Bobcat Equipment Makes Tough Calls Easy
Sean Riviera
Making the most of his machinery operating skills and his Bobcat® compact equipment, contractor Sean Riviera of Van Nuys, Calif., has built his business by taking on jobs that others either can't or won't tackle.
"When other contractors don't believe they can do a difficult job because space is tight, they call on us. We have the equipment that can do it," he says.
Those jobs range from excavating for swimming pools in backyards and digging trenches for fiber optic cables to clearing brush on horse trails.
His equipment includes six Bobcat loaders and half a dozen different Bobcat attachments.
"I've always liked Bobcat equipment, especially their versatility and the fact that Bobcat offers more attachments than any other manufacturer," Riviera says. "I also like them because they are made in the United States."
He uses his Bobcat 463 skid-steer loader to maneuver through narrow access points and into small work areas that would stop a bigger machine. Two 753 models and a pair of S185 loaders offer the power and compact size to work quickly and efficiently on a wide range of jobs where space is limited. His T190 compact track loader provides plenty of power and traction for more challenging excavating and grading work.
Riviera's Bobcat attachments include a combination bucket, backhoe, Brushcat® rotary cutter, landscape rake, sweeper and vibratory roller.
A soft touch
Riviera's skill at operating Bobcat equipment has been on display at the "Bobcat Rodeo," which his dealer, Valley Bobcat, Inc., Sun Valley, Calif., holds each year. He's won the competition each of the three times he's entered it. One of the events requires using a Bobcat loader with a backhoe attachment to scoop up two golf balls with a spoon-like device just big enough to hold them, then swing around and drop the balls into a barrel.
His finesse in operating a Bobcat excavator once enabled him to pull open the tab on a can of soda that was held firmly in a vice. "I won a $100 bet by doing it," he says.
That kind of skill also pays off on the job when using his Bobcat loader with the backhoe attachment or a rented Bobcat excavator to excavate around utilities. "Utility lines aren't always where the as-built plan shows them," Riviera says. "By working carefully I can feel-through the hydraulic controls-where the lines are so that I can dig around them without causing damage."
On one job, for example, he was digging a trench to install a new fiber optic cable next to an existing one. Cutting the existing line would have cost him a $150,000 penalty for every minute it was down. "The only way to trace the existing line was to dig right over it," he says. "I dug down until I felt the layer of sand which covered the line. That way I knew where the line was."
Riviera reports that using his loader and backhoe attachment, along with an excavator on this job, he dug about 6,000 linear feet of trench, averaging about 1,500 ft. a day.
Another time he was clearing brush with his T190 loader and combination bucket under the bridge of a major freeway interchange in downtown Los Angeles when he saw a pipe-like object. "I opened the bucket to grab plenty of dirt as I picked up the object," he says. "Then I flagged down the police. They determined that the object was a concern and shut down several freeways in the area until they disposed of it."
Saving time
Riviera's Bobcat equipment also pays off when clearing nearly 70 miles of trails for a horse-owners' association. He uses his T190 loader with his combination bucket or grapple to remove low-hanging tree branches and blackberry vines and the Brushcat rotary cutter to mow the sides of the trails. He's also rented Bobcat excavators to protect the trails from erosion by building water diversion bars across the trails to divert runoff to the side.
Riviera used his Bobcat equipment to repair several miles of an emergency access road for a trail system that had been damaged by storm water runoff. The job involved bringing in more than 60 dump truck loads of base material and spreading it along several miles of the road. "Based on their calculations, the engineers figured the job would take four weeks," Riviera said. "Using our Bobcat S185 and T190 loaders to haul and spread about six truckloads a day, we completed the project in 10 days."
He also uses Bobcat excavators to get the edge on the competition when digging trenches. "On two occasions, using a Bobcat 322 excavator with a bucket, we out-dug another contractor who was using a tractor-loader-backhoe because we could swing in a complete circle and offset the boom."
With the kind of performance Riviera enjoys from his Bobcat equipment, it's no wonder he's happy to respond to calls for tough jobs.