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Adaptability, initiative, and customer service are the keys to longevity for a local commercial and residential excavation business in Kelowna.  OK Excavating is celebrating 50 years of business in 2017 and, in those years, has undergone many evolutions.

“We’ve been in business for a long time, but that doesn’t mean it gets any easier. We still put in long, hard days,” says Todd Horak, owner of OK Excavating. “When you run a business, you have to be very involved in all aspects that business.”

What started as a one-man show by Horak’s father, Al, in 1967, the business began with one piece of equipment and Al’s wife, Pam, doing the paperwork from the kitchen table of the family home in Kelowna.

Growing the business slowly and steadily and adjusting to changes in the economy, the workforce, and the range of work required, OK Excavating now has 25 employees and the company services all of B.C.  

“We’ve definitely transformed over the years,” says Horak. “We’ve gotten larger and cover more aspects of the work – civil work, site servicing, onsite and offsite excavation, and manufacturing gravel.” 

OK Excavating specializes in all forms of earthwork and excavation, road construction, site development and servicing, screening and crushing, demolition, land clearing, and removal of material.

“Currently, we perform quite a bit of landfill work, expansions, and shut-downs,” says Horak. “The scope of business changes every year, and we change with it.”

From humble beginnings with one piece of equipment — a rototiller — OK Excavating now offers a full range of excavators, trucks, loaders of varying capacity, packers, bulldozers, and graders. The unmistakeable, sleek, pink and grey trucks that haul rock, gravel, and anything else heavy, dirty, and messy, has become the company’s signature colour selected to help differentiate themselves from others.

The team’s experience, fleet of equipment, and industry connections have enabled OK Excavating to undertake and complete projects such as roadways, sport fields, parks, subdivisions, sewer and water projects, and commercial site work professionally, efficiently, and safely. Staff members are Gold Seal, WHIMIS, and Red Seal certified.

This article first appeared in the Fall 2017 issue of SICA's Construction Review Magazine. To read the entire magazine click here.