W. L. French Excavating Corporation

W. L. French Excavating Corporation is a North Billerica, Massachusetts union site contractor and soil-management firm that BBB records as starting business on March 1, 1972 and incorporating in 1986, with about 100 employees and William L. French Jr. named as owner. In 2019 it cut the ribbon on a 66,000-square-foot corporate office and maintenance facility on 22 acres at 14 Sterling Road, and its own site markets under the line 'WE MOVE BOSTON'. The work it describes is heavy and commercial rather than residential: site development, mass excavation, environmental services and soil management, municipal services, asbestos abatement and snow and ice management, sold to project owners and municipalities across New England. BBB lists the same scope as excavation, commercial site preparation, roadwork, demolition and site development. Because nothing in the evidence shows homeowner service work, no consumer rating is published here. The firm carries real third-party recognition. It won the large-firm category at the 2016 Massachusetts Family Business of the Year Awards run by Northeastern University's Center for Family Business, was named a 2021 Inc. 5000 honoree, and trade press in 2012 described it as having worked on some of the most important site projects in Greater Boston. It also holds an active USDOT carrier registration. The public reviews need reading with care. Google shows 4.6 stars from 39 ratings, but the retrievable bodies are dominated by passers-by admiring the fleet on Route 93 rather than clients describing a job; the substantive exceptions are one five-star client calling the firm innovative, reliable and accountable, one three-star neighbour asking them to fit exhausts because straight-piped trucks run through residential areas, and one one-star driver calling the pickup drivers a nuisance on the highway. If you are an owner, developer, GC or municipality with earthwork, soil disposal, abatement or roadwork to let in Greater Boston, this is a long-established union contractor worth shortlisting, and the BBB file gives you the ownership and tenure to verify. If you are a homeowner looking for a small excavation or driveway job, this is not the scale of firm the evidence describes.