former general manager), Josh Rahall as director of business development, Joe Russom as regional manager, Nic Mitchell as an area manager and Clay Lasiter as director of marketing.

“Our success has ridden on our diverse group of customers,” Taylor says. “We don’t chase one single industry. We do utility work both wet and dry, general construction, pipelines, industrial, refineries, railroads. We pride ourselves on being diversified, so if one industry takes a downturn, we have multiple others to pick up the slack.”

Even more important, “At the end of the day it’s a people business. To be successful is to handle the customers as people first. If you take care of people and do something really special and help them out, success will follow.”

WELL-EQUIPPED

The parent company, Superior Pipeline Services, provides world-class utility infrastructure services for oil, energy and broadband companies in the Dallas-Fort Worth region. With local facilities and expert field workers, the company offers end-to-end support, including around-the-clock emergency repairs, to customers and their communities. 

The pipeline company was operating several hydrovac trucks with a variable workload. “There was a question about what to do with the trucks when they had excess capacity,” says Taylor. “Should they return the trucks? Or keep them, costing the business money? 

“They decided to start a hydrovac company. It was a smart play. It’s a big market sector that’s growing by leaps and bounds.” Taylor and his team came with deep experience from a different hydroexcavation business. Superior Hydrovac now serves Texas, the Southeast and the Midwest.

The truck fleet consists of roughly half Hurricane units from Rebel Vac Systems and half RAMVAC units from Sewer Equipment CO. of America. The Rebel units are the fleet workhorses and have essentially the same basic specifications: 12-cubic-yard debris tanks, 2,000-gallon water tanks, Robuschi 145 blowers rated at 3,800 cfm and Cat water pumps.  

They are capable of 20.1 gpm at up to 4,000 psi. “However, for damage prevention and just for basic good digging practices, we like to stay between 2,500 and 2,800 psi,” Taylor says. “They are very robust trucks, able to go the distance day to day and week to week. They are very low maintenance and are easy to work on if they do break down. Rebel is super accommodating. Their service after the sale has been tremendous.”

Superior Hydrovac maintains close ties to Superior Pipeline Services and is its exclusive subcontractor for hydroexcavation and related work. “We have access to their mechanics and other support services,” says Taylor. “We also have two mechanics on our staff dedicated to the hydrovac trucks and other equipment we own.”

That includes keyhole core drilling units (Utilicor), skid-steers (John Deere), and line jetting trucks (Sewer Equipment), as well as dump trucks and trailers for backfilling jobs. Backhoes and other machines, when needed, are available from the Superior Pipeline fleet.

RAPID RESPONSE

One attribute that sets Superior Hydrovac apart is fast turnaround, says Taylor: “We dedicate ourselves to making sure our customers are taken care of, many times at a minute’s notice. While we have a lot of scheduled work, we also maintain a financially healthy equipment utilization, without being overutilized. So that allows us to have trucks on hand to get out rapidly for emergency work or for last-minute call-ins. We’re staffed accordingly, as well. 

“We’re also different in that our area managers came from the field — they are operators as well. So if we don’t have an operator available, our area managers have no problem hopping in a truck and delivering the service the customer requires.”

The work is as diverse as the market segments the company serves. “Anything our trucks can cut or suck up is what we’re after,” Taylor says. “We do anywhere from potholing to trenching to full excavations. We can switch gears to media blasting and media removal.” That can entail vacuuming car wash mud or removing coating materials that wastewater treatment plants have blasted off of tanks before recoating or painting.

Railroad work is a growing sector. “With line jetting, we clean out culverts and keep the rails from getting flooded,” says Taylor. “If they’re looking to expand, widen or move tracks, we can identify their telecommunication lines through our damage prevention efforts, such as potholing. We can also clean out their switches so that the trains can move efficiently down the tracks.”

While hydroexcavation is the company’s specialty, it’s offered in the context of more diverse capability. “In order to get to the potholes we have to do, sometimes we need to core drill,” Taylor says. “In that event, customers often ask us to backfill to reinstate the cores. We offer a turnkey service from soup to nuts, where we start by exposing the excavation site through core drilling, and then proceed to backfill so we can reinstate the integrity of the workspace.”

FINDING CUSTOMERS

While quality work has boosted business by generating referrals, sharp marketing has been a key to fast growth. Superior Hydrovac has four business development managers constantly seeking solutions for customers. They explore bid sites for businesses that may or may not have considered hydroexcavation.  

They also exhibit at state, regional and national events for the likes of the National Utility Contractors Association and Common Ground Alliance (Taylor is a Missouri CGA board member). They’ve taken part in the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association show, as well as numerous pipeline-related events. 

“We home in on events focused around damage prevention,” says Taylor. “We attended the Damage Prevention Council of Texas show in Austin last fall. We’re heavily involved in the Missouri CGA Summit, which is one of the largest damage prevention events in the country. 

“We also deal with the Kansas Safety Summit, and almost anything that has to do with subsurface damage prevention.”

HIRING THE BEST

None of that would pay off as handsomely if not for the people on the Superior Hydrovac team, “At the end of the day, all these hydrovac trucks are designed pretty much the same,” Taylor observes. “There are only a handful of manufacturers, and they share a relatively similar design. Ultimately, it comes down to the team we have built. 

“We ensure that our operators are well-trained and truly excellent. I take a very hands-on approach to training. I was an operator for about six years. I was a mentor-operator, and so training is near and dear to me. I make sure our operators know the trucks inside and out. If they know their equipment, they can feel confident, take their time and look toward safety. 

“We instill safe and proper digging practices. We continually go to job sites to monitor them and make sure that they are doing what they need to. If we see something they’re doing that’s less efficient than it could be, we coach them. I keep my phone on for the operators. If they have any technical questions or a question about a job, I’m here to offer support in any way I can.”

When hiring, Taylor and colleagues look carefully at personality traits: “Experience is a good thing, but I would much rather take someone with a good character and a willingness to learn than someone with a bad attitude who knows a lot about hydrovac. A good attitude and a good demeanor can go a long way — and customers can feel that.

“We seek to make people better than they were before they came in. I always try to figure out what somebody wants to be. Many people just want to be operators for the rest of their career. If that’s what they like, that’s fine. I’m going to make sure they are the best they can possibly be. If they want to move up, we’re going to identify that and start giving them tasks to help them learn and grow into the position they desire. 

“In terms of management, we empower my managers to make decisions. If they make the right ones, great. If they make the wrong decisions, that’s fine — we can coach to that. We make sure they have whatever support they need along the way.”

PLEASING CUSTOMERS

Combining a quality team with customer care is a recipe for success. Quality service can mean offering customers what they need, instead of what they say they want. “Maybe they call us out and say they need an 8-by-8-foot box completely excavated,” says Taylor. “We find out why they actually want that. 

“Sometimes they can get away with just trenching so they can identify what utilities are coming into or out of that space. That saves them time and saves them money. We’re okay with sacrificing some work, because we’re not going to get rich off of one job. We’re looking for long-standing relationships.”

There are also cases where a fast response to one call opens the door to a huge block of business. At one construction site for a major data center in Temple, Texas, a hydrovac company failed to show up on time for a project identifying underground utilities before the site could be graded. The contractor called Superior Hyrovac.

“We located a truck that had just finished a job two hours away,” Taylor recalls. “We were able to adjust our schedule and dispatch that truck to help them out. Three months later, we were still actively on that job. Our level of customer service enabled us to stay on that site indefinitely.”

It’s that kind of responsiveness, along with quality work and a solid track record, that enabled Superior Hydrovac to ramp up quickly. Taylor and his leadership team brought that in the door from day one. 

“It comes down to being immersed in the market and having a good reputation,” he says. “Our team was very well respected in the industries we served. We let the customers know that we would still be there for them. We continue to provide that level of service and customer experience to previous customers as well as new ones.”