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Construction Industry Poll

Contractor of the Year

Contractor of the Year Finalist: Lana and Derek Couch

June 14, 2007 |

Couch Excavating owner Phil Couch had a great obsession: heavy equipment. He always carried a Caterpillar key in his pocket and was known to stop by the side of the road if he happened to see a piece of Cat equipment and fire it up just to see how it ran. In country communities like Cassville, Missouri, a man could do that sort of thing.

On a midsummer Friday afternoon in 2001, Phil got up from his kitchen chair, took a few steps, and crumbled to the floor. Phil passed away, leaving behind three sons, a daughter, his wife, a small excavating business and 100 acres of red dirt in rural Cassville, Missouri.

“I promised Dad I’d take care of everything,” oldest son Derek told his mother, Lana.
Because Phil believed in the ’24-hour turnaround’ on his jobs, Derek was in his Dad’s office chair the Monday morning following Phil’s Sunday funeral. Like his father, Derek keeps his word and he had jobs to finish.

Building a life
On their Dallas honeymoon, Phil shared his love of heavy machinery with Lana, escorting her to all the Dallas equipment dealers to look at machines. Phil started Couch Excavating in 1973 with a John Deere D6C dozer and a Mack truck he didn’t know how to drive. He asked his new father-in-law for driving lessons.

Site preparation and land clearing were the primary projects for Couch Excavating. Cassville is nestled in the heart of the Ozarks, 14 miles from Table Rock Lake and home to about 3,000 people. In the 1970′s the Industrial Development Corporation successfully courted manufacturing plants, bringing jobs and opportunity to the area. Couch Excavating benefited by the region’s growth.

Phil ran the business and taught his boys how to operate the equipment while they rode on his lap. Lana raised the kids, taught home economics at Cassville Junior High School and did some bookkeeping chores for the company. But she also was a good listener when Phil talked about the business.

As kids, Phil and Lana’s daughter Gretchen would badger her younger brother Derek to play house. Instead, Derek would raid their father’s office, swiping the company’s triplicate order forms. The two would play Equipment Dealer, doing excavating jobs for high profile customers like the Reagan White House, and the two frequently renovated the Rose Garden.

Cassville’s steel magnolia
While putting her life back in order after her husband’s sudden death, Lana saw an opportunity to build their small family excavating company into a business that could support future generations. Lana told her sons they didn’t have to keep the business going if it wasn’t what they really wanted to do but Derek stepped up to the challenge. Lana had taught school for 30 years and was also ready for a change.