Located in the heart of Massachusetts’ cranberry country means much of the work that Ryco Inc. is involved in is the creation of new and the maintenance of older cranberry bogs.
“From day one, reputation has been critically important to me,” said Ryan Vlaco, president of Ryco Inc. “The cranberry farmers of eastern Massachusetts are a close knit community. Your reputation needs to include a knowledge of the construction of these bogs, honest fair pricing and on time completion. We take a lot of pride in our work and as a result our business has grown nicely.”
The creation of cranberry bogs produces a large amount of excess material, which Ryco then processes and sells.
“We use our wheel loaders primarily to load our trucks and to feed our screening plant. Over the years we have fluctuated between using 4 yard machines and 5 yard machines. We have always purchased the same brand of earth moving equipment and we have never really been inclined to make any changes in that area. So when Paul Lorusso of Lorusso Heavy Equipment contacted me and asked if we would be willing to demo one of their Liebherr loaders I told him flat out ’No, don’t bring it, I don’t want it, I’m not interested in trying it.’ Paul was very persuasive and in the end I very reluctantly agreed to try out a Liebherr L566 5-yard loader.
“When the machine was delivered I had my operator, Mike Diamond, try out the machine. At the end of the day I got a call from Mike telling me that I needed to come over and try the machine. Mike got me to run it, I liked it, and called Paul and said let’s make a deal.”
According to Vlaco, one of his favorite features of the L566 is the benefit of the all hydrostatic drive system and the fuel savings.
“Since we purchased this machine we have seen about a 30 percent fuel savings. We are going through about 20 gallons a day less for fuel. For us that works out to be a savings of about $1,600 a month. The hydrostatic drive has also increased our productivity. With hydrostatic drive there is no shifting. No shifting means much faster cycle times. A faster cycle time translates to increases in production. A screening plant operates at maximum capacity if you can keep the hopper full. You can only put just so much material in the hopper at a time. The real trick is refilling it before it runs empty and that’s where the increased cycle time dramatically increased our production rates.”
Another big advantage to this loader is its ability to dig in sand, Vlaco said.
“The machine is equipped with various traction control settings, which can be adjusted on the fly. This is the only machine that I have ever seen that will dig in the sand without wheel slip or spinning. Typically when working in sand wheel spin prevents the operator from picking up a full load of material. That is not the case with the Liebherr and full bucket loads mean that we can fill our trucks or the hopper on the screening plant twice as fast.”
“One of my main concerns about purchasing equipment from a new vendor is product support and thus far Lorusso Heavy Equipment and our representative from Lorusso, Gerry Carney, have taken very good care of us. We have had no parts availability issues at all and response time has been excellent.
“There was another surprise in dealing with Lorusso Heavy Equipment. We found out what it is like to get personal attention. We are not just a number to Lorusso. We get personalized attention not only from our sales representative, but from the Lorusso family as well.”
About Ryco
Ryco Inc. was founded in 2004 primarily at the time as a trucking company. Shortly thereafter the company purchased its first excavator and expanded into residential site work. Eventually a rubber tired loader and a screening plant were added to its inventory. Up to that point, Vlaco had been purchasing significant amounts of screened loam and wanted to start making his own product. From that point on selling construction materials has been an increasing part of Ryco’s business.
Another niche that Ryco has developed is sourcing materials. When a contractor in the area is involved in a project where materials need to be removed from the site, Vlaco usually has a pretty good idea of someone in need of those materials and vice versa. So, very often Vlaco is arranging the transportation of materials going from one job site to another.
Ryco also specializes in earth removal, material supplying, equipment transportation, tail water recovery, irrigation pond construction and snow removal.
For more information on Ryco Inc., visit www.rycoexcavating.com.
For more information on Lorusso Heavy Equipment, visit www.lhequip.com.
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