.._____Whether it’s doing whatever it takes to complete an “impossible”
excavating or paving job, or building their own private water ski lake, Sunrise Excavating prides itself on being a family-run business that employs quality people that respect and work hard for each other.

John Williams started Sunrise Excavating in 1978 with a backhoe and a dump truck and operated as a backhoe business. In 1979, he incorporated and hired a couple of employees to help him out. Soon after, he acquired his contractors’ license and “everything grew slow and painful at the early stage,” he says.

Today, Sunrise Excavating employs 30 people. Over the past 10 years, three of John’s four children, daughters Ryan and Cassidy and son Brandon, have come on board and things have really taken off, John says. Ryan is the company’s vice president, Cassidy is the office general manager and Brandon is a job superintendent and equipment operator.

With a Class A contractor’s license, John says the company can perform a great variety of work. Their work includes earth moving, grading for commercial site work—clearing brush, installing underground conduit, storm drains, sewer and water—and placing concrete curbs, gutters and sidewalks. They also have a paving division that installs asphalt for streets, parking lots, or driveways for homeowners.

John expects the company to complete $7 million in work this year. Although John says that no job is too big or small, their average job is $500,000 and is several months in duration.

One of Sunrise Excavating’s current jobs involves the completion of the site work for a commercial building in Red Bluff. They have moved 14,000 cubic yards of earth during this six month long job and installed several thousand feet of underground utilities. They will finish the job with 28,000 square feet of asphalt paving. The Sunrise crew of four is using some of the company’s Caterpillar equipment to complete the job. John says that although their 18 pieces of equipment aren’t exclusively Caterpillar, most of what they own is Caterpillar and purchased from Peterson Tractor. John says they own everything from small skid steers up to large dozers and excavators.

“We are so pleased with Peterson Tractor, with their service and the dependability of the equipment we’ve bought from them,” John says. “They are unsurpassed in getting us parts promptly and helping our mechanics figure out how to fix equipment.

“We may pay a little more up front for our Caterpillar equipment, but the resale is always great,” he continues.

Through 28 years, Sunrise Excavating has completed more than its share of memorable projects. They may be the only contractor in California with their own private 10-acre water ski lake behind their offices. Located on Clear Creek Road in Redding, Sunrise is home to the lake used for the Williams family. John said that the family, all of whom water ski, grew tired of the congestion at area lakes and the hassle of getting there, so they excavated their own lake. Their lake is designed specifically for slalom water skiing and has a slalom course.

Another memorable job involved site work for the Plumb Valley School District in Red Bluff. Sunrise has a crew of three to four currently on this $1 million job. The unique thing about this project is the way it’s laid out, all the site work is being completed before construction of the building begins.

The job has gone smoothly, John says, because the company can do its work without having to coordinate with other sub-contractors.

One of the company’s unique jobs involved excavating the opening to an old gold mine in the mountains near Redding. The job was particularly meaningful to John, as his dad was a gold miner and John had heard many stories about the mines. The mine had been abandoned in the late 1800s  or early 1900s and the entrance had collapsed.

A mining company wanted to test the mine to see if it was depleted, so that entrance had to be excavated 100 feet deep into the mountain. Sunrise used two operators and an excavator and a dozer to complete the project.

John says one of the biggest challenges his company has faced over the years is meeting the technical requirements for various jobs. Sunrise prides itself on figuring out a way to complete a job that may seem impossible. One such job for the company was an asphalt-paving job in a town at the foot of Mt. Shasta in Siskiyou County, a 14,162-foot-tall mountain in the Cascade Range and one of the tallest in North America. The paving was scheduled for late fall, but the job ran behind schedule and by the time they were ready for paving, the temperatures had reached 19 degrees F. Despite the fact that optimum conditions for placing asphalt are a temperature of 50 degrees F and rising, the owner wanted Sunrise to go ahead and pave. After having the owner sign waivers, Sunrise Excavating tackled the very challenging job.