Craft Work Capital enters civil with a control investment in Alpha Infrastructure, the Bath, Pennsylvania platform behind Muschlitz Excavating and Stealth Clearing & Demolition

Craft Work Capital Investments, a strategic investor focused exclusively on specialty contracting firms, completed a control investment in Alpha Infrastructure of Bath, Pennsylvania in September, the firm announced on October 19. Alpha is the platform behind Muschlitz Excavating and Stealth Clearing & Demolition, and it is Craft Work’s first platform in civil and site development. All three companies keep their names and leadership, and Steven Goffredo remains president of Alpha. Until now, Craft Work has invested almost entirely in mechanical, electrical and plumbing contractors.

The asset.

Alpha Infrastructure was established in 2019 as a civil and site preparation contractor. It provides earthwork, grading, utility installation and site development for commercial, industrial and institutional clients across the Lehigh Valley.

The larger operating business is much older. Ron Muschlitz and his sons Jack and David founded Muschlitz Excavating in 1990, starting with a backhoe and a track loader to dig basements, grade lawns and install septic systems. In 1993 it landed its first large commercial job, athletic fields for Lehigh County. Today Muschlitz sells complete site packages from its base on Moorestown Drive in Bath:

• land clearing, mass earthwork and grading
• water, sewer and stormwater systems
• rock crushing and recycling
• asphalt paving, concrete curbing, surveying, foundation excavation and landscaping

The company describes a fleet of roughly 200 pieces of equipment and is prequalified with PennDOT. Construction Today has profiled its work for clients including Lehigh Valley International Airport, Camelback Mountain Resort, developers, municipalities and school districts. That includes site work for the Northampton Business Center in Allen Township, a 280-acre site planned for five warehouses that involves more than two million cubic yards of earth and 600,000 cubic yards of rock. In that profile, Goffredo is identified as Muschlitz’s chief operating officer.

Stealth Clearing & Demolition, which serves Allentown and the surrounding area, handles commercial and industrial demolition, large-scale land clearing, site remediation and on-site crushing of concrete, asphalt and rock into reusable aggregate. Together the two companies cover a site from teardown and clearing through finished grade, utilities and paving.

“Alpha Infrastructure is an exceptionally well-run business with an experienced team and a strong track record in civil and site development in the Lehigh Valley,” said Craft Work President David Orinski. “Investing in the civil space is a new facet of Craft Work’s specialty contracting focus. We believe this company is primed for growth and that Alpha Infrastructure positions us with the right platform to pursue that opportunity.”

The investor.

Craft Work Capital Investments is managed by Craft Work Capital, LLC, led by President David Orinski and Vice Chairman Jeremy McGuire. Both came out of the PPL and Talen Energy orbit, where, according to Craft Work, a portfolio of 11 contracting firms across the Northeast sat under one corporate owner. The firm’s stated mission is to invest in “mechanical, electrical and other related specialty contracting sectors,” and its companies keep their names and management. Its portfolio, as listed on its own site and its Midwest platform’s site:

• Rogers Mechanical Contractors (2020): a large mechanical and plumbing contractor serving national accounts from Atlanta and Dallas. It has since added R&D Mechanical Services, a Cherokee County, Georgia commercial service and retrofit firm founded in 2002, and Sluss & Padgett, a commercial mechanical, plumbing and controls contractor.
• Coastal Mechanical (2021): Melbourne, Florida, with roots to 1985 and five Florida locations serving healthcare, education, and aerospace and defense.
• D&L, Inc. (2023): Blytheville, Arkansas, founded in 1978, and described at the time of the deal as one of the largest HVACR providers to steel mills in the Southeast.
• Mid-Am Building Solutions, an Indianapolis-based platform of union-led Midwest contractors:
  • Sexson Mechanical (2022), Greenwood, Indiana
  • Koontz-Wagner (2023), a South Bend, Indiana electrical contractor dating to 1921 that also installs utility-scale solar
  • Clinton Electric (2024), Ina, Illinois
  • R.W. Mead & Sons (2024), Fraser, Michigan
  • Haase Mechanical, Henderson, Kentucky and Evansville, Indiana

The common thread across the roster is commercial, industrial and institutional work for owners such as universities, hospitals, manufacturers and steel mills. Alpha serves the same customer types.

Why civil, and why here.

Craft Work’s release does not lay out a thesis beyond calling civil “a new facet” of its specialty contracting focus. The public record points to several reasons the move fits. The cross-selling points below are our read, not Craft Work’s statements.

Same projects, earlier in the schedule. Sitework is the first trade on the commercial, industrial and institutional jobs where Craft Work’s mechanical and electrical companies show up later. A civil platform gets in front of the developers, general contractors and public owners at the start of a project. That gives the portfolio earlier visibility into pipelines and a shared set of customer relationships. The line between the trades is also thinner than it looks. Muschlitz already installs gas and electric lines alongside water and storm systems. And Craft Work’s own description of Sexson Mechanical lists excavation among its services.

Lehigh Valley demand. The Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation reported more than 2.2 million square feet of industrial space under construction in the second quarter of 2026, the most in two years. It also reported vacancy falling to 8.4% and the first positive quarterly net absorption in two years, at nearly 1.5 million square feet. Projects included a 216,000-square-foot Freshpet cold storage facility in Bethlehem. Colliers measures the market differently, at 9.8% vacancy and 1.3 million square feet under construction, about half of it build-to-suit. Data centers are adding a new layer:

• In March, Allen Township supervisors approved Prologis’s plan to convert a one-million-square-foot warehouse into a data center, with a new substation.
• A 410-acre, 1.5-million-square-foot hyperscale campus known as Project Atlas, with three data center buildings, a substation and three stormwater retention ponds, is under review in South Whitehall Township.

That is earthwork, utility and stormwater scope of the kind Muschlitz sells.

Public work, with a funding question. PennDOT estimated in 2023 that the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act would bring Pennsylvania about $4.1 billion in new federal highway and bridge funds over five years, including $1.77 billion for bridges. The IIJA’s surface transportation authorization expired September 30. Congress extended core highway programs through December 11 but not the law’s advance appropriations, which leaves a $36.8 billion annual shortfall, and a full reauthorization is not expected before the post-election session. Muschlitz’s mix leans private, with industrial, commercial and institutional work, and it also serves municipalities, school districts and PennDOT. That gives Alpha exposure to public spending without depending on it.

A fragmented trade with an aging ownership base. Site preparation is one of the least concentrated industries in the country. The 2022 Economic Census put receipts for site preparation contractors at $158.7 billion, with the four largest firms holding 2.2% of revenue. Census County Business Patterns counted 41,777 employer establishments with 472,783 paid employees in 2023, which works out to about 11 employees per establishment. Those figures exclude water, sewer and utility line contractors, which are counted separately. Many of these firms are first- or second-generation family businesses like Muschlitz, now in its fourth decade. Craft Work’s own pitch to owners lists estate and succession planning alongside growth and risk diversification. For a buyer that wants to keep building in civil, that is a long runway of potential add-ons.

For other examples of contractor platforms crossing into civil and infrastructure work, see Kelso Industries’ addition of a Spokane heavy civil builder, and our breakdown of how data center demand priced MasTec’s deal for The Superior Group. Craft Work’s move also follows other investor entries into Pennsylvania, such as Total Fire Protection’s Pottstown deal.

What it means.

For owners of excavation, sitework and utility contractors in eastern Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic, Alpha is now a backed regional platform with a stated growth mandate. Its investor has a record of adding companies under existing platforms: Rogers added two firms, and Mid-Am has grown to five. Clearing, demolition, utility, paving and earthwork firms near the Lehigh Valley should expect Alpha to be an active buyer or partner. Craft Work’s model keeps names and leadership in place. For MEP owners already in Craft Work’s portfolio or talking with it, the Alpha deal signals that the firm now defines its specialty contracting focus more broadly than mechanical and electrical alone.