About Us

Ralph McGillan Excavating began in the mid 1960s with just two machines and a lot of determination.  In the beginning, work was done mostly for farmers to provide them with an ample supply of water to irrigate their crops.

By the mid 1970s, the clientele began to change. Ralph began to work on golf courses increasing irrigation supplies by dredging existing lakes and/or building new lakes.  As the farms in New Jersey began to disappear, he began to work more for private individuals on their estate-type properties.

In the mid 1990s, he was joined by his son, Peter. Together, they would be able to handle much larger projects including dredging lakes of up to 50,000 cubic yards of material.

Today, we have over 8 pieces of specialized equipment, so we can handle any job situation.  We are one of only a few companies in NJ that still use a dragline.  The benefit of having such a machine is its reach.  Able to reach out over 70 feet, this limits disturbances to sensitive shoreline areas.  With the use of crane mats, this machine can walk over and work on dredge/silt material of any depth.  We also have several low ground pressure (LGP) bulldozers that enable us to work on the pond/lake bottom when needed with minimal disturbance as well as an excavator with a 60 inch bucket for increased productivity.

For the past 15 years, we have worked on average 2 or more golf courses per year.  Although we still work for the occasional farmer, private individuals on estate-type properties seem to be where we do the majority of our work.  The people we work for have changed, but our philosophy has not: do the job right the first time and everyone will be pleased in the end.

When you hire Ralph McGillan Ecavating you get a combined 60 years of experience.  One of us, or both of us are on the job from start to finish.