April 21, 2017
Sure, countless clients have taken comfort in the fact that Mac Brown Excavating has been around since the early ‘80s. They can also feel good about supporting a business forged and maintained by a long-time Santa Barbara farming family. But what it really comes down to is that Brown, his stepson Mike Isaac, and their dirt-moving crew of 22 have their clients’ health and longevity in mind each time they fire up a piece of heavy machinery. Just read the company’s mission statement: “Ask any doctor and they will all tell you that sleep is imperative in order to live a happy and healthy life. We at Mac Brown Excavating take every precaution to make sure the job is done right and in a timely manner so you can sleep better at night.”
But doing a good job ahead of schedule is just part of reason why Giffin & Crane calls on Mac Brown with regularity, says Isaac, who entered the company full-time around 2001 after growing up in the trade.. “We just try to offer everything we can. [General contractors] really enjoy having one subcontractor cover as much as possible.”
In that respect, Mac Brown has grown its offerings considerably since those early days of helping fellow farmers dig drainage ditches. There’s plenty of grading, of course, from flat driveways to hillside removal, plus storm drains, utility trenches, and various feats of demolition, such as making swimming pools disappear (pictured above). “We do anything and everything that takes a tractor,” Isaac says.
Mac Brown first worked with Giffin & Crane about 15 years back, razing an old house to make way for a mansion in Montecito’s Cima del Mundo gated community. Since then, as Mac Brown further expanded into custom residential construction jobs, they’ve put each other on speed dial. “Giffin & Crane is one of our best customers,” says Isaac, who grew up in Carpinteria, where the company is headquartered with 40 pieces of heavy machinery. “We work well together. Once you’ve fostered that relationship over the years, there’s no surprises on the job site.”
In fact, the only job-site surprise of late has been a winter’s worth of heavy storms unlike anything the region has seen through five years of historic drought. But with a hustle gleaned from the family business, Isaac and his crew managed to stack up longer work hours into calm-weather windows without fumbling a single job, he said. Hey, whatever it takes to help everyone sleep better at night.