About HBA Construction

The People Behind the Equipment

Douglas Palmer did not find heavy equipment — he was born into it.

Raised in the Pacific Northwest as the sixth of eight children, Douglas grew up in a working household. His father farmed and ran an implement dealership. His mother cooked from scratch and held the family together. The Palmer children were taught early that work done with your hands and done right were not separate ideas — they were the same idea. His older brothers went into construction, and Douglas followed. He was on a backhoe at fourteen. By fifteen he was driving dump trucks and, by his own account, killing it. While his classmates were finishing high school, Douglas was already earning real money doing work he genuinely loved. He had found his one true passion and was getting paid to do it. He says he used to dream about running the controls before he was ever allowed to touch them.

Forty Years of Heavy Equipment Experience

What started as a teenager on a backhoe became a forty-year career that took Douglas from operator to foreman to superintendent to company founder. He ran his own construction firm for thirty years, building the kind of deep operational knowledge that only comes from being responsible for every phase of a project — the planning, the crew, the equipment, the client, and the outcome.

That career eventually led to something unusual: Douglas was recruited by Peterson Cat, a Caterpillar dealer in Northern California, to serve as their Operator Trainer. He spent years teaching other operators how to run and maintain their machines correctly — the mechanics, the technique, the judgment calls that separate a good operator from a great one. Teaching a craft forces a level of precision that even decades of practice doesn't always require. Douglas came out of that chapter with an even sharper understanding of what proper equipment operation actually looks like.

Now he is back out on his own, in Canyon Lake, Texas.

Why the Work Here is Different

Comal County has no building codes for most unincorporated properties. That fact is well known among local contractors, and some of them treat it as permission to skip steps — no geogrid on walls that need it, no proper drainage behind block work, no compaction testing on fill that will carry a foundation.

Douglas comes from thirty years of commercial construction, where building codes are enforced, inspectors show up, and shortcuts have consequences that come back to the contractor. That background shaped how he works. Best practices are not something he does when someone is watching — they are simply how the work gets done. On every project, whether it is a residential retaining wall in Spring Branch or a full site preparation in Wimberley, the drainage is right, the footings are right, and the compaction is right.

In an area where some contractors take advantage of the absence of oversight, HBA Construction builds as if the inspector is coming tomorrow.

Dana Palmer - Operation and Relationships

Behind every job Douglas runs in the field, Dana Palmer is running everything else. Dana manages the day-to-day operations of the business — the scheduling, the communications, the bookkeeping, and the administrative work that keeps a construction company functioning. She also handles what she calls relationship marketing: the networking, the community presence, and the intentional work of building genuine connections with the homeowners, Realtors, builders, and allied trades that make up HBA Construction's professional community in the Texas Hill Country. If you call the office, you are likely talking to Dana. If you receive a follow-up after a job is done, that came from Dana. If HBA Construction shows up at a local event or arrives at your Realtor's office with something worth remembering, Dana planned it.

The Palmers in Canyon Lake

Douglas and Dana have two children and three grandchildren — currently spread between California and Alaska, which means family visits involve either a long drive or a long flight, but they make it work. When Douglas is not running equipment or planning a project, he is playing chess — in person, with anyone willing to sit across from him. He has developed a genuine interest in videography, which has started showing up in how HBA documents its project work. He is also passionate about something most people know little about: dam removal. Douglas gives a presentation to civic groups across the Hill Country on the state of dam removal in the United States — the environmental impact, the restoration that follows, and why it matters to communities built around rivers and lakes like the ones that define this region. It is the kind of thing you do not expect from a construction company owner, which is probably why the audiences remember it.

A Company Built on Craft

HBA Construction is not a large company. It is an owner-operated business where the person who gives you the estimate is the same person responsible for the outcome of the work. Douglas is on the job. The equipment is company-owned. The standards are his own — shaped by four decades of experience, a career spent teaching others how to do the work correctly, and a genuine belief that the quality of what gets built in the ground matters even when no one is checking.

That is who you are calling when you dial (830) 507-5956.

Call today for your free property evaluation.
Canyon Lake, Texas | hbaconstruction.com

A Blast from the Past

Douglas is pictured here with his brothers.  From left to right: Denis, Douglas, Charles, Stan and Bob Palmer