“When other kids were dreaming about racecars and rocket ships, I remember being facinated with tractors and heavy equipment,” Rich Holt reminisces of his childhood. While later attending college, many of Holt’s fellow classmates were juggling homework and part time jobs in restaurants and retail stores. Rich, however, was juggling schoolwork and his own “odds and ends” skid steer business. The Cal State Fullerton graduate studied business and communications before becoming a licensed contractor in 2000.

R.B. HOLT, Inc, located in Capistrano Beach, California, is a demolition, grading, transportation, hourly rental, and underground storm drain general engineering contracting corporation. Celebrating its eighth year this December, Rich Holt and his employees find themselves with little to no idle time. Most of the company’s jobs are demolition and grading projects with their niche being in custom home residential work. Rich is the owner and founder of R.B. HOLT, Inc. which consists of around twenty-five employees. Kathy Krause is the office manager, Jesse Goodrich is the project manager, and Brian Darga, the underground pipeline foreman, are the glue that helps keep the company together and going strong. The primarily Southern California based company has been fortunate to be able to work close to home but will travel for work.

(Top) R.B. Holt, Inc. using their Hitachi 450LC excavator to remove 10,000 tons of processed and crushed material, which will be reused to stabalize the grading process. (Above) Rich Holt, Owner, and his dog Drake.

R.B. HOLT, Inc. has been working with Coastline Equipment for about six months. Rich couldn’t say enough nice things about salesman Chuck Berg and the Long Beach branch of the company. R.B. HOLT, Inc. chiefly uses excavators, track loaders, wheel loaders, backhoes, and skid steers, all of different brands. Rich just purchased a 210 John Deere skip loader from Coastline and has a rent to purchase Hitachi 450LC also from Coastline. “Chuck Berg and Coastline Equipment makes purchasing and leasing very comfortable,” according to Holt - one less obstacle to combat in the industry. Holt utilizes other brands of equipment like Caterpillar as well.

Rich and the rest of R.B. HOLT, Inc. work hard to meet and exceed customer satisfaction. Being a young contractor, (Holt turned 32 last month), Holt finds it difficult to keep from biting off more than his company can chew. Having a clientele of almost ninety percent repeat customers, Rich finds it difficult to tell anyone to wait. No business owner can complain about being booked two months in advanced, when you look at the enormity and uniqueness of some of the jobs Holt has been able to work on. Rich’s most memorable, interesting, and lucrative job was an eight-story air traffic control tower demolition for the U.S. Navy. In 2004, Rich and ten of his men flew to San Clemente Island. This island is a U.S. Navy training center for bombing and fighter pilot training, tactical weapons and navy seal training. San Clemente is 63.3 miles south of Long Beach and 78.3 miles west of San Diego. It took one hour to fly there and twenty hours to barge Holt’s equipment. Rich and his crew strategically and meticulously dismantled the steel frame control tower with two excavators and two track loaders. After separating the steel for recycling, they loaded two high side dump trucks with the unsuitable debris. The air traffic control tower was located on the far west end of the island.  The scheduled ten day job took R.B. HOLT, Inc. three days to finish. How’s that for exceeding customer satisfaction? The general contractor on the job was Harper-Dillingham from San Diego. R.B. HOLT, Inc. was awarded the contract through Harper-Dillingham via the U.S. Navy to specialize in the demolition of the tower.

In  July 2007, R.B. HOLT, Inc. just finished twenty-seven homes in Lakewood for Arciero Construction. The job consisted of 20,000 cubic yards of recompaction and 25,000 of dirt import to bring the site to the proposed grades. Currently, the HOLT team is working on an industrial complex in Fullerton, California for Van Law Food Products Inc. Michael Jones Architecture awarded him the job to demolish the northwest side of the structure. After major excavation and removal of unsuitable material full of clay and debris, R.B. HOLT, Inc. will import about 6,000 yards of good, approved material to bring

the site up to grade. Van Law Foods intends to add about 50,000 square foot of building. The biggest challenge of the job is working around the fifty or so refrigerated semis that come in and out for shipments. Obstacles like haul routes are nothing to bat an eyelash at for R.B. HOLT, Inc. and their love for a challenge.

Holt would like to see stricter enforcement on licensed contractors. Other than safety issues and regulations, these “fly by night” companies seem to be in the business only for the quick buck. However, competition does not hinder Rich’s business. Holt is friends with most of his competition, talking to them on a weekly if not daily basis to trade dump sites or dirt. Finding the competition to be more fruitful than cutthroat, Holt is working together more and more with his fellow contractors.

“I wouldn’t change a thing,” Rich Holt says of his life and business. The company is constantly growing and bidding on jobs keeping everyone busy. Holt enjoys his down time as much as his work; waterfowl hunting with his Labrador and deep-sea fishing are among his greatest passions. Rich is also engaged to be married in June of 2008 to interior designer, Kristen Altergott who also comes from a construction family.  “I couldn’t be happier,” Rich Holt says. It can be a rare phenomenon in this world to have your business and social life at a wondrous equilibrium. Rich, who couldn’t be more grateful, continues to work hard with the same focused determination that has served him and his customers thus far. Cc