Salem, Oregon · Since 2009
One used excavator and a phone number.
That was 2009. Seventeen years later there are twenty-two machines in the yard and four crews on the road — and the same person still answers the phone.
- Founded
- 2009
- Employees
- 31
- Repeat builders
- 9 firms
- License
- CCB #218904
We started because somebody kept not showing up.
Dale Brenner spent fourteen years laying pipe for other people's companies. What finally pushed him out on his own wasn't money — it was watching builders stand around a muddy lot on a Monday because the excavator that was promised for 7 a.m. was on somebody else's job.
So Basalt was built around a boring idea: say a date, then be there on that date. Everything else follows from it. We take fewer jobs than we could. We own our machines instead of renting, so a dealer's schedule can't become your problem. We write exclusions down instead of leaving them fuzzy, because a surprise on day nine is really a lie told on day one.
Seventeen years of that has left us with something better than advertising: nine builders who don't bid us against anybody, and a steady trickle of homeowners who watched us work on their neighbor's lot and wrote the number down.
The name comes from what's under a lot of this valley. Basalt is hard, it's local, and it doesn't move. That seemed about right.
Four rules nobody gets to bend.
- 01
The number is the number
Our bids are line-itemed and our exclusions are written in plain English. If the ground surprises us, we show you the photo and the math before we invoice a dime.
- 02
Dates are promises
We hold fewer jobs on the calendar than we could sell, because a builder who framed to our date shouldn't be standing in mud on Monday morning.
- 03
Leave it cleaner
Street swept, spoils hauled, neighbor's fence still standing. Fourteen of our last twenty residential jobs came from the house next door to the last one.
- 04
Everybody goes home
Trench boxes go in the hole even when it's a one-hour dig. Supervisors carry OSHA 30. There is no schedule worth a shortcut.
From one machine to a full yard.
-
2009
One machine, one truck
Dale buys a used 13-ton excavator and starts digging footings for two Salem builders.
-
2013
Concrete comes in-house
Curtis joins; Basalt stops subbing flatwork and starts pouring its own foundations and drives.
-
2017
First subdivision
A 34-lot plat in south Salem — mass grading, joint trench and pads released in three phases.
-
2021
GPS machine control
Dozers get 3D control. Fine-grade time on a typical pad drops by roughly a third.
-
2026
Twenty-two machines
Four field crews, a yard on Turner Road, and still no rental invoices.
Thirty-one people. Four you'll actually meet.
Your job gets a named foreman on day one. You'll have their cell number, not a dispatch queue.
-
Dale Brenner
Owner & lead estimator
31 yrs in the trade
Started as a pipelayer in 1995, bought his first excavator in 2009. Still walks most bids himself.
-
Priya Raman
Operations manager
12 yrs
Runs the schedule, the permits and the submittals. If your dates moved, she called you before you noticed.
-
Aaron Whitcomb
Grade foreman
18 yrs
Runs the D6 and the GPS. Has an unsettling ability to eyeball a quarter-percent fall.
-
Curtis Doyle
Concrete foreman
22 yrs
Finishes flatwork the old way and jointing the right way. Will argue about cure times. Is usually right.
Safety & compliance
The least interesting part
of the whole operation.
Which is exactly how we want it. Nobody should ever have a story about our jobsite.
- EMR
-
0.71
EMR
Three-year experience modification rate
- Lost-time incidents
-
0
Lost-time incidents
Rolling 36 months
- Supervisors OSHA 30
-
100%
Supervisors OSHA 30
Plus first aid & CPR current
- Toolbox talks
-
Weekly
Toolbox talks
Documented, signed, filed
Want to see the work?
We'll meet you on the lot.
Site visits inside the service area are free and take about twenty minutes. You'll get a straight answer about whether we're the right outfit for the job — including when we're not.
CCB #218904 · Bonded & insured · Free site visit