About JD Lee Excavating
Residential and Commercial Excavation Contractor Serving Middle Tennessee
Built From the Ground Up in McEwen, Tennessee
JD Lee Excavating started in 2000, but the foundation for the business was there long before that.
Doug (JD) grew up around farms, equipment, and the kind of work that teaches you how land, machinery, and hard work all fit together. Heavy equipment was familiar to him from an early age, and excavation was something he naturally gravitated toward.
By the time he was around 19 or 20, he was ready to start doing the work himself. He bought his first dozer and began taking on jobs, learning more with every property, every machine, and every hour in the seat.
For years, excavation was the work he did after work. He spent his weekdays as a full-time electrician, then ran equipment on evenings and weekends. The business grew through long hours, repeat customers, and word of mouth.
Around 2018 or 2019, he decided it was time to make excavation his full-time career.
One piece of advice helped make the decision. “You only get so many summers.” That stuck with him.
He left electrical work, committed to excavation full time, and dedicated himself to building the business through hard work and experience.
Today, JD Lee Excavating has grown from one dozer to a fleet of roughly 30 pieces of equipment and a team with decades of experience in excavation, grading, site work, demolition, septic systems, roads, building pads, and commercial earthwork.
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25+
Years in Business
100
Mile Service Radius
$
3MM Licensed Project Capacity
Licensed & Bonded
Contractor #83847
Septic #14383
Where We Work
We’re based in McEwen, TN and run crews across Middle Tennessee — closer to home for smaller residential jobs, up to 100 miles out for the right commercial project.
Core Service Area
- McEwen
- Waverly
- Dickson
- Erin
- Hurricane Mills
- Vanleer
- Centerville
- Tennessee Ridge
- New Johnsonville
- Cumberland City
Extended Service Area
- Nashville
- Clarksville
- Columbia
- Franklin
- Murfreesboro
- Spring Hill
- Brentwood
- Lebanon
- Hendersonville
- Smyrna
Commercial
Large-acreage projects, subdivision prep, commercial site work, and infrastructure earthwork across Middle Tennessee. We carry the equipment, the license, and the bonding to handle jobs that smaller operators can’t touch.
- Land developers and subdivision builders
- General contractors sourcing a dependable excavation subcontractor
- Large private landowners with ongoing earthwork needs across
- Humphreys, Dickson, Hickman, Perry, Maury, Montgomery, and Davidson counties
- Civil engineers and architects coordinating site development
- Project managers and estimators putting together commercial bids
Residential
If you just closed on raw land and need someone to make it buildable — clearing, grading, driveway, septic, building pad — that’s the job we were built for. One contractor from raw ground to ready-to-build, start to finish.
- Homeowners building on raw or wooded acreage in Middle Tennessee
- Land buyers who need site prep before a builder can start
- People relocating from Nashville or out of state who want the process handled professionally
- Residential contractors who need a reliable excavation sub on their schedule
- First-time land builders who need one contractor to handle every phase — clearing, grading, septic, and driveway — start to finish
WHY JD LEE EXCAVATING
Unlike most small, one-man operations, JD Lee Excavating runs a full fleet of heavy equipment — giving us the capacity to handle large-scale residential and commercial projects without delay, without rental dependency, and without sending the wrong machine to the wrong job.
Our fleet includes bulldozers with rippers, excavators with heavy-duty bucket attachments, pans and scrapers, haul trucks, low boys, and dump trucks. For compaction work — particularly on building pads and pond construction — we run both a padfoot compactor and a smooth drum roller, equipment that most local operators simply don’t own. We also run a GPS-based grade control system for precision earthwork on projects where tolerances matter.
We’re capable and agile enough to turn around smaller, local jobs quickly. But what sets JD Lee apart in the Middle Tennessee market is the depth of iron behind every project — owned, maintained, and ready to work.
- 25+ Years in Middle Tennessee
- $3M Licensed Project Capacity
- 100-Mile Service Radius
- Licensed & Bonded Contractor #83847
