A COMMON THREAD runs through Todd Johnson’s two jobs as a police officer and an excavator: the precision needed to properly execute the demands of both lines of work. Johnson is vice president of Geo Precision, an excavation contracting company in Winterville, NC, owned by his wife Candace and servicing eastern North Carolina. His company focuses solely on excavating foundations. His strategy: technology that introduces time and financial efficiencies into his operation.
Johnson runs a Bobcat E55 compact excavator, favoring it for its “speed and power.” He is keen on Bobcat’s Depth Check, which enables him to measure depth and grade from the cab and eliminates the costs of a crew position. Johnson also has a laser motor grader blade for his Bobcat S650 Skid Steer Loader and rents an 8- or 9-ton vibratory roller as needed, using the laser motor grader to grade. “Once it’s done and we pass from the engineering aspect to the geotechnical engineer, we’ve got our spec of 92 to 100% compaction,” Johnson says. “If the moisture content is right, I will lay out and dig the foundation.”
Johnson’s ability to deliver precision has led to his business flourishing, he says, adding his company does about 80% of the area’s foundation work. “With one concrete in eastern North Carolina, we can carry 10 yards for legal for DOT for weight. If I’m pouring it 10 inches thick, 24 inches wide, I can show you where you’re going to stop with Depth Check within two inches. When I order concrete for 15.5 yards, it is a truck and a half,” says Johnson, adding that it saves on callbacks. Johnson also runs a Trimble Robotic Total Station, which he says enables him to guarantee precision to one-sixteenth of an inch.
What He Does Day to Day
Johnson works six and one-half days a week, saving time for church on Sunday. He’s up between 4:45 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. each day, and most of the time ends the day between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. “I’ll try to have the machines moved the night before to where I have to go and have my plans marked up so when I get on the job, we can go,” he says.
What Led Him Into This Line of Work
Johnson always wanted to have a Bobcat ever since he was a child. “I thought they were so cool,” he says, adding that he was fascinated by their power and how he could run four machine functions with one hand. Johnson grew to become a professional firefighter and went on to become a police officer. He saw a need for backfilling and trash collection in eastern North Carolina and started a business doing both while still working as a police officer. Clients wanted him to dig foundations, but he initially wasn’t sold on the idea, observing how long it took other contractors to dig a hole with the equipment they were using. After hurting his knee skiing, Johnson discovered that his sick leave pay from law enforcement wasn’t enough to cover his dump truck and loader payments. He bought a Bobcat excavator, even though he had never run one in his life. He practiced on his own property. “I dug and I dug because I didn’t want to go out into the workforce and not have a perfect ditch,” he says. His doctor cleared him to run equipment, but he had to scale back police work to part-time. He started Geo Precision in 2000, focusing on excavating.
