Unlike some businesses that start with a business plan, Lucas Total Contract Solutions started with a six-year-old on a piece of plant equipment, while his friends were still playing in the sandpit with Tonka toys.
From SANDPIT TO SITE
Managing Director Ben Lucas can trace his career back further than most. His father, David, had him behind the controls of real machinery before most kids could ride a bike without training wheels. By the time Ben left school, the family operation had grown to twelve people, and he stepped straight into it. He hasn’t looked back since.
Today, Lucas Total Contract Solutions runs out of a new facility in South Australia, delivering mining, infrastructure, and renewables projects across the country as a 24/7 operation with more than 100 Cat equipment on the books.
a handhsake from the early 80’S
The relationship with Cavpower goes back decades. The Lucas family has been buying machines from Cavpower since the early 1980s, drawn by the backup and reliability that comes with the badge. As Ben puts it, relationships are everything when reliability is what a project depends on. He sees it as a natural fit: two family businesses, both built on long-term staff who’ve stuck around for the long haul.
Founder David Lucas goes back even further. He started the business 58 years ago as a teenager, borrowing money from his parents to buy his first machine. What began as cutting house sites has grown into a operation of 630 people and over 100 items of plant, machines that have grown considerably bigger along the way. David marks the true beginning of the Caterpillar and Cavpower relationship to a D9G bought around 45 years ago, at the time, the largest machine the family had ever owned.
THE THIRD VOICE IN THE ROOM
Vivian Lucas, married to David, joined the business around 1970 as what she calls a jack of all trades, doing everything from ordering parts and bookkeeping to banking, hiring, and workplace health and safety. As the team grew past 135 employees, she reached the point where she couldn’t manage it alone anymore, a milestone that reflects just how far the business has come. Looking at what the family has built, she’s quick to credit the people who helped get them there.
KEEPING 100+ MACHINES MOVING
Behind the fleet is a workshop staffed by more than 65 diesel fitters, who lean on VisionLink™ and Cat® SIS 2.0 diagnostic tool daily to catch problems early and keep maintenance safe and efficient. For a business running remote projects across Australia around the clock, that diagnostic edge matters.
So does parts logistics. Maintenance supervisors now order through parts.cat.com instead of the old routine of phone calls and paper order forms passed between people, a shift that has meaningfully cut downtime on remote sites.
LOOKING AHEAD
Ben sees plenty of opportunity on the horizon, and with it, a continued reliance on Caterpillar and Cavpower to help get there. It’s a sentiment that echoes across three generations of the Lucas family: a business built on machinery, family values, and a partnership that’s lasted the better part of half a century.