Speeler Relies on Takeuchi for Their Projects

Tue February 18, 2025
CEG

Speeler Companies based in Clearwater, Fla., has become a premier marine and pile driving business over the past 40 years for both residential and municipal projects.

Owner Doug Speeler grew up in the business; his father had a dock and marine business that was started in the 1950s and sold in the mid 1990s. Speeler started his company concurrently with his father selling his business.

Speeler attributes his success to quality staffing and one make/class of machines on his projects. Speeler said that Takeuchi excavators are the only machines on his job sites. When asked why, he said, simply, "hydraulic flow, reliability and they never break."

Speeler purchased his first Takeuchi TB230 excavator approximately 12 years ago and that machine is still in daily use. Today, the company owns eight Takeuchi excavators and none of them have been traded and all are in constant use, he said.

The Takeuchi fleet consists of a TB216, the original TB230, three TB240s, two TB250s and a recently purchased TB290, the second largest excavator in Takeuchi's lineup.

These excavators have a demanding and diverse range of workloads. Much of the work required for Speeler's projects include drilling from barges, which is the primary purpose of the 240-sized machines.

"We always need to be cognizant of a machine's weight that our barges need to handle," said Speeler. "The 240s are the perfect maximum weight for each of the barges we own."

The company owns three barges — two 12-ft. x 30-ft. toot barges are drill barges and one is 20-ft. x 40-ft. for larger machines and materials. The smaller barges are easily trailered to a site.

For the company's operations, the 250-sized machine works great for underpinning and screwing helical piling piers into the ground where increased hydraulic flow is required, according to Speeler.

The overall scope of drilling off of barges is for residential docks and marina work.

"We use auxiliary flow hydraulics for operating a Digga drill that hangs off of the end of an excavator stick in order to pre-drill holes below the surface," said Speeler. "We use an assortment of drills, but the Digga has been working best for our purposes. In much of our work we encounter a couple feet of mud and then six to eight feet of hard surface that needs to be drilled through."

On land, the company occasionally drills for installing pilings in backyards and other tight spaces and sometimes needs to barge a machine to a location and crawl it off on land for the project.

Buckets and thumbs are installed on all machines for movement of rip rap and even boulders used in seawall construction. Sometimes, the company requires a hydraulic breaker for a job, which it has mounted on one of its Takeuchi excavators ready for work.

"The extra performance we obtain from Takeuchi machines over previous machines is a big advantage to us and makes it well worth the money," said Speeler. "The operators love the Takeuchi machines. They say they are smooth in operation and the attachments work better with these machines over previous models we owned. 'Tweaking' the machine's hydraulic flow to fit their needs is easy and a big advantage to them."

What originally drew Speeler to the Takeuchi line was the Alta Equipment Company sales representative that has called on him over the years.

They've been very diligent in keeping up with our business, including our current sales representative, Mike Jolley," said Speeler. "They've always stopped in or called on a very regular basis. When we have upcoming jobs and I know I'm going to need an additional Takeuchi machine, they respond immediately and get what I need. If they don't have it on the yard, they can get it."

Other reasons for Speeler's continued business with Alta is parts availability and service excellence.

"Alta's parts and service departments are incredibly knowledgeable and helpful with the Takeuchi brand," he said.

Most of the maintenance of these machines is done in-house. Some dealer maintenance is occasionally required for checking electronics and for maximizing the Tier IV machine efficiency.

"Alta is like a business arm or partner in our operation," said Speeler. "As the president of the local Marine Contractors Association, I speak with other contractors. They're all starting to buy Takeuchi machines. They see how easy the machines are to run and see that they work great."

And Speeler added that he has never had a bad experience with Alta.

"That's why we keep buying from them," he said. "The people from top to bottom are very knowledgeable of their products and are seen as an extension of our business."

This story also appears on Construction Equipment Guide.