James River Blog

Fitzgerald Excavating | JRE Presents

On a cold, muddy day in northern Virginia, the crew at Fitzgerald Excavating are clearing part of some land to make room for a housing development project. They are a fast-growing company that has been a long-term customer of James River Equipment, and they have helped one another grow alongside each other. Fitzgerald is a heavy production-focused land clearing operation in both forestry and earthmoving.

Some of the main equipment they rely on are out on the site today:

• Hitachi ZX300LC Excavator
• John Deere 350G Excavator
• Morbark Grinders

Fitzgerald Excavating is actually one of the biggest users of the Morbark Grinders for their operations. This forestry product from Morbark was designed to grind down large trees, wood waste, brush, debris, pallets, and other mixed woody products into a saleable product. They are very high-production and high maintenance-oriented machines.

"Equipment's a lot nicer now because we have A/C and a lot better cab operations. And we have these Rotobecs now. They really help with speeding up the sawing of trees and stumps off, grinding, (etc). It really helps us a lot." says Jared Whetzel, Fitzgerald Excavating's Foreman.

"We have product support salesmen dedicated to being on the road and taking care of these customers in addition to making sure these guys have what they need when they need it so they’re not waiting on stuff," explains Doug Roan, James River Equipment General Manager.

Jared goes on, "Doug, he takes care of us. All of our services, maintenance, mechanical issues, when they're due for service; they call me, let me know, and I can let the operator know before it becomes a problem. It's really helped us out a lot."

Because Fitzgerald Excavating is one of the largest premier contractors in Northern Virginia, they get opportunities to try a bunch of new products out all the time. Nevertheless, they still continue to stick with Deere/Hitachi and James River Equipment for the support and reliability that they count on and need.

Jared replies: "They’re on time. I don't have to wait on them. They're very reliable. James River Equipment takes care of all our needs. Very pleased."

Aldie, VA