Everyday Heroes

Transcription

Everyday Heroes

Everyday Heroes: Meet Finning's service champions
10 years old: Cat's 797 supertruck still reigns
SPRING 2008
www.finning.ca
SAME ATTITUDE
SMALLER PACKAGE
They’re not as large, but they measure
®
up. In fact, the new Cat C-Series line
offers comfort like the big Cat machines.
Noise and dust are reduced thanks to a
pressurized and sealed cab – an industry
first. The optional air ride seat delivers even
more comfort. Plus the wide cab opening
makes for easy entry and exit.
Count on Finning for the best in
dealer support.
BE PART OF THE LEGACY.
1-888-finning | finning.ca
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a small footprint, delivering
Outstanding Value.
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$
From as little as 18/day
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Cat Mini-Hydraulic
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$
From as little as 29/day
Caterpillar 303C CR Hydraulic Excavator
*O.A.C. Taxes and finance fees extra.
Buyout based on fair market value. Pricing
based on 48 payment operating lease.
33
58
24
CONTENTS
34
SPRING 2008
Features
19 GREAT PEOPLE
20 Battle the Boom
Finning gears up with great
company training programs
Departments
4
Finning Focus
6
The Groundbreaker
Celebrating 75 years of business
A town called Penny, At work
with John Chew, BC Forest
Discovery Centre, A gent and his
“mature” Cat, President Jimmy
Carter, Success on the slopes
11 By The Numbers
12 Safety First
Zen and the art of driving
13 Yellow Iron
New products and services
from Finning
14 You Must Remember This
Check out a pictorial history of
an industrial heavyweight
56 Bill’s Business
Bill’s gramps gets a tour of the
new digs
74 Count On Us
Finning finds the future
74
22 Captain’s Log
Martin Marsolais can often still be
found at the helm of the logging
company he founded
27 Dawson Days
This family has left its mark
all over B.C.
28 Borek Construction
Kenn and Rosella Borek built the
North, road by runway
Ernie Catherwood bought a tug to
escape the man. Now he’s the man
33 GREAT SOLUTIONS
34 Everyday Heroes
Meet Finning’s early service
champions
36 Green is Gold
Port Hardy Bulldozing is using
the latest methods to reclaim a
spent mine
38 Sureway to Success
A construction maverick
celebrates 35 years
43 KMC Mining Stays Current
This company builds on success,
staying strong, in lean or plenty
46 Counting the Years
Who knew in 1925 that the name
“Caterpillar” would become a
heavy hitter in heavy equipment?
50 On Target, Off Highway
Highland Valley Copper finds
Finning solutions to stay strong
www.finning.ca
64
31 Try Freedom
53 Sparwood Specials
A Finning shop has a good idea, and
refurbishes it to make it great
58 The Birth of BIG
Kidco brings mining equipment
to the city
61 GREAT RESULTS
62 The Birth of the Branch
Industry customers were far flung.
It was time for Finning to get that way
64 12 Decades Strong
Kiewit is a model for big,
fair-minded companies
67 A Road to Travel
Ron Macmillan likes nothing better
than a sweet stretch of road
68 One Big Dump Truck
The world’s biggest mining truck is
going strong. Who’s gonna argue?
71 Have an Ice Day
Here’s the road that gets built every
year, just to melt away again
Spring 2008 • TR ACKS & TREADS
3
The Finning Focus
Great People,
Solutions and Results
At Finning, we aim to live up to our motto,
hoping that the next 75 years will be as
interesting as the first
by ian reid, president, Finning (Canada)
F
or 75 years, Finning has provided its
customers with great solutions – the
product support you need to get the most
value from your Caterpillar equipment investment. This commitment to customer
support is the cornerstone of the company
and stems from the vision of our founder,
Earl B. Finning.
Finning Tractor & Equipment Co. Ltd.
was incorporated on January 4, 1933, in
Vancouver with just six employees and the
motto: “We service what we sell.” At first,
the company grew slowly.
In those days, Earl B. Finning travelled
across British Columbia, trumpeting the
value of Cat’s heavy equipment line. It was
a hard sell. Many prospective customers still
preferred horses to diesel tractors.
As business developed, Mr. Finning
opened parts and repair departments.
Initially, a single mechanic, Con Gurney,
would travel to all parts of B.C., sometimes
on horseback, to overhaul equipment.
Four years after incorporation, the company’s growth trajectory was established as
we opened our first branch operation in
Nelson, B.C. in 1937.
A period of phenomenal growth fol-
tr acks & treads • Spring 2008
lowed, spurred by the production of natural resources in support of the war effort.
During the Second World War, Finning
was asked to inaugurate a training program
for tank mechanics. Later, the courses were
modified for Cat equipment and offered
internally. The company continues the
tradition today, a leader in technical training and employee development.
Throughout the 1940s and ’50s, business continued to expand as Caterpillar’s
product line broadened. Product support
was delivered to customers’ doorsteps
through a growing number of branches.
Resident mechanics often travelled to site
by boat or float plane. The determination
to add value to Caterpillar products was
paying off – a mid-1960s customer survey
revealed that Finning’s parts market share
exceeded 80%.
The 1960s boom saw our customers undertake major dam and highway construction projects. Finning kept pace through an
ambitious expansion program. Growing
markets and the need to access additional
capital moved Finning to become a publicly traded company in 1969, a rare step for a
Caterpillar dealership. To this day, Finning
remains one of only a handful of publicly
held Caterpillar dealers. In 1976, the company expanded into
northern Canada when it was awarded the
Yukon dealership territory. In the 1980s
and ’90s, Finning took its “we service what
we sell” formula international, acquiring
dealership territories in the United Kingdom and South America. Meanwhile, in
Canada, Finning acquired the R. Angus
Caterpillar dealership in Alberta, making
us a key supplier to the oil and gas industry
and the oil sands.
Of course, none of these accomplishments would have been possible without
you, our customers, many who have been
with us since the beginning. That’s why
we’ve taken the opportunity with this issue,
not just to profile our own heritage, but
to look back at how your businesses and
projects developed. A special thank you
goes to those customers who helped us put
this volume of Tracks & Treads together.
On behalf of our outstanding Finning
(Canada) team, past and present, let me say
it’s been an honour to serve you as a trusted
business partner. You’ve helped make our
75th a great celebration indeed! www.finning.ca
Letters & Feedback
SPRING 2008 Volume 48, No. 1
PUBLISHER
Ruth Kelly
rkelly@venturepublishing.ca
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER
Daska Davis
ddavis@venturepublishing.ca
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Jeff Howard
jhoward@finning.ca
EDITOR
Mifi Purvis
mpurvis@venturepublishing.ca
OLD TIME’S SAKE: We had a great time at Finning headquarters
in Edmonton prepping this issue. We opened the vaults, pawed
through scrapbooks and rifled through junk drawers. We came
up with a treasure trove of Finning and Caterpillar nostalgia. Hope
you have as much fun leafing through this weighty, celebratory
issue of Track & Treads as we had pulling it all together.
Jeff Howard
Publications manager
Finning (Canada)
ART DIRECTOR
Charles Burke
cburke@venturepublishing.ca
ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR
Catherine Lizotte
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Vanlee Robblee
PRODUCTION
Betty-Lou Smith, Christina Forcade
CIRCULATION COORDINATOR
Amanda Dammann
circulation@venturepublishing.ca
ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE
Anita McGillis
amcgillis@venturepublishing.ca
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Robin Brunet, David DiCenzo, Phoebe Dey,
Katherine Fawcett, Jeff Howard, Melody Hebert,
Cait Wills, Tricia Radison, Jim Veenbaas,
Lisa Ricciotti, Keith Haddock, Ryan Smith,
Caitlin Crawshaw, Jason Unrau
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
AND ILLUSTRATORS
David Moore, Chris Pyle, Chip Zdarsky
Tracks & Treads is published to provide its readers
with relevant business, technology, product and service
information in a lively and engaging manner.
Tracks & Treads is published for
Finning (Canada) by
Venture Publishing Inc.
10259-105 Street
Edmonton, Alberta T5J 1E3
Phone: 780-990-0839
Fax: 780-425-4921
Tell us what you think
Tracks & Treads would love to hear from you. Tell us what you think
of the magazine’s stories, columns and look, so we can improve
it and provide a more interesting read.
Contents © 2008 by Finning (Canada)
No part of this publication should be
reproduced without written permission.
Send your comments to executive editor Jeff Howard by e-mail at
jhoward@finning.ca or the old-fashioned way to: Jeff Howard, Tracks & Treads,
Finning (Canada), 16830 – 107 Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta T5P 4C3
www.finning.ca
www.finning.ca
5
News & Reviews
BY DAVID DICENZO
Paint it Yellow, Harry
Harold Hewlett would never let a little thing
like age get in the way of his passion for
Caterpillar machines. At 83, the Kelownaborn Hewlett still enjoys plugging away
on the extensive fleet of yellow iron on his
ranch in the Salmon Valley area, maintaining a definite sense of humour all the while.
“Like someone I know said, ‘Hewlett,
you’re old as dirt,’” jokes the energetic octogenarian.
Hewlett was on born April 5, 1924, almost
20 years after his parents came to the Okanagan Valley. His father was a logger and a fruit
farmer and Hewlett began following in dad’s
footsteps.
Cat equipment has always been part of
the equation when it comes to his busy work
life, which has included time logging, farming and even a lengthy stint as a mechanic in
Prince George.
“I’ve had Cats for the last 60 years,”
Hewlett says. “I’ll tell you what; there is no
machine like a Caterpillar. I’ve had very good
luck with them.”
Hewlett lost a leg in a farming accident
in the mid-1970s but neither that, nor his
advancing age, have slowed him down.
Harold Hewlett
6
TR ACKS & TREADS • Spring 2008
The father of four (grandfather of eight
and great-grandfather of nine children) never
turns down the chance to get outside and
work on his Cats, a few of which have been
around for almost as long as he has.
Hewlett is proud that he’s self-taught when
doing any maintenance work on the machines. One of his latest tasks was putting in
new brakes and replacing the steering clutch
on his 3T Caterpillar tractor, circa 1941.
“I’ve cleared thousands of acres of land
with it,” Hewlett says of the old-school iron.
Hewlett has been a fixture at Finning’s
Prince George branch for decades, taking the
25-mile trip in whenever he needs a part.
“He’s a very captivating fellow,” says
Finning’s Mike Hackman. “He certainly
doesn’t seem his age.”
Hewlett’s definitely a popular guy when
a big snowfall hits the area. That’s when he
gets calls from the neighbours to fire up his
D7, also from the 1940s, to come clear the
white stuff. “Last winter, I plowed 25 miles
of road with it,” Hewlett says.
His collection of Cats has prompted a
few requests from family. One son simply
asked that Hewlett keep at least one of the
machines in good working
order.
“He said, ‘You’ve got
to keep one of these Cats
running so when you die,
I can bury all of the stuff,’”
Hewlett says with a laugh.
“We’ve got about 100 tons
of it.”
The other request is
from wife Doreen. With all
of the machines already on
the property, Hewlett isn’t
allowed to paint anything
else yellow.
President
Jimmy Carter
President Carter is now a Finning man. To
be clear, the James Carter that recently
joined Finning International Inc.’s Board
of Directors is not the same peanut aficionado tasked with running the free world
in the mid-1970s.
But this Jim has loads of expertise.
In October, Finning announced the
addition of Mr. Carter, the former President and COO of Syncrude Canada.
“We are extremely pleased to welcome
Jim to Finning’s Board of Directors,” Chairman Conrad Pinette said in a release. “He
has played a prominent role in the growth
of Syncrude and in the development of
Alberta’s oil sands as well as the community of Fort McMurray.”
Carter had a memorable year in 2005.
The former graduate of both the Technical University of Nova Scotia (engineering
mining) and the Harvard Graduate School
of Business Administration (advanced
management) was named Resource Person of the Year by the Alberta Chamber of
Resources and was inducted as a Fellow
of the Canadian Academy of Engineering.
He also received an Alberta Centennial
medal from the Province.
www.finning.ca
GROUNDBREAKER
Cats are Forever
In 1957, Penny, B.C. native, Clarence
Boudreau, shelled out $22,000 for a brand
new D6 Cat crawler. It’s been plugging away
continuously since. To put it in perspective,
that’s when Elvis was thin and new, men had
not yet landed on the moon and the business
editor of Prentice Hall books said that interest in computer data processing was “a fad
that would not last the year.”
When Boudreau bought the durable Cat
from Finning rep Bernie Moore over half
a century ago, he was a cattle rancher. He
planned to use the tractor for clearing land.
But soon he and his wife, Olga (they’ve produced five children, 14 grandchildren and an
incredible 11 great-grand kids), gave up on
cattle ranching.
“We quit that a long time ago,” says
Boudreau, also a former forest warden and
operator of a salmon hatchery. “We were
using the Cat to support the farm and we decided that we could do just fine with the Cat,
without the farm.”
The iron has certainly come in handy over
the years and continues to run smoothly.
Boudreau notes that he was still plowing snow
with it in late January, something he also did
in an official capacity for the Department
www.finning.ca
of Highways from 1957 through 1996.
But the D6 is most active in the summer.
That’s when Boudreau works on a road connecting the tiny town of Penny (population
six, located between Prince George and McBride) to the outside world. In 1994, the year
before a scheduled reunion for Penny’s past
residents (the town once had a sawmill and
675 people), Boudreau began the project.
He and a nephew started building a 16kilometre road, at his own expense, to connect with another road near Highway 16.
“We just keep improving the road,” Boudreau
says. “We’ve added about 1,600 truckloads
of gravel. Everybody uses it.”
Boudreau admits he’s also had his share
of follies with the D6. On one occasion, a
mudslide almost plunged it into the Fraser
River, which would have been the second
time it got submerged. The first time came in
the early 1960s when Boudreau was building
an ice bridge across the Fraser River for logging purposes.
“I had the ice bridge built just about to the
bank on the other side,” he says. “I turned
my Cat around, I backed it off the end of
the bridge and there was a hole right there.
Plunk, I was in the water. I managed to get the
blade on the end of the bridge and hold it up. I
winched it out of there. I was pretty lucky because there were no other machines around.”
The rugged machine was fine.
There was also the time that Boudreau
managed to muck up the nearby railway while
he was hauling logs. Luckily, he and some
friends rounded up some tools and fixed the
track before the next train.
“We ripped everything up, pulled the
spikes out, put the thing back down and then
gauged the track,” Boudreau recalls. “We
went home and listened until the train came.
It went by in one piece.”
Boudreau can’t necessarily explain why
his D6 has lasted more than 50 years other
than noting, “It’s obvious they made a very
good Cat.” He did overhaul the motor about
20 years ago, though he notes that the
transmission, and even the oil inside of it,
is original.
Like Boudreau himself, the Cat D6 has
been running strong for many years.
“It’s a matter of which one of us plays out
first,” he says.
Pretty Penny
Penny, B.C. was officially added to the
map in 1916, the year the post office
opened. The town’s sawmill met its demise because of a combination of the
decline of large timber in the Upper
Fraser River Valley and because of the
centralization of the pulp and lumber
industries in nearby Prince George.
http://web.unbc.ca/upperfraser/
towns/penny/literature.htm
7
Island Builder
It’s been 53 years since John Chew incorporated his business, Chew Excavating Ltd.
In those days, Chew says a handshake was
good enough to seal a deal. While plenty has
changed in the construction world over those
five-plus decades, the influential Chew hasn’t
altered his approach.
“Customer service was how we built the
business,” says the 80-year-old native of the
Municipality of Saanich, a suburb of Victoria, B.C.
It’s the same today, though the scope of
Chew’s work has increased. His footprints are
all over Vancouver Island, where Chew’s employees have completed a variety of pipe laying, road building projects and a lot of sewer
system work for municipalities.
Diversification has been instrumental to
his success. And Chew has played a huge role
in actually growing the construction industry
in the area. He would hire operators, get them
experience and they would eventually branch
off on their own to compete for jobs.
“It’s the nature of the beast,” says Chew.
“You apprenticed people, teaching them how
to run machines, teaching them how
to run businesses. Then they grow
up, like we all did.”
“He started three-quarters
of the contractors here in Victoria,” says Finning’s Gregg
Whitson. “He’s very creative.
He’ll step out and do things
that other people won’t.
I wish I had his guts.”
The father of four
children and four grand
8
kids learned the
value of hard work
early, by helping out on
the farm with his own
dad, a market gardener. In the initial years of running his business, Chew was
definitely hands on, happily operating the
backhoe by himself.
By the 1960s, he had begun his lengthy
relationship with Finning by purchasing a
variety of machines. “We did almost all the
excavations in the city of Victoria in the ’60s
and ’70s,” Chew recalls. “We had a lot of loaders and blasters. We bought the first 955 from
Finning and 933s, and 977s.” He isn’t quite
sure of how many Cats his companies operate today, though.
“Quite a few,” he says with a laugh.
These days Chew, who also owns Victoria Harbour Ferry, leaves daily operations to
his son-in-law Bruce Dyck. After a lifetime of
hard work, the bigger concern is planning a
few Chinook salmon fishing trips per year or
shaving a couple strokes off his handicap
when golfing with his wife.
Those recreational excursions are
well earned, given Chew’s commitment to his employees and the
region as a whole. In April 2007,
he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce.
“You’ve got to give back
t o t h e c o m m u n i t y, ”
says Chew, “otherwise, what have
you got?”
Finning Family
Finning’s operations in Alberta got a
big boost late last year with some good
news on the business front. On November 27, Finning International Inc. announced that it had acquired Collicutt
Energy Services, a leader in the Canadian oilfield service industry, known for
its servicing and fabrication of natural
gas compression equipment and electric
power generation in both Alberta and
British Columbia.
“The Collicutt acquisition helps us
address our needs for facilities and people. It will boost our ability to meet the
growing demand for service from our
customers, particularly in the mining,
heavy construction and power systems
industries,” Finning (Canada) president
Ian Reid said in a recent release. “We
welcome the Collicutt employees to our
service teams.”
Shareholders feel the love, too. “This
transaction provides all Collicutt shareholders with an attractive premium to
recent trading values,” Steven Collicutt,
president and chief executive officer,
said last November. Collicutt shareholders received $9.75 per share with the
www.finning.ca
GROUNDBREAKER
Gareth Sine
Pedal to the Medal
Canadians have a long tradition of hurtling
themselves down icy mountains at breakneck speeds. While stars like Ken Read and
Steve Podborski helped usher in the era
of the “Crazy Canucks,” a whole new generation of Canadian skiers are showing the
same type of courage.
And this group of thrill seekers will be getting a little help from Finning (Canada). In
October, Finning and Caterpillar of Canada
Inc. signed a three-year, $600,000 partnership
with Alpine Canada Alpin to assist with financial resources as our skiers continue working
towards making the country one of the best
in the world in time for the approaching 2010
Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
“Finning and Caterpillar are providing
much needed additional financial resources to support our teams, our programs, and
our goal of becoming the best in the world at
every level,” said Read, now the Chief Executive Officer, Alpine Canada Alpin. “We need
financial, technical and human resources to
ensure we keep pace with the ski racing world.
This partnership with Finning and Caterpillar will really help us and we are very thankful that these two strong Canadian corporate
partners have joined our team.”
The support will help make a powerhouse squad just that much better. Canada
is already coming off its best World Cup
racing season ever. Last year, the national
alpine and para-alpine athletes had an incredible 43 World Cup podium appearances
and won a World Championship medal, but
there’s more to do.
“We expect this contribution will help
put Canada’s elite alpine skiers on the
podium, and will build strong grassroot
programs so amateur athletes have the
backing they need to realize their potential,”
said Jon Carman, President of Caterpillar of
Canada Ltd.
Canuck skiers, such as Gareth Sine, have
embraced the deal. The Calgary native,
who had a list of impressive results last season and in the early going of the 2007/08
campaign, has been proudly donning the
Finning Cat logo.
“As an Albertan, I am particularly thrilled
to be wearing Finning and Caterpillar headgear on my helmet for the 2007/08 racing
season,” Sine said last October. “Like Finning
and Caterpillar, my focus and dedication is
centered on achievement and excellence.”
sale of the company. “Finning is a worldclass company,” Collicutt says. “Finning will
grow the scale and scope of the Red Deer
operations in the years to come.”
What acquiring Collicutt
means for Finning
• About 450 more employees
• More than 200,000 square feet
of operational capacity in Red Deer
• The capacity for consolidated
new equipment preparation work
• A “Centre of Excellence” for
mining and heavy equipment
overhaul work
• Freeing service personnel in existing
Finning branches for additional
customer service work
www.finning.ca
PUT ’ER THERE: Steven Collicutt shakes on it with Finning president Ian Reid
9
Move Over, Paul Bunyan
Vicki Holman fondly recalls her first few
weeks as manager of the BC Forest Discovery
Centre. The 100-acre operation, located two
kilometres north of Duncan on Vancouver
Island, offers a detailed look at the evolution
of a provincial industry that Holman calls
“the backbone of the economy.”
“I remember when I first started this job
and going through the exhibits, I followed a
family whose grandfather was narrating while
they walked through the bunkhouses,” she
says. “He told them the story of when he was
in camp and how he slept in a bunk like that
and worked in the shop. He had a sense of
pride, and we have a role to play in keeping
those stories alive.”
The BC Forest Discovery Centre has been
doing just that since it first opened in 1964 as
the Forest Museum Park. Gerry Wellburn, an
Englishman who moved to Victoria with his
family after the turn of the century, donated
the original collection of artifacts and logging
machines housed at the centre. Wellburn,
who was one of the first loggers in the area
to use Caterpillar equipment, recognized the
changes occurring in the industry and began
collecting the various tools of the trade.
By 1974, the BC Forest Museum Society
took over the centre, which is now funded
through a combination of government support, fundraising and private donations. Approximately 30,000 visitors per year pass
through to see the wetlands, exhibits and mature second-growth forest complete with trails
on a dynamic piece of land.
Many of the machines on display at the
centre – open from Easter to Thanksgiving
and then once again at Christmas – are vintage Cats, including loaders, D7s and D6s
and even a 1930 Model 20 tractor, which
Finning borrowed to display at logging shows
throughout 2007. A sweet 1910 steam train
takes visitors on a tour of the grounds.
“They gave me a tour,” says Rob Sarich,
Finning’s products and services sales manager
for Vancouver Island. “There’s a ton of old stories there about machinery and the history of
the Island. With each piece, there’s a story.”
Location, location
In 1964, an appropriate location
was identified for what would eventually become the site of the BC Forest
Discovery Centre. A six-hectare piece
of property south of Drinkwater Road
was chosen because of its visibility
from the Island highway and historical
connection to the Cowichan Valley.
The site was a mink farm but more
importantly it had been the location
of the Cowichan Valley’s first public
building – a combined schoolhouse
and chapel, erected in 1863.
“To me, the coolest part about this is that
artifacts aren’t just sitting out there in the
forest,” says Holman. “You could flash them
up and start them and if you wanted to, you
could actually do some land clearing.”
Volunteers, many of them retired loggers, are key to the centre’s ability to connect the past to the present. The centre offers
educational programming available for primary, elementary and high-school students.
“There’s a real opportunity to tell the historical story and talk about where forestry is
going in the future and why it’s important to
value the forest,” she says.
The BC Forest Discovery Centre has become even more meaningful in recent times
with the logging industry facing serious challenges. Devastating forest fires and the unrelenting march of the tree-killing mountain
pine beetle have transformed the industry,
making it that much more imperative to remember the rich tradition and role it has
played in shaping British Columbia.
“Here on the coast, guys that logged in
the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s up to the present day,
they’re like folk heroes,” says Sarich.
“You really get a sense of that at the BC
Forest Discovery Centre.”
Visit discoveryforest.com for more
information on the centre.
10
www.finning.ca
GROUNDBREAKER
By the Numbers
Height in feet
of a Caterpillar
797B haul
truck tire:
13
Tire weight in pounds:
10,000
634
1,823
Number of explosive
devices CIA dogs are
trained to sniff out:
Number of video game-like
virtual training systems
introduced by Caterpillar
for its equipment:
19,000
Time it takes a man
to change a diaper,
in seconds:
96 125
A woman:
www.finning.ca
1,800
Number of
assassination plots
Fidel Castro claims
to have survived:
Number of Guitar
Hero games stocked
at Michigan’s
Rochester Hills
public library:
4
Number of gallons
of gas held in the
tank of a 797B:
Price of J.Lo’s new
Italian leather and
snake skin trim
diaper bag:
$1,250
Spring 2008 • TR ACKS & TREADS 11
Story by mifi purvis
illustration by CHRIS PYLE
Safety First
Drivers are eating bagels, rushing to hockey practice and
thinking about the latest events at work. but They should
be thinking about driving
Zen and the
Art of Driving
“The first thing to do is to stop calling them
‘accidents,’” says Dr. Louis Francescutti; he’s
talking about traffic safety. “It perpetuates the
notion that there’s something unavoidable
about them, and that’s not the case. Call them
collisions, or crashes, but not accidents.”
It’s probably something he’s said loads
of times before, but his comments sound
spontaneous, despite some faint interference on the telephone line. It’s possible
he’s on a cell phone, but you can bet that,
if he is, he isn’t driving.
Francescutti is an Edmonton emergency physician and a champion of cell
phone free driving. His cell phone peeves
fit into a wider category of driver distractibility and injury avoidance. “Injuries are
almost always avoidable,” he says, “and
they are the most under-recognized public health challenge.”
Safer driving is something that most
companies want their employees to undertake, not just at the wheel of the company truck, but also once they clock out
and climb into their own vehicles. “Many
companies have excellent safety programs,”
says Lacey Hoyland, injury prevention coordinator at Edmonton’s Capital Health. “But it’s
not onsite that most collisions are happening, it’s on weekends.” Emergency physicians,
such as Francescutti, can attest to the surge
of traffic injuries and fatalities, especially on
long weekends.
Yet according to Francescutti, safer driving
is relatively simple. “Follow the rules, don’t
use a cell phone while driving, don’t drive intoxicated, slow down,” he rattles off. “When
you’re driving,” Francescutti says, “you should
be doing only one thing: driving.”
12 tr acks & treads • Spring 2008
It’s that Zen-like commitment to dwelling
in the moment, concerned with conditions at
hand and beyond distractibility, that many of
us find difficult to achieve behind the wheel.
How many times have you arrived home with
little recollection of the journey? “If that’s the
case, you’re not driving safely,” Francescutti
says flatly. Or worse, how many times have
you burned rubber because you were eating,
or rocking out to whatever’s on the stereo, or
mediating a fight, via the rear view mirror, between your kids?
Francescutti’s stay-on-task mantra is
echoed by Capital Health’s Hoyland. “It’s
a driver’s increased level self awareness and
decreased distractibility that improve his
driving,” she says. Hoyland adds that drivers
should set out in plenty of time. Running 10
minutes behind schedule makes for late, irritable drivers, who focus on shaving seconds
off the journey rather than focusing on the
journey itself.
And driving is a more difficult task than
we acknowledge – ask anyone who has
learned to drive in their 30s. Most Albertans
grew up in cars, learned to drive as teens.
“There’s a complexity to driving that we lose
track of,” says Hoyland. “And there’s more
going on in traffic than there was 20 years
ago. Signage has increased, there are more
traffic lights and the volume of traffic has
increased.”
Despite Francescutti’s to-do list for safer
driving, injury prevention experts are the
first to say that general admonishments,
such as “drive safely,” have little effect on
people’s behaviour. “People respond more
positively to concrete tips and suggestions,”
says Hoyland. Clear, specific messages help
drivers retain and integrate safer driving
tips. “Slow down,” for example, is less effective than “Slow to 50 km/h in construction
zones or fines are double.”
Francescutti has an activist’s approach. He believes that an aggressive
public awareness campaign, coupled
with a hefty endowment to kick-start
it, and public accountability will decrease collision-related injury and
death. “Why not make public health
ministers accountable? If we did that,
there would be a political will to improve safety,” he says. He cites the
experience of the State of Victoria,
Australia. Victoria has undertaken
these steps and seen dramatic de-
creases in collision rates and injury
and death by collision. Many companies, too, are trying
to make an impact on employees
with their safety policies. Schlumberger, a global oilfield supply company,
has seen its driver safety record improve to
all-time bests after the implementation of
a company-wide driving training program.
Likewise, Finning continues to fine-tune its
driver safety policies, with such initiatives as
the wireless policy, banning the use of cell
phones while behind the wheel, and providing guidelines on how to avoid becoming the victim or perpetrator of road rage.
“The message we’d like our people to
take home,” says Tom Petras, Finning’s safety manager, “is that they should be concentrating on driving, and nothing else, when
they’re behind the wheel.” www.finning.ca
yellowiron
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www.finning.ca
Spring 2008 • tr acks & treads 13
We service what we sell
In 1928, Earl B. Finning moved to Vancouver and became a partner
with Morrison Tractor and Equipment Ltd. Four years later, Morri-
son relinquished his interest and Finning Tractor & Equipment Company Ltd. was born on January 4, 1933. A staff of six set up shop at
940 Station Street in Vancouver. From day one, Earl Finning’s operating philosophy could be captured in five simple words: “We service
what we sell.”
IN TOUCH WITH INDUSTRY: Earl B. Finning meets with B.C.’s
budding logging magnates at Loggers Congress in 1946. The event was
held at the Banff Springs Hotel
BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS: A customer is greeted by a furry
Finning sales rep – Earl B.’s famous Irish Red Setter, Pat
The 75-year war against downtime
Product support innovations through the decades kept Finning
customers going by reducing equipment downtime. These innovative programs include custom track service, preventive maintenance,
guaranteed bid, planned component replacement, guaranteed cost
per hour, scheduled oil sampling, customer support agreements
and many more.
SERVICE BRIGADE: Finning mechanics get ready for a parade
www.finning.ca
Meet the customers’ needs
The 1960s boom saw Finning customers undertake major dam and highway construction projects. Machine populations were also
growing in other areas of B.C. In response,
the company launched a capital expenditures program, moving to a new head office
and service facility on Great Northern Way. In
1965 Earl Finning passed away and, four years
later, Finning Tractor & Equipment Company
Ltd. became a publicly traded company, a rare
move for a Caterpillar dealership.
TAKE FLIGHT: The Finning plane heads out on a service call
Serve where the action is
Finning continued to expand throughout the
1940s and ’50s as Caterpillar’s product line
broadened. Finning technicians delivered product support to customers’ doorsteps, often making field calls in float planes. And mobile parts
depots, stocked with more than 500 different
items, supported customers in remote areas.
Caterpillar introduced 16 new products in 1959
and 1960. With a new engine plant at Mossville, Illinois, Caterpillar intended to become the
world’s largest manufacturer of diesel engines.
Finning grew in response.
SIGN OF THE TIMES: To make the move to new
premises on Great Northern Way, the Finning sign
is removed at 940 Station Street
LOOK WAY UP: A high rigger for the Hillcrest
Lumber Company at work at Mesachie Lake, near
Cowichan on Vancouver Island in 1948
PLAY THE PIPES: Mannix Ltd. Cat pipelayers on
the West Coast Transmission Line project, 1971
REMEMBER WHEN…
www.finning.ca
STRONG IN NUMBERS: In the first phase of
the $250-million Coquihalla Highway project,
three 35-ton trucks, part of a 450-piece Cat army
of machines, help relocate railway right-of-way
PREVENT DEFENCE: Finning’s PM
plan helps customers avoid after-failure repairs
DOCKSIDE SUPPORT: A Finning hose van
makes a stop at the docks in the 1980s
STEPPING OUT: Finning made its UK
debut in 1983
Small moves squelch big trouble
Finning’s field service personnel are equipped
with a hidden toolbox of knowledge and solutions that have evolved through 75 years of
customer support. Preventive maintenance
service was introduced in the 1960s and has
become an essential part of Finning’s service
offering. “Our customers realize the value of
service,” said senior serviceman Bruce Phillips, 1963. “Small adjustments prevent major
troubles and our customers see the benefits.”
Today, Finning’s resourceful field technicians continue the tradition. Armed with
laptops, they’re plugged into a vast knowledge network that helps them provide the
right solutions.
Go international
When B.C. resource industries took a downturn during the recession of the early 1980s,
Finning remained in the black, and stepped
into the global marketplace, acquiring the
rights to represent Caterpillar in Western England, Wales and Scotland in 1983. The company purchased two Caterpillar dealerships
in the United Kingdom: Bowmaker (Plant)
Ltd. and Caledonian Tractor and Equipment
Co. Ltd., which merged to become Finning
Limited.
REMEMBER WHEN…
16
www.finning.ca
CAT POWER: A Cat 3406 engine powers this
truck for Voyageur Construction
SERVICE GOES NORTH: Yukon’s placer
mines still define the northern territory
Serve the North
“In this business you have to be where the
action is. It’s an expensive way to operate
but there’s no doubt about the benefit to the
customers,” said executive board chairman
Maury Young on the expansion of Finning’s
facilities in the Yukon in 1980.
That philosophy continued as Finning
broadened its geographic base in western
Canada in 1989 by acquiring the R. Angus
Caterpillar dealership, a company that had
long served as a key supplier to Canada’s oil
and gas industry in the Northwest Territories
and Alberta, most notably the massive oil
sands projects in the northern part of the province. Each year, Finning employees rise to the
North’s extreme logistical challenges.
www.finning.ca
TWEAK IT: A Finning truck engine
technician makes adjustments
Expand international presence
In the 1990s, Finning continued looking for
new opportunities in other countries, acquiring the Leverton dealership in England and
Gildemeister S.A.C in Chile in 1993. On April
25, 1997, the company changed its name to
Finning International Inc. A year later, the
head office for Finning (Canada) relocated
to Edmonton, Alberta. In 2003, Finning acquired three more South American territories:
Macrosa del Plata S.A. in Argentina; Matreq
Ferreyros S.A. in Bolivia; and General Machinery Co. S.A. in Uruguay.
CHILE WORK: Finning is at work around
the world, including this mine in Chile
A NICE BUNCH A FELLERS: Finning
technicians assemble a TK 1162 feller
buncher with skill and ease
“Great People, Great Solutions, Great Results”
The company Earl B. Finning founded with “damn few dollars and a
lot of courage” back in 1933, continues to succeed. Today, 13,000
Finning employees, working in Canada, South America and the U.K.,
celebrate 75 years of operation, thanks to a strong tradition of great
people, great solutions and great results. Finning is positioned for
even greater success in the future.
IN TUNE: Finning technicians are
plugged in to today’s technology
REMEMBER WHEN…
18
www.finning.ca
SIXTIES SERVICE: Finning’s Jerry Holmes chats with Norm Jacobsen at the
University of British Columbia research forest, near Haney, B.C., in 1961
www.finning.ca
A thriving economy
is no reason to moan.
Finning training
programs help solve
the skills shortage
Story by Jeff Howard
Battling the Boom
roblematic as today’s skilled
labour shortage is, it’s noth
ing new. During boom times,
it’s just what happens. Take the 1960s – back
when things were groovy, pulp mill, dam and
highway projects were on the go and com
panies were vying for skilled tradespeople.
Of course, Finning had its own needs. But
by then, it already had nearly 30 years’ experi
ence developing a workforce to meet custom
er repair and maintenance needs.
The commitment to equip both its own
staff and the industrial customers it served
with technical training resources has been a
hallmark of the company, all the way back to
the Second World War, and continues today
with programs such as ThinkBIG, a partner
ship between Finning and NAIT to train heavy
equipment technicians.
The focus on training began with the
need for tank mechanics. In 1942, the army
asked Finning to design and administer a
crash course. Frank Davies, Finning’s first
part-time trainer, taught army personnel to
dismantle and reassemble D7 and D8 trac
tors at Finning’s Station Street headquarters in
Vancouver. Then he sent the budding military
techs to logging camps for field experience.
For its contribution to the war effort,
Finning received the Canadian Armed Forces
Award, the highest recognition that can be
given to a civilian organization.
After the war, fishing companies began to
repower fleets; Finning scrambled to recruit
staff to handle the tidal wave of engine instal
lation and repair jobs. To meet the need, the
company set up a training program.
Bev Davis, who joined the company in
1947 as a 20-year-old war veteran, describes
the marine training program. “We were called
‘improvers’ in those days; we had Department
of Veterans Affairs credits that subsidized
wages and helped us reintegrate into the
workforce. Frank Davies was our mentor and
we were his boys. He had us work in the shop
until he figured we were ready for the field.”
Eight recruits were hired into the marine
training program annually. However, by
1954 a new area was becoming an important
part of Finning’s business – used equipment.
Again, there was a shortage of technicians.
Once more, Finning trained 24 mechanics
in-house to meet the need.
By 1957, the writing was on the chalk
board. The company would need to develop
an ongoing training program, and Frank
Davies was finally hired on full-time. The
www.finning.ca
company was asked to take on the administration of the province’s first four-year heavy
duty technician apprenticeship program,
because the Vancouver Vocational Institute
had neither the instructors nor the facilities.
The strategic move included government
supervision and assistance.
Reporting on this development, Truck Logger magazine described Finning training as
“the most ambitious industrial training program in the province … Several construction
and logging firms have taken advantage of the
Finning program to include some of their mechanics in the schedule. The program will do
much to alleviate the [labour] shortage.”
Four years later, Finning was able to advertise the merits of its experts. Bev Davis,
the former “improver,” had moved into service management in Vancouver. In a letter to
customers, he wrote, “There are 159 Finning
mechanics (or technicians) at your service
throughout B.C. They’re trained experts with
special tools and proper working conditions.
They’re the men who give you the best job,
worth the little bit extra they may cost.”
In 1966, Finning’s population of technicians had expanded to 434. From 1964 to
1966, mechanical staff in Vancouver had
doubled. It was a reflection of a business
surge at Finning and, more generally, in B.C.
Jack Rollins, one of the company’s original
six employees, said at the time: “The supply
of technicians doesn’t come near to meeting
the demand.”
During a 1966 interview with Western
Business and Industry magazine, Finning president Maury Young said Finning wouldn’t
lower hiring standards to fill shortfalls. “We
don’t choose to go this route no matter how
critical the shortage becomes,” he said. “We
feel it’s in our interest to do fewer jobs well,
rather than turn out poor work. The solution
lies in extensive in-plant training.”
That proposed solution was put into
action, and Finning became Canada’s first
private company training school, by the federal government’s definition. The Journal of
Commerce reported in 1973 that Finning was
“a company fast earning a national reputation for its ability to train people.”
Also in 1973, Finning launched B.C.’s first
parts apprenticeship program. The three-year
program received the blessing of the apprenticeship and industrial training branch of the
provincial labour department and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
By the end of 1977, more than 150 companies from across Canada had sent personnel to take Finning courses. Erroll Inglis,
program head, said, “The biggest percentage
of our business comes from industry, asking
us to upgrade the skills of their employees.”
Today, amidst another labour shortage,
Finning continues to focus on developing
well-trained employees, able to provide optimum customer service. The company employs 384 apprentices in six different fields:
heavy equipment, parts, machining, electrical, welding and millwright.
Last year, Finning’s team of 22 technical
trainers delivered nearly 400 technical training classes to more than 1,200 Finning employees. In 2007, nearly 80% of employees
had participated in some kind of company
training. Finning also offers customer and
operator training.
“Our success depends on people who
can listen to our customers, solve problems
quickly, focus on quality and take initiative,”
company president Ian Reid says. “Therefore,
training and development will continue to be
our highest priorities.”
Not even a tank could stop this 66-year
training tradition.
TRADITION OF LEARNING: Frank Davies,
(dark suit), conducts a course for Finning
customers and employees. Below: Finning
trainer Lyle Troudt continues the tradition
www.finning.ca
t,
or. Righ
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BOYS AT PLAY: Martin’s sons Calvin and Karrey,
then pre-teens, get a taste of the working life
HARD AT WORK:
A 535B tears throu
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the trees
22
PHOTOGRAPH OF
535B BY ALEX ZAN
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Duboski, left, and Gle
ADAPTATION : Glenn
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www.finning.ca
REMEMBER WHEN…
Captain’s
Log
Martin Marsolais has been at the helm
of a logging company for so long that
it just won’t let go
STORY BY ROBIN BRUNET
t seems hard to believe that it
happened so recently, but it
wasn’t until the 1950s that
power saws became widely available to loggers. That was shortly after Martin Marsolais
moved from Alberta to Prince George, B.C.
Many of Marsolais’ logging colleagues dismissed the new technology. At the time, like
Marsolais, they relied on one-man Swede
saws to fall trees and buck to length. “They
thought power saws would never catch on
and they said the new saws were a waste of
time,” says Marsolais. “For me, the first power
saws were heavy, but I thought they were the
way to go.”
Marsolais, who has witnessed every conceivable change to the industry he first entered as a teen, adds, “I’ve always liked new
machines and technology. I’ve always been
willing to give new ideas a chance.”
And that’s one of the main reasons why
Martin Marsolais and Sons Ltd. (MMS),
founded in 1966, has become one of the busiest and most respected logging contractors
www.finning.ca
in the Prince George region. As one of two
prime contractors for Lakeland Mills Ltd.
and a contractor to private wood owners,
MMS harvests about 200,000 cubic metres
annually and uses no less than 16 pieces of
Caterpillar equipment and four trucks with
Cat engines to get the job done.
Martin’s son Calvin, who bought into
the company in the 1990s with his brother
Karrey, is equally enthusiastic about using
new – and sometimes unlikely – types of
equipment if they prove reliable. For example, the company was the first of its kind
in Western Canada to purchase a knuckle
boom stroker. “Over the years we’ve gotten
strange looks from colleagues about the
equipment we’ve tried out, but if it improves
our operation, then of course we’re all for it,”
he reasons.
Martin and Calvin Marsolais also share
another characteristic that has been equally
instrumental in the company’s success.
“They are meticulous about their finances,”
says Jason Knutson, customer account mana-
ger for Finning’s Prince George office. “They
know where every last penny goes, and they
know how much it costs to run each machine in their inventory, right down to costper-hour. They’ve got business smarts by the
bucket load.”
“It’s another thing I picked up from dad,”
says Calvin. “He always stressed the importance of finances to me, even when I started
out in the company as a high schooler making extra money during summer vacation.”
Family business is endemic to the logging industry. Subtle touches mark this as
a family affair to guests: their tendency to
holler to each other from their respective
offices; their dogs barking happily in the
background; Calvin’s wife, Debbie, in the
front office, lights up when talking about her
children. Even the company’s 2007 Christmas card exhibits a familial theme: it’s a
photo taken in 1960 of Martin’s first piece of
equipment, a 933 Cat front end loader, with
Martin, 32 at the time, and a four-year-old
Calvin standing on the treads.
Finning brochure: circa 1959
Martin
Giant spruce near Port Renfrew, B.C.
Calvin points out that the good relationship extends to include Finning. “We had the
same salesman, Eric Faye, for many years,
and Karrey and I knew him when we were
kids,” he says. “There was a real trust between him and us, and he helped to develop
our inventory.”
The good will is reciprocated by Finning’s
Knutson, who has been looking after the
Marsolais clan for six years and has a special
fondness for Martin. “He may be relatively small in size but he’s the kind of person
who gives you bone-crushing handshakes,”
he says. “At an age when most people have
long retired, he comes into our shop regularly to pay the bills, pick up parts, and chat up
our female staffers. If a machine could use
improvement, he isn’t shy about saying so.”
Dynasties get started in many colorful
ways, but ironically Martin didn’t set out to
become a logging contractor, and he didn’t
24
come from a logging family. “My father did a
lot of things, including working in the forest,
but I chose this field simply because I wanted
to make a living, and in 1947 there was a job
opening,” he says.
When he relocated to Prince George to
work for Sinclair Mills, trees were still being
felled with cross saws and skidded by horse.
Of his Cat 933 purchase, he says, “Even back
then, prices weren’t cheap. The 933 did the
job, but it needed a lot of improvement. From
there I went with a 955 and then performed
custom loading with a 977.”
Martin doesn’t dwell on the complexities
of launching his business, but he does reveal
some of his hard-driving work ethic when he
says of his sons, “They began working with
me early. At 14, Calvin was helping the buckers. They started the day early and came home
late. It may have been a difficult way to learn,
but that’s what makes you a good man.”
Innovations characterized MMS operations almost from its inception (see sidebar), and from employing a dozen workers
throughout the 1960s the company today
uses about 30 people in the bush. Moreover,
MMS has adapted to industry changes including the Forest Practices Code, Safe Certification (which it obtained from the B.C.
Forest Safety Council last year) and WorkSafe B.C. Similarly, MMS has evolved to
meet an ever-changing market, going from
hand bucking to mechanical bucking, from
landings to road side, and from long logs to
precision bucking.
“Our phone rings 24/7,” says Debbie.
“My husband begins his day at 1:30 a.m.,
and he’s happiest when the temperature is
around –15 or –20ºC because the ground is
completely frozen and easier to navigate. It’s
a tough life we’ve chosen, certainly not for
the faint-hearted.”
www.finning.ca
PHOTOGRAPH BY ALEX ZANDER PHOTOGRAPHY
NIGHT MOVES: Calvin Marsolais starts his day
at 1:30 a.m. and his equipment stays up all night
Rakes and knuckles
The family’s black lab cross, Ford, outfitted
with his own safety vest, often accompanies
Calvin into the bush.
After Calvin and Karrey bought into
the business, MMS’s ties with Finning continued. “We tried other product lines over
the years, but we mostly opt for Finning
because of the support they offer,” says
Calvin. “If there’s a problem in the field,
they can help. And they offer financing.
They’re the closest thing around to a onestop-equipment shop.”
Calvin gives equal credit to Karrey, who
left the business in 2004, for helping to grow
MMS to its current capacity and, equally important, to navigate the numerous downturns
and cutbacks that have plagued the industry.
“In the past, the busiest day we ever had
was hauling 53 five-axle loads out of the
bush, but today we routinely haul between 21
and 35 seven-axle loads daily, depending on
www.finning.ca
the season,” says Calvin.
Helping to fulfill MMS’s daily duties
is Calvin’s son Jayme, 22, who works the
butt ’n top for his father. He’s the third generation of the Marsolais clan, which is coming
into its own with Calvin steering the company steadily into the 21st century.
But it seems like the company won’t let
Martin go. “We still view Martin as the boss,”
says Debbie. “He still comes in every day to
lighten our load, and he has a wealth of practical experience that we all rely on.”
For his part, Martin pays little attention to
protocol or the passing years. To him, work is
perpetual, and so are new business opportunities. “Put it this way, I don’t feel good lying
around doing nothing, never have,” he says.
“Working hard has been such a big part of my
life that it’s second nature. And even though
the market isn’t so hot right now, I still love
the industry. Always will.”
Adapting equipment to suit on-site
conditions is nothing new to the logging
industry, but Martin Marsolais & Sons
has a 40-year history of innovation
under its belt.
One of the earliest brainstorms Martin had as president of MMS was to weld
rakes on the blade of a skidder to help
take limbs off of trees. “We were one
of the first companies to do that in the
1960s, and later we improved the process by hanging chains onto a drum and
literally beating the limbs off,” he says.
MMS is also noteworthy as being
one of the first logging contractors in
Western Canada to use the Tanguay
knuckle boom stroker. “We first used
it in the field 23 years ago, and it sped
production to the wheel loaders to such
an extent that we wound up buying a
second unit,” recalls Calvin, adding that
competitors in the bush initially didn’t
know what to make of the rig. “We were
quite a sight, coming along the road with
our boom 30 feet in the air,” he laughs.
MMS has adapted everything from
Loewen rotate bunching heads and
Limmitt delimbers to Waratah danglerdelimbers to their Cat equipment, but
all the adaptations are underscored by a
simple philosophy shared by Martin and
Calvin. “If it works well,” Calvin says,
“we use it. It’s that simple. And thankfully, we’ve enjoyed great performance
from our equipment over the years.”
Vancouver Headquarters, 940 Station Street
REMEMBER WHEN…
3
: Marsolais’ old Cat 93
TECH SAVVY EARLY ON
0
196
in
ent
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shi
a
ng
front end loader, preppi
The Dawson
Legacy
Ian and Graha
m
The 1920s held promise for
a young Canada and a young
man named Fred Dawson
A NEW ROAD: Fred and Graham Dawson
he 1920s in Canada crackled
with excitement and optimism. Transportation, communication and industry advancements
offered new opportunities and adventures to
a 20th century generation.
And Fred Dawson had a car. He also had a
radio to listen to baseball games on, an engineering degree from McGill, and a vision.
In 1922, Fred Dawson, along with his
friend Harry Wade, formed Dawson, Wade
and Company. They wanted to be part of
the building of Western Canada and were
drawn to the boom and buzz of Vancouver.
It was a busy time for Fred and Harry.
They built roads, bridges and other infrastructure. They incorporated in 1927, and
in 1929, got the contract for Vancouver’s
Burrard Street Bridge. They worked, but still
found time for a little jazz at The Cave on
Hornby on Saturday nights.
By the mid-1930s, hundreds of newcomers arrived in Vancouver every month. Dawson, Wade and Company worked on the King
George Highway and Highway 39 to accommodate all those new Model Ts. After the war,
they worked on the Boundary Bay and Patri-
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STORY BY KATHERINE FAWCETT
cia Bay airports, the Granville Street Bridge
and parts of the TransCanada Highway.
In 1952, Fred suffered a stroke, and his
son Graham joined the team. When Harry
retired, the company that became known as
Dawson Construction was born.
Graham led the company into new territory in the 1960s and 1970s. Dawson
Construction continued with highway development – the Sea-to-Sky and the Alaska
highways were but two of their road projects
– while creating a building division that
worked on some of the most prominent
high-rise developments in B.C.
Dawson and Finning president, Maury
Young, were good friends. Graham’s son
Ian says that from the early days, his family’s
company has relied on Finning support and
Cat products. “Any dozer we ever used was a
Caterpillar. Most motors we’ve ever used were
Cat. We’ve occasionally bought the green
ones and red ones, but we always come back
to the yellow. It’s not so much a single piece,
it’s Finning’s support of all their equipment
that stands out.”
Ian recalls driving around with his father
as a kid, his dad pointing out the projects
Dawson Construction was a part of: Vancouver General Hospital, and University of
British Columbia buildings. Daon Property
Development, an offshoot of Dawson, built
condos, housing and offices across Canada
and the United States. “There’s definitely an
element of pride. It’s a tremendous feeling to
be associated with those accomplishments,”
says Ian, now 50.
Ian became president in 1994. The company relocated to Kamloops, a logical base
for road construction that was forging into
the interior. Dawson Construction still engages in site development, industrial and
residential projects, but its main thrust is
highway construction and maintenance.
Today, Graham Dawson is 82. Ian still
looks to him for business advice. Graham’s
proud of the direction his son has taken the
company. Construction is a different game
than the one Grandpa Fred played back in
the 1920s, but there’s still a certain buzz.
“What keeps me going are the people and
the challenges,” says Ian. “The unique elements here in B.C. make it fun and exciting.
I guess it’s pride. And satisfaction. Finishing
something worthwhile.”
Lines Across
the North
Kenn and Rosella Borek built the North,
one road and runway at a time
STORY BY PHOEBE DEY
TEAM BOREK: Rosella and Kenn took a hand
in developing Northern infrastructure
28
s a young newlywed in Dawson Creek, British Columbia,
Rosella Borek quickly learned
what her husband Kenn was all about. Married in September, 1955, Kenn spent most of
that first winter as a roughneck in Fort Nelson. He came home to his pregnant wife for a
quick Christmas visit, and returned up north
until March. Rosella knew then that her hardworking husband meant business.
But so did she. That spring, soon after giving birth to the first of six children, Rosella
joined her husband clearing land for farmers in the Dawson Creek area with their first
Cat D8, which still sits on their farm today.
Rosella took shifts, often with a baby or two
on her lap.
“When you start a business, you have to
be there all the time,” says Rosella. “We didn’t
have any money, we had no choice.”
It was a humble beginning for the couple
that would eventually own Borek Construction, Kenn Borek Air, several hotels and one
of the largest farms in the Peace Country.
Often described as a “pioneer of the North,”
Kenn died in 2002, along with his 39-year-
www.finning.ca
fleet first: “Kenn stayed with Caterpillar because
we could keep it running,” says Stan Prince.
“And he ran a good fleet.”
old daughter, Carleen Rose Borek-Walker, in
a highway accident.
But back in the 1950s, the Boreks built the
business, supplying their tractor to oil companies to truck water and supplies through
treacherous roads. The Boreks also started
cutting seismic lines for oil companies, in the
Peace Country and in the Arctic.
“Kenn was a major player in the initial
exploration of the High Arctic and northern British Columbia in terms of seismic
exploration,” says Stan Prince, Finning’s
vice president of operations for B.C. “He
had machines in Norman Wells, Northwest
Territories, for years. He left his equipment
up there and would cut seismic lines in the
wintertime and park it for the summers.”
And Rosella kept up with him. For the first
few years of Borek Construction, she looked
after the parts and personnel and often drove
north to deliver supplies to Kenn.
Then, when there was no one in the Arctic to fly supplies to remote camps, Kenn
started his own airline in 1970 with one Twin
Otter. “He was a classic man of business,” says
Rosella. “He took advantage of an opportu-
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nity when he could. He ended up building a
company that really transformed the aviation
industry.”
Finning followed its biggest customer,
opening its Inuvik, NWT branch soon after
some encouragement from Kenn.
“Finning was growing at the same time
on a fishing trip Kenn didn’t
want to stop for lunch – that
drive carried over.
Borek was,” says Prince. “At the end of the day,
Kenn stayed with Caterpillar because we could
keep it running. And he ran a good fleet. He’d
keep a 30-year-old Cat, even if it was paid off
25 years earlier. If he got one more winter’s
work out of it, he’d come out ahead. He ran a
good business and was a shrewd negotiator.”
He also knew his machinery inside out.
Prince remembers being a young apprentice
when Borek would have some Cats in the
shop. Kenn would come in every day to eye
his investment – his Caterpillar equipment
– scrutinizing the work Prince and the others
were carrying out, often not saying a word.
“Kenn was strictly a Cat man,” says Wayne
Middleton, manager at Borek Construction.
“He was very faithful to his Caterpillars.”
On the personal side, Kenn showed different sides of his personality to different people
– and dogs; he always had a dog by his side,
especially his favourite, Sergeant Pepper.
Described even by Rosella as “private in
most things he did,” Kenn was always determined.
Dave Ritchie, the founder and former
CEO of Ritchie Bros. Auctions, recalls
going on a fishing trip with Kenn and Rosella. “Kenn was aggressive and didn’t want to
stop for lunch – that drive carried over to all
aspects of his life,” says Ritchie, who first met
Kenn in the early 1960s. “But he had a funny
side, too. He was good at kidding me about
anything.”
Despite the “remarkable empire” Kenn
and Rosella built together, he never put on
any airs, says Ritchie. Although he could afford a more luxurious means of transportation, Kenn once arrived at a Greyhound bus
station two hours early, just so he could get
Terrace, B.C. field service: circa 1972
REMEMBER WHEN…
TIMELESS TRUTH: Borek Construction still
uses principles passed on from its founder
the front seat to take in the view. “He had
an insatiable curiosity and loved to learn as
much as he could,” says Ritchie. “I have great
admiration for what he did. He and Rosella
were such a hardworking, great team.”
At one auction in Whitehorse, no sooner
had the Boreks bought two Cat 621 scrapers
when Rosella and Kenn hopped on them and
drove them the long haul to Dawson Creek.
To say Kenn was hands-on is an understatement. He knew every aspect of his business, and knew where every cent went. When
he went to a sale, says Middleton, everybody
wanted to talk to Kenn. He could be found
leaning on a piece of equipment, likely with a
pair of gloves in his front pocket, checking out
his competition. “He never owned a suit, he
got dirty just like everybody else,” Middleton
says. And he and Rosella always made sure
their employees were well looked after.
“He knew how to do business the right
way,” Middleton says. “He knew his equipment and passed on principles that we still
use today. I learned an immense amount
from Kenn.”
Today, business is still going strong for
Borek Construction. It has camps in the North-
30
west Territories, is building leases and roads
around Hinton, Alberta, and is double shifting
12 or 14 pieces of equipment in Fort Nelson.
Still loyal Finning customers, the business
owns more than 100 Caterpillar machines.
Rosella serves as president of Borek Construction, while her son Dean manages the
business. Most of Kenn and Rosella’s kids are
involved in the company, including many of
their 11 grandchildren. (They also have four
great grandchildren).
And Kenn’s name lives on. The Kenn
Borek Memorial Scholarship recognizes a
Western Canadian or Northern Canadian student pursuing an aviation career. The family
also donated $250,000 to what would later
be named the Kenn Borek Aquatic Leisure
Centre in Dawson Creek, and Rosella donated her CF-PAT, one of the most well-travelled
Twin Otters in the world, to the Aero Space
Museum in Calgary.
Just as she always has, Rosella works hard,
going to the office every day. When Kenn died,
she slipped into his spot, running the company they spent decades building together. “It’s
hard for me to stay home. I’ll keep going in as
long as I can. It’s all I know.”
Borek on the wing
If something needed fixing, Kenn Borek
would sit down and figure out how to do
it, says his wife Rosella. That included
finding an easier way to cart his crew,
supplies and equipment to the Arctic.
In 1970, Kenn bought his first DHC-6
Twin Otter and Rosella chose the red
and black insignia that still adorns the
fleet’s fuselage. Today, the company
owns and operates 57 aircraft and is
one of the largest Twin Otter operators
in the world.
Although offering their machines for
exploration activities has been the largest single source of revenue for Kenn
Borek Air, it provides a range of services
worldwide. On any given day, its aircraft
could be supporting UN peacekeeping
missions, transporting scientific teams
and adventure charters in both polar regions or leasing aircraft and equipment
to carriers in Cuba, Panama, the Maldives and Canada.
The company gained notoriety in
2001 when it carried out one of the
riskiest rescue missions by a small
plane near the South Pole. Kenn Borek
Air pilots transported a sick American
doctor out of Antarctica, taking him to
safety in Chile for treatment.
Now led by Christien Vipond, Kenn
and Rosella’s oldest daughter, Kenn
Borek Air has permanent fixed-wing
base facilities all over the Arctic, in British Columbia, Edmonton and Calgary.
www.finning.ca
TryFreedom
Ernie Catherwood bought his
first Fraser River tug to free him
from working for the man.
Now he is the man
Story by Katherine Fawcett
he number one song of 1971
blared from someone’s car
radio near the dock on the
Fraser River at Mission, B.C. as Ernie Catherwood gazed proudly at the most important
purchase he’d ever made.
“Jeremiah was a bullfrog / Was a good
friend of mine.”
Catherwood smiled and bobbed his head
to the beat. At 24, he had been a boom-man
since high-school, and had biceps the girls
loved to squeeze. His shaggy brown hair fell
into his blue eyes and he stepped into his
small, wooden tug-boat. Ten thousand dollars it had cost him. Huge money, but he
knew it would buy him freedom. No more
punching the clock and putting in time.
When he bought that first tug, he had
a mind to deliver booms to the shake and
shingle mills in the region from local storage
grounds. He also thought he’d pick up some
business helping other companies tow log
booms and barges upstream and downstream
through the Mission Rail Bridge. Catherwood
called his tug the Sea Imp, and there would
be more vessels of the same name to follow.
Business was good from the start, and the
company would eventually provide a crucial
link in the economy of British Columbia.
Catherwood figured out how to operate
his new boat, and learned what kind of tow-
www.finning.ca
Remember When…
Cat equipment cleans up London’s Blitz damage in WWII
ing services people were looking for. It wasn’t
long before he became one of the busiest and
most dependable operators in the area, towing log booms and rafts from Mission storage
grounds to the mills along the banks of the
Fraser River.
Soon he needed another boat for his fleet,
so he had one built. Then he bought another.
And on it went. More boats, more business,
more employees and more challenges. He
used mostly Cat 343 and later 3408 engines
in his vessels to ensure smooth sailing. Catherwood credits Finning sales rep and former
mechanic Nairn Grundy with great service
and consistent quality products.
Ernie Catherwood is now 62. He still likes
to stand on the dock and gaze proudly at his
investments – theoretically, that is. With 15
boats and four barges, they’re not likely to be
all in the same place at the same time. Catherwood Towing now operates not only up and
down the Fraser River from Mission, but also
into Harrison Lake, Ootsa Lake in the B.C.
Interior, around Vancouver Island and the
Queen Charlotte Islands. Catherwood has
diversified into hauling construction equipment between various sites on barges, a venture that has helped the company weather
the seasonal and yearly changes in the forest
industry. The current fleet features the most
modern navigational and safety equipment
available; these are vessels with minimal environmental impact and maximum efficiency. Today there are approximately 80 people
on Catherwood Towing’s payroll. The company has long and strong ties with many of
them. His daughter Paula is the office manager. “It’s a family-run business,” says Catherwood. “I still have fun with it. And as the
company carries on, I’m hoping that my
daughter will keep the ball bouncing.”
When he isn’t overseeing the operation,
checking out his vessels and making sure everything flows smoothly, Catherwood and his
wife Yvonne spend their time travelling in
their RV, canoeing, fishing and exploring the
province. And if you listen carefully when he starts
the engine of the RV, you just might hear a
1971 favourite coming over the Classic Rock
radio station:
“Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea / Joy
to you and me.” HARD AT WORK: Catherwood’s fleet of 12
tugs, most of them called Sea Imp (numbered
to differentiate them), is registered with Transport Canada. The Imps are a familiar sight on
coastal waterways
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CAT CARE SCHOOL: Finning has built its reputation on a strong
culture of service, creating innovative solutions for customers
www.finning.ca
Everyday
Heroes
Keeping customers’ machines
moving, no matter where
or when, has always been
Finning’s strong suit
INTRODUCTION BY JEFF HOWARD
inning’s dedication in the field
stretches back to Con Gurney,
the company’s first mechanic.
Once, he fashioned a ball bearing from a logger’s boot to keep a tractor up and running.
“Con was a one-man gang, travelling to wherever machines needed attention,” said the late
Bob Ley, former PR manager at Finning. “In
his first year of married life, he was home only
13 weekends.”
“They personify Finning; mechanics first
of all but also salesmen, problem solvers and
ambassadors,” Ley said of Finning’s field mechanics. “They work all hours, in all weather,
without the convenience of a shop.” Here’s
a historical highlight reel from our everyday
heroes.
Con Gurney, Finning’s
first mechanic, cuts a rug with
the boss’ wife, Marcia Finning (top),
Bev Davis (above); Peter Clarke (right)
34
John Snowball, Finning career 1968-1991
“I rented a Land Rover to visit a customer,
working in the mountainous Taseko Lake area.
On the way, I arrived at a river with no bridge.
I drove across but got hung up in the middle. I’d noticed a little D4 not too far from the
river, so I walked back to it, got it started and
hauled the Land Rover out. I ended up staying
at that camp pretty well the whole summer.
www.finning.ca
In those days, there were no phones. But
an engineer with the mining company had
one of those old style radio phones. We drove
to the top of a mountain, he stood on the
truck and held the aerial, and I was able to call
into the Williams Lake branch to order parts.”
Bev Davis, Finning career 1947-1988
“Travel wasn’t easy. We often travelled by
steamship or had to hitch a ride on a fishing
boat. You’d have a one-day job at a camp and
be stuck for 10 days waiting for the next boat.
One time, I got so bored I asked the landlady
if there was anything I could do. She said she
had some wood that needed splitting. I’ve
never split so much wood in my life.”
Ed Green
GREAT SERVICE: Rain or shine
own ingenuity and ability to improvise that
got the job done.”
Ed Green, Finning career 1946-1983
“I once walked from Sandspit to Cumshewa
Inlet (about 30 miles) on the Queen Charlottes. I’d been working at a logging camp
and didn’t want to wait 10 days for the boat to
pick me up, so I walked, carrying my toolbox.
I had to take off my pants, shoes and socks to
cross a few creeks and rivers.”
Derwyn Dew, Finning career 1954-1996
“At small logging camps, you took your own
sleeping bag, chopped firewood and stoked
the bunkhouse heater. On several occasions,
I woke up with two inches of snow on my
sleeping bag. Your lift tools consisted of a
comealong and a couple of jacks and whatever equipment the customer had. It was your
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Bart Finning, Finning career 1950s
“A mining outfit in Tahsis had an older model
D8 2U. To make the repair, we had to pull
the tracks off and the sprockets – without lifting devices. The company had an old dump
truck, so we borrowed a 12-by-12 piece of
lumber and strapped it into the back of the
truck. After chaining the dump body down,
we attached a chain hoist to the 12-by-12 and
tore the machine apart that way.”
Peter Clarke, Finning career 1945-1989
“I was called on to rebuild two D311Es at
Horsefly Lake, B.C. On completion, it was
necessary to carry out a load test and safety
shut-down. The unit performed well and after
it shut down, I noticed the manager’s wife
heading my direction without a smile. Fond
of the Monarchy, she’d been listening to the
coronation on the radio. At the time of shutdown the Queen was about to be crowned.
So was I.”
Jim Kilner, Finning career 1947-1985
“When I started with Finning, my Navy pension paid 75% of my wages and the company paid 25% as part of a training-on-the-job
scheme. I think Finning succeeded because of
the service support we provided and the follow up we did with customers. Nobody just
sold a tractor and walked away. You always
followed up, advising the customer when to
do overhauls and repairs. You paid attention
to your customer.”
Joe Adams, Finning career 1933-1967
“I was asked to call on a customer near Vanderhoof, B.C., in the dead of winter. To get there,
I went in stages by car, on horseback and even
snowshoes. When I eventually arrived, all
that the customer wanted was some literature
on Caterpillar tractors for his 12-year-old son!
And once, to reach a logging camp along
the Arrow Lakes, I took an old sternwheeler.
I hadn’t visited this particular logging camp
before, the crew dropped a plank on to the
shore and I disembarked. It was pitch dark
and I had to pace the beach until dawn when
I could follow a tractor trail into camp.”
Green is
Gold
SPAWN OF MINE: Port Hardy Bulldozing created
a diversion channel, complete with spawning
gravel. Three months later the salmon arrived
36
One B.C. family is tearing down
the mine they helped build.
And they couldn’t be happier
STORY BY ROBIN BRUNET
ike many companies on
Northern Vancouver Island,
Port Hardy Bulldozing rose
to prominence thanks to the Island Copper
Mine. Port Hardy Bulldozing founder John
Milligan helped build the mine’s infrastructure in the late 1960s. Regional business opportunities flourished throughout
the mine’s 25-year life, and Milligan grew
from being a one-man show to employing
a multi-talented staff that included welder
Ron Tupper, who took over the firm in 1977
with other partners.
Even though the mine, once Canada’s
largest copper producer, closed under BHP
Billiton Inc.’s ownership in December 1995,
it’s still a source of considerable revenue for
Tupper’s company. And the work Ron and
his son Paul have done at the site is garnering
international attention. Since the mine was
decommissioned, the Tuppers, with advice
from engineers and environmentalists, have
performed a comprehensive reclamation
of the 700-hectare site under BHP Billiton’s
guidance. They’ve done it using a Caterpillar
fleet. Their efforts have been so successful that
mine owners from other countries come to
inspect their handiwork. “We host two groups
yearly on behalf of BHP Billiton,” says Paul.
BHP Billiton invited Port Hardy Bulldozing to undertake the reclamation shortly after
the company began demolishing the mine’s
facilities, 11 years ago. Essentially, a channel
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TAKE ROOT: The company moves a former waste rock dump,
tops it with a metre of till and plants it with alder trees
was cut between the 1,300-foot deep main
pit and the Rupert Inlet in order to flood the
pit and transform it into a massive biological
treatment system. “We maintain a mixture of
salt water at the bottom of the pit and fresh
water above that, and the surface is fertilized
to create phyto-plankton that metal contaminates adhere to,” says Paul, general manager
of Port Hardy Bulldozing. “The metals then
sink to the bottom and the treated water is filtered through a beach dump and difused into
Rupert Inlet.”
Although most rock drainage water is
collected and pumped to this pit, residual
long-term risk to the nearby marine environment was considered high enough to
warrant further remedial action in 2004.
Since the collection system was required
to operate at mean sea level, the challenge
was to engineer a system that would capture
maximum seepage from a waste rock dump
without collecting seawater.
The solution BHP Billiton came up with,
and which Paul Tupper’s company helped
install via channeling and backfilling, is a
500-metre-long vinyl wall resistant to salt
corrosion. It comprises 822 interlocking
vinyl sheet piles, vibrated into the ground to
a depth of 12 metres. This technology had
never before been implemented in North
America and is one of the reasons mine officials from other countries visit Port Hardy.
“They come to check out what has been
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accomplished throughout the site and determine if they can adopt some of these measures,” says Paul.
Although Port Hardy Bulldozing performs
everything from road building for forestry to
residential site prep and servicing, Paul calls
the mine reclamation “our main priority.”
He uses his Cat 330 road builders, 325s, 322s,
320s and 416s to spread ballast, dig ditches and
fulfill other duties throughout the sprawling
acreage. And he admits to being a devoted Cat
man. “If you cut me, I bleed yellow,” he says.
In 2007 alone, the company purchased
a short-back 320 CLU (which Ron, ever the
tinkerer, ran for about a month before handing it to a regular operator), a 242B skid steer,
which is currently chipping slag from underneath a recovery boiler for a pulp mill in Port
Alice, and a 730 articulated truck.
The reclamation has even provided the
Tuppers with some police action: Paul recently helped the RCMP track down thieves
who had broken into the property to steal
copper scrap and other metals. The thieves
found a way in and were still somewhere on
the grounds. “The hunt began at about 2 a.m.
and ended at sunrise,” he recalls with a laugh.
“They had lots of places to hide.”
All of Island Copper’s hectares have been
revegetated, but BHP Billiton considers the
reclamation to be an “in perpetuity” project,
which means Paul’s relationship with the
mine could conceivably continue into his
senior years. “I’ve been aware of the mine
ever since I was a kid, when I used to sit on
my dad’s lap as he ran his machines,” the 33year-old says. “Our company helped build the
Island Copper facility, we helped maintain it,
we took it apart, and today we’re very proud
to return the land to its natural state.”
For 63-year-old Ron and his wife, Anita,
whose bookkeeping skills were invaluable to maintaining Port Hardy Bulldozing
through thick and thin, having a permanent
assignment gives them the confidence to
relinquish more daily duties to their son.
“I’d never fully retire, but I want more
time to tinker with the other mechanics in the
shop, which is my specialty,” says Ron. “It’s
tough making a living up here, and in the old
days I sometimes used to come home and tell
Paul, ‘For god’s sake don’t ever wind up doing
what I do for a living.’ But all things considered, we turned out just fine.”
BIG FISH STORY: The company rebuilds
a dam, installing a new fish ladder
The sureway: An Edmonton construction
team supersizes its operations with Caterpillar
www.finning.ca
STORY BY MELODY HEBERT
or Alberta-born construction
dynamo Dennis O’Rourke, the
size of your equipment does
matter. The founder of Sureway Construction, O’Rourke has spent a lifetime acquiring many of the biggest, baddest scrapers,
earth moving and water and sewer equipment in North America. They’ve also got a
pretty sizable sandbox for their equipment
to play in – various parcels of land on the
edges of Edmonton. To keep it all going,
Sureway’s head office features an impressive repair and rebuild center in southeast
Edmonton.
Thanks to Alberta’s robust economy,
you’d be hard pressed to see much of Sureway’s impressive fleet languishing idle in the
yard. Vice president and general manager
Bruce Hagstrom is also hard at it, along with
his crew, taking advantage of every opportunity. After all, he’s spent 35 years in this
province’s construction business, and the
lean years of the 1980s are still as fresh in his
mind as are the last decade’s opportunities.
www.finning.ca
A construction maverick with a
bigger-is-better attitude celebrates
35 years in Alberta, and business
is stronger than ever
Still, the future is never a sure thing,
but for now Sureway is celebrating good
business.
“How about mind-boggling?” Hagstrom
says of the privately-held company’s recent
growth. “I don’t get surprised by much; our
business is very much dictated by the economy. Our company has had to raise the bar to
keep up with the boom.”
Translation: A 30% increase in the size of
Sureway’s diverse fleet of heavy equipment
in the past three years alone. It has more than
400 pieces, including 52 scrapers, Cat 657
E and G series, making it the single largest
owner of these durable wheel tractor scrapers in North America. The Cat 657s complement its 38-strong fleet of 627 scrapers.
That’s quite a lead up to 2008, the year
Sureway Construction marks its 35th anniversary in Alberta. Growth in the last decade has been nothing short of spectacular,
with the company employing more than
800 workers during seasonal peak and reporting more than $315-million dollars
in gross sales in 2007, earning it a place in
Alberta Venture magazine’s Top 25 ranking
of the fastest growing firms with revenue
over $20 million for the past three consecutive years. Sureway has accomplished this
growth while focusing its efforts solely in
Alberta, where it’s known to be a generous
supporter of various charities. It has established a foothold recently in Fort McMurray
where it has pursued residential subdivision
opportunities, which will provide affordable
housing for the community.
Not bad for self-proclaimed ditch digger
O’Rourke, who started his career in Calgary
installing water and sewer, and later founded
Sureway Construction in Edmonton. As fate
would have it, O’Rourke’s first job in 1973
was inspected by none other than Hagstrom,
then an employee of an engineering firm at
work in Strathcona County.
Hagstrom must have made quite an impression on the headstrong entrepreneur,
for it wasn’t long before O’Rourke enticed
the inspector to join him. The year was 1975
Parts service, Peace River dam project, 1964
REMEMBER WHEN…
Sureway to
Success
and Alberta was experiencing its first, albeit
smaller, economic boom.
O’Rourke’s rise to the top doesn’t surprise
Finning account manager John Gallimore,
who has worked with Sureway for the past
16 years. “Dennis is an entrepreneur who
loves challenges, he’s a dynamic individual who likes to make his own decisions,”
Gallimore says.
And what of O’Rourke’s penchant for the
latest and greatest equipment? “Bigger, better, harder, faster,” says Gallimore, a
grin spreading across his face. “Dennis is innovative that way. They’ll use
385’s (170,000-pound excavators)
to complement Sureway’s f leet of
46, 40-ton articulated trucks, 16 of
which are ejector trucks.” Using 385
hydraulic excavators for water and
sewer projects, Sureway has improved
safety and productivity to accommodate the
triple-trench construction design that has
become its standard.
In another innovative move, Sureway
decided to bring in 657 auger scrapers, the
largest wheeled tractor scrapers Caterpillar
builds, to complete the four-lane Highway
4 construction near Milk River, in southern Alberta. It was the late 1990s, a period
when smaller scrapers were the norm on Al-
berta construction sites. Sureway, taking a
cue from its California counterparts whose
twin-engine 657s regularly built large freeways and dams, followed suit with better
than expected results.
“We were having a tough time loading
[sand with] push-pull scrapers and conventional scrapers, so we tried the Caterpillar
657E auger scrapers. I couldn’t believe what
these things could do,” O’Rourke says. “The
biggest advantage is that they really do self-
local construction sites introducing a fleet
of Caterpillar’s latest model 740 ejector articulated trucks, replacing traditional dump
trucks, using a system which allows them
to spread-on-the-go – as much as 42 tons
of material – out the back of the box. It’s a
welcome addition in terms of site safety and
productivity.
Safety, as well as performance, is of paramount concern for today’s construction
CEOs. Certainly, a by-product of Sureway’s
appetite for the latest and greatest
equipment is increased safety on the
job site, but it’s not just about bragging rights. Companies lacking topnotch safety records will find little
success in the competitive bidding
process for desirable projects.
Of course, having a 51,000 square-foot office and repair/rebuild
centre as well as a 14,000-square-foot satellite rebuild centre at your disposal helps increase safety and efficiency for operators and
equipment. Add to that a mobile fleet of lube
and fuel trucks, with the latest environmental standards, ability to service equipment
on site and a religious adherence to maintenance schedules coupled with an in-house
component and engine rebuild program,
and Sureway can proudly advertise a 93%
availability of its fleet. It’s a source of pride for
Certainly, a by-product of Sureway’s
appetite for the latest and greatest
equipment is increased safety on
the jobsite, but it’s not just about
bragging rights.
load. We’re getting load counts in southern
Alberta that would be unheard of – 187 loads
in a shift as compared to 120 with other
types of scrapers.” And it wasn’t like Sureway needed to go
shopping for these mammoth machines.
An existing fleet had been in their possession for a few years, stripping overburden
at gravel pits for such companies as Lafarge
and Inland.
More recently, Sureway created a buzz on
Sureway Timeline
1973 Dennis O’Rourke founds Sureway
Construction, begins accumulat
ing underground utility work
1975 Bruce Hagstrom, Sureway vice
president and general manager,
joins Sureway Construction
1976 Sureway lands its first contract
with City of Edmonton to prepare
site and underground utilities
1980
1988
for residential subdivisions. Acquires
its first Cat 245 hydraulic excavator
Sureway purchases two Cat 627B
scrapers, branches out into earthmoving services
Sureway purchases five additional
627B scrapers, diversifies into
overburden stripping for megacorps
Lafarge and later, Inland
1989 Wins first government contract
with Alberta Transportation to
construct a 14-kilometre stretch
of secondary highway 757
1995 Wins first $10-million project
with Alberta Transportation for
Highway 60 and Yellowhead
Highway 16 Interchange
1997 Company acquires two Cat 657E
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auger scrapers. Starts Sureway
Trucking Inc., specializing in
heavy equipment transport
1999 Works on Highway 4; introduces
innovative use of 657s on highway
jobs in Alberta, moving 4,000,000
cubic metres of earth; participates in the Shell Canada Upgrader
project; undertakes its first indus-
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SPEED THRILLS: With a bucket capacity of 7.75
cubic yards, the 385B can chew a hole in a hurry
trial site preparation project, for
which Sureway receives Vendor
Excellence Award from Shell Canada,
moving more than a million cubic
metres of earth
2001 Acquires Yellowhead Aggregates
2003 Works on the Campsite Road &
Hwy 16 Interchange (Alberta
Infrastructure & Transportation);
moves more than 1.6 million cubic
metres of earth
2004 Acquires Sil Industrial Minerals
2007 Completes the southeast leg of
Anthony Henday ring road (winning
an environmental award), moves 7.5
million cubic metres of earth, lays
1,600 metres of sewer pipe and
builds 850 metres of culverts
A Cat Sixty in action
REMEMBER WHEN…
the company and a boost to its bottom line.
“The availability of the equipment makes
or breaks the job,” Hagstrom says. Company-led reinforcement of its “repair before failure” principle has translated into increased
productivity, efficiency and ultimately, more
revenue.
Always ready for a change, Sureway was
one of the first accounts in the mid 1990s to
buy into Finning’s early tech solutions, most
notably, the Maintenance Control System or
MCS, a web-based preventive maintenance
software program to track equipment costs
and set up an ongoing maintenance inspection program showing the owner what to do
to prevent breakdowns, and when to do it.
It’s a system Sureway is still using today and
one that has even Gallimore impressed with
the breadth of its maintenance records. “Sureway has such a vast database of information
of how long components last,” he says, “that
I could ask any one of their guys how long a
particular component will last on any machine and they’d be able to tell me.” The efficiency afforded by such a maintenance
program is aided by the use of Finning’s Service Information System and the Cat Parts
Store, which provide online ordering.
In spite of his baby boomer years, Hagstrom takes these technologic advancements, especially tools such as Finning’s
SURE GRIP: Available with a ripper and
counter weight, the D10 is great in the muck
Accugrade Laser and GPS systems, in stride,
“Anything that improves safety and speeds
things up, anything that enhances our capability to do the job, anything innovative,”
Hagstrom says, “we want to do it.”
Sureway’s track record with employees
isn’t bad either. In an industry known for its
transient workforce, Sureway has more that
100 long-term employees. Project manager
Pat Roth joined the team in 1989 and hasn’t
looked back. He credits Sureway’s management style, one that values input from employees. “We’ve all had different aspirations
at one time or another regarding different
jobs or equipment,” Roth says. “We feel
comfortable putting up our hands and making suggestions. We feel a part of this place
because both Bruce and Dennis value everyone here. They don’t just talk; they’ll run
with our ideas.”
Sureway also encourages senior staff to
mentor the junior workers in the field, in
hopes of attracting and keeping a new generation interested in construction. A wise
move, but a tough challenge in Alberta’s
tight labour market.
Still, O’Rourke and Hagstrom have never
been afraid of a challenge. From where Galli-
more sits, Sureway’s tremendous success can
be summed up in the pair’s willingness to
keep asking, “What else can we do?”
That enterprising spirit has resulted in a
diversification of talent over the years, into
three other complimentary ventures, falling
under the umbrella, Sureway Group of Companies: Yellowhead Aggregates, Sil Industrial
Minerals and Sureway Trucking Inc.
A juggling act to be sure, keeping so many
companies moving forward, but slowing
down just isn’t part of the vocabulary. In
fact, after closing the books on 2007, its most
successful year yet, the company looks forward to making the most of opportunities in
2008.
After all, who wouldn’t be optimistic
after a year that added a mega project with
the Alberta government to their growing list
of accomplishments? Sureway was one of
the key players in a public-private, $493-million dollar venture, the first of its kind in Alberta. A consortium of local talent was hired
to design, build, finance and maintain an 11kilometre stretch of the city’s Anthony Henday Ring Road. Sureway’s role in the project
involved 7,500,000 cubic metres of earthworks, and other drainage and utility works.
Hagstrom is quick to credit their overall
success to O’Rourke’s intuition. “If we hadn’t
taken some of the leaps we did in 2006 with
regard to acquiring equipment we wouldn’t
have been able take on the projects we did in
2007,” he says.
Less-than-rosy predictions for a slowing
market don’t rattle O’Rourke. He waves one
hand. “Bigger, better,” he says with a smile.No
complicated economic analysis or GPS necessary, Sureway Construction Group moves in
one direction only – and that’s up.
OUT OF A SCRAPE: Cat’s 657E, at 500 horsepower,
was right for Sureway’s road constructions
42
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Partners in
Progress
An Edmonton company is
attracting new staff with its
investment in cutting-edge
industry technology
LONG HAUL: KMC has come a long way from its
beginnings in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan
STORY BY RYAN SMITH
s with most great things,
KMC started with humble
beginnings.
Nearly 60 years ago, T.A. (Ted) Klemke
started a business providing the equipment
and workers required to build irrigation
ditches and roads in southern Saskatchewan
and Alberta. Klemke, and later his son, Jack,
became known for conducting business with
integrity and delivering on promises.
Known today as KMC Mining, the company saw measured growth through the
1950s and ’60s, with services expanding
to include digging and hauling for various
types of mines, such as coal, gold, diamonds
and uranium, throughout western Canada
and the Northwest Territories.
In the early 1970s, KMC saw its future in
the Alberta oil sands, and for more than 30
years the company has completed contract
work in Fort McMurray, mainly removing
overburden and ore and building earthen
structures for the mines. They are one of the
few – and the biggest – private companies
currently operating in the oil sands, and the
outlook for the future is good.
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WORKHORSES: This 793D haul truck and D10
tractor are key to KMC’s efforts in the oil sands
In fact, with the price of oil hovering at
record highs, KMC is set for unprecedented
growth. The Edmonton-based company expects to increase its number of employees by
more than 250% from its 2006 levels. It also
expects to make some significant increases to
its infrastructure, as well.
“If you look at our growth based on the
size of our fleet, we expect to double our size
in 2008 compared to our 2005 numbers, and
then redouble in 2012 from what we’ll have
in 2008,” says Dermot McArdle, general manager of KMC’s fleet.
“Our growth comes from the fact that
we’ve earned our stripes. The major companies in the oil sands industry recognize that
overburden and ore removal is our core
competency, so more and more they’re coming to us to provide that service, and in order
to do that we need to supply a reliable fleet,”
McArdle adds.
KMC buys a large part of its fleet from
Finning, and the two companies have enjoyed
a business relationship going back more than
50 years. Currently, Finning provides KMC with assistance and product support for approximately 80 pieces of heavy equipment,
mainly large haul trucks, which it has sold to
KMC over the years.
Paul Bechard, Finning’s major account
manager for KMC, says KMC deserves a lot of
credit for positioning itself so well.
“There is a lot of pressure on the contractors to develop and use innovative and more
economical methods to do business in the
oil sands, and that’s just what KMC has done.
The company has streamlined its operations
and built up a strong reputation over the
years,” Bechard says.
“Another reason KMC does so well is that
it works hand-in-hand with its suppliers, such
as ourselves, and to a certain extent it relies on
our ability to provide dependable service,”
Bechard adds.
McArdle agrees the relationship between
KMC and Finning is mutually beneficial.
“When we buy and when we maintain our
equipment, we use the latest technologies and
www.finning.ca
Remember When…
ics, and this is something which is recognized by Finning. So the people at
Finning and Caterpillar know that our
word is our bond, and that’s something that’s
been threaded through the relationship going
back to the beginning.
“There has always been that understanding of integrity between both groups and
it continues today,” McArdle adds.
The key to success
of KMC and Finning’s
business dealings has
been the personal
relationships and trust
that have grown between
the people working for
both companies.
Serving KMC is not a job Finning can take
lightly; it’s a challenge to keep up with KMC’s
growth. “We have a dedicated service group
consisting of technicians, service billers,
a service supervisor and a manager focusing
on KMC’s fleet maintenance,” Bechard says.
“And we’re looking to increase our dedicated
workforce in order to match KMC’s growth.”
McArdle, who has been working at KMC,
and working with Finning, for more than 20
years, including 18 years at the management
level, believes the real key to the success of
KMC and Finning’s business dealings has
been the personal relationships and trust
that have grown between the people working for both companies.
“I have worked with many people from
Finning over the years, and there have been
numerous occasions when the account managers have made themselves available on
weekends or late at night in order to address
one emergency or another,” McArdle says.
“We’ve come to trust that personal level of
service, and that’s part of what makes everything work so well,” he adds.
“One of our tenets at KMC is that we will
adhere to the highest level of business eth www.finning.ca
It keeps on trucking
Somewhere, up in Fort McMurray, there’s
a 200-ton haul truck with more than
100,000 hours of use behind it. The 789
Caterpillar truck is likely hauling earth at
this moment.
“That truck certainly has seen the test
of time,” says Dermot McArdle, general
manager, fleet, for KMC Mining (KMC),
the company that owns the truck.
“We purchased it back in 1988, and it’s
seen continuous use in Fort McMurray that
whole time,” he says. “We’re still using it.”
KMC bought the truck from Finning, and
Finning has, in part, played a role for its
long life over the last 20 years.
“When KMC Mining purchases Cat
mining equipment from Finning (Canada),
we do our very best to assist them with
its maintenance, and also provide the
necessary support to ensure maximum
availability for KMC’s fleet,” says Paul
Bechard, Finning’s major account manager for KMC.
Bechard estimates that the 789 truck
in question has accumulated roughly the
equivalent of a million miles over the last
two decades.
“The idea of the 789, with such high
hours of use on it, is a kind of testimonial
to the longstanding relationship between
Finning and KMC,” Bechard says, “and
it’s a clear demonstration of how cooperation provides longevity and strength
through the test of time.”
A good time was had by all
operating methods. It’s helpful in attracting
new employees to be able to share the fact that
they’ll be working with the latest and best technology available globally, and in a large part
that comes from Finning,” McArdle says. KMC
has, for example, invested in Finning’s S.O.S.
fluid analysis services, sending oil and other
fluid samples from its machines to Finning’s
lab to check that its fleet is running optimally.
Cat
D8
by the
Decades
In the 1920s, nobody suspected that a merger
made of necessity would result in a modern-day
industry heavyweight
n 1925, no one predicted that
“Caterpillar,” the name of a
new company created from
a merger would become synonymous with
heavy equipment. Today, Caterpillar Inc. manufactures a vast range of construction, mining,
logging and farm equipment, from the smallest mini excavator to the largest trucks on
earth. Finning (Canada) is the proud dealer
for Caterpillar equipment in Western Canada.
Here’s how Cat has developed the product
lines that Finning sells and services.
Crawler tractor pioneers: the 1920s
The two leading crawler tractor manufacturers
in the United States merged to form the future
industrial giant Caterpillar Tractor Company.
Arch rivals for years, the two companies, Holt
Manufacturing Company and C.L. Best Tractor Company, had developed and marketed
similar products.
Benjamin Holt had introduced his first
traction engine in 1890 and pioneered the
world’s first commercially successful crawler
46
tractor, later in 1904. In 1910, he registered
“Caterpillar” as a Holt Company trademark.
The same year, one-time Holt president
C.L. Best started the C.L. Best Traction Company, building wheel and crawler tractors.
The merger of the Holt and C.L. Best companies in 1925 was born of necessity. Wartime tractor orders dried up and the post-war
tractor market was flooded with thousands of
nearly new, cheap, government surplus machines. Holt and Best were facing huge debt,
cancelled orders and possible failure; merger
was the only solution.
Immediately following the merger, the
new Caterpillar Tractor Company, based at
Peoria, Illinois, streamlined its operations
and marketing network. Management chose
five tractor models to form Caterpillar’s first
product line: the Holt 2-Ton, the Holt 5-Ton,
the Holt 10-Ton, the Best 30 and the Best 60.
Forward-thinking management also began
to look for other products to expand sales.
In 1928, it purchased the established Russell
Grader Manufacturing Company of Min-
STORY BY KEITH HADDOCK
neapolis, Minnesota. With this acquisition,
Caterpillar had taken its first step toward becoming a diversified construction equipment
company.
1930s: Diesel Sixty
The diesel decade: the 1930s
Caterpillar played a major role in developing the diesel engine for use in mobile equipment. It introduced its first diesel tractor in
1931, and 10 years later tractor sales were
almost exclusively diesel. From its genesis in
1923, years of testing and redesigning took
place before Caterpillar was satisfied that
a field application would succeed. Cumbersome diesel engines of the day worked well
in stationery conditions, but for mobile
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1940s: DW-10 wheel tractor
equipment, diesel had to contend
with variable loads, vibrations,
weather, and some occasional
abuse from unskilled operators.
But diesel was so popular that
Caterpillar allocated nearly all its
research budget in that direction.
In fact, Cat’s diesel tractor was
just what agricultural customers needed. They liked its superior fuel economy and the fact that diesel
fuel was cheap. But the diesel engine’s chief
advantages were its greater low speed lugging capability, and the fact that maximum
power was available over a much wider
working range than a gas tractor.
Caterpillar’s first diesel tractor was the
Diesel Sixty with a 4-cylinder D9900 engine
developing 63-drawbar horsepower. Builders
fit it with a gasoline pony motor to aid starting. During the 1930s, the company introduced diesel versions of existing gas models,
the Thirty-Five, Forty, Fifty, Sixty, Sixty-five,
Seventy and Seventy-Five. By decade’s end,
Cat established the familiar D-series tractors.
Wartime and scrapers: the 1940s
In 1940, Caterpillar launched an upgraded D7
tractor with design refinements. Designated
the 7M-series, it carried the Caterpillar D8800
engine of 80-drawbar horsepower. The following year, Cat upgraded the D8’s D13000
engine to 113-drawbar horsepower, calling it
the 8R-series. The D13000 engine was a winner. Installed in Caterpillar’s largest tractors
since 1935, it carried Caterpillar through the
war years and enabled the company to supply
trouble-free engines in thousands of tractors
at short notice. The slow-revving D13000 was
as reliable as an engine could be; many still
operate today.
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These were the tractors that spearheaded
allied Second World War efforts. Equipped
with a bulldozer blade or scraper, the tractor was key for front-line fighting forces. The
U.S. government needed most of the tractors
Cat could produce, and by 1945 more than
31,000 had been shipped, many overseas.
Often first on the scene, they cleared the
way for fighting forces to follow. They built
“The four machines that
won the war in the Pacific
were the submarine,
radar, the airplane and
the bulldozer.”
bases across the South Pacific, along the Aleutian Islands toward Russia and pushed the
Alaska Highway through 1,400 miles of wilderness. American naval admiral, William F.
Halsey, said, “The four machines that won the
war in the Pacific were the submarine, radar,
the airplane and the bulldozer.”
In 1940, Caterpillar introduced its first
wheel tractor, the 90-horsepower DW-10,
designed to haul a scraper. After the war Cat
launched a line of pull-type scrapers to haul
behind its crawler and wheel tractors.
The earth moves: the 1950s
This decade was marked by global construction projects, including construction of
the U.S. Interstate Highway and the British
Motorway systems, requiring unprecedented amounts of earth to be moved. New Cat
and Finning customers were pushing industrial and housing projects forward, making
up for lost time during the war years.
Caterpillar responded by updating every
one of its models with the latest technology.
But the two groundbreaking events of the
decade were Caterpillar’s introduction of its
biggest tractor yet, the D9, and the establishment of a line of motor scrapers – high-speed
earthmoving machines.
The powerful D9 showed how to really
push dirt. Ripping technology moved a step
closer to eliminating blasting when a singleshank ripper was attached to the D9. In 1951,
the small DW-10 motor scraper was joined
by the 2-wheel tractor DW-21 and 4-wheel
tractor DW-20 scrapers, carrying 20 and 23
heaped cubic yards respectively. And they
sped along, hauling at 20 mp/h.
At the start of the decade, Caterpillar
purchased the Trackson Corporation along
with its lines of crawler loaders and pipe layers. Initially based on standard tractors, the
machines were redesigned by Caterpillar to
become single-purpose machines.
REMEMBER WHEN…
New Dells Lumber Corp.’s 10-Ton Northern logger
1960s: 944 wheel loader
Machines grow with projects: the 1960s
The booming 1960s were an active time for
Caterpillar. The company introduced four
major product lines. Other products received
new, top-of-the-line additions.
At the end of 1959, Caterpillar announced
its first wheel loader, the 944, followed in
early 1960 by the 922 and 966. With bucket sizes of up to 2¾ cubic yards, these three
rigid-frame models were industry forerunners. Articulated versions began to appear in
1963 with the 6-yard 988; soon all Cat wheel
loaders boasted articulated-frames.
Caterpillar’s scrapers received a boost with
the introduction of the 600-series, a modern
line of high-speed motor scrapers consisting
of 10 models ranging up to the giant 666 with
54 cubic yards heaped capacity. Single and
twin-engines were updated before decade’s
end, joined by the twin-engine 627 and the
elevating 633 model, in response to construction customers’ demands.
Caterpillar then purchased Towmotor
Corporation, giving it a line of fork lift trucks,
broadening markets into the material handling industry. Caterpillar’s first two-wheel
dozers, the 824 and 834 (300 and 400 horsepower) allowed speedy travel in surface
mines. At the same time, Caterpillar unveiled
its big No. 16 grader, topping out its grader
line at 225 horsepower.
48
The most significant 1960s event for
Caterpillar was its entry into the off-highway
truck market. In 1962, Cat introduced its superbly designed mechanical drive 35-ton 769,
which became a leader in its class. Next, the
company developed electric drive trucks and
began marketing the 85-ton 779. At the same
time, prototype 783 (100-ton side dump) and
786 (240-ton bottom dump) diesel electricdrive trucks were tested. But after 1969 Caterpillar went exclusively to mechanical drive.
Consolidate and innovate: the 1970s
The D8H crawler tractor had became one
of Caterpillar’s best sellers, until the D8K
replaced it in 1974. The D9 had earned a reputation as the most reliable big tractor in the
field. It got bigger, too, when the 410-horsepower D9H replaced the D9G. But the big
tractor news of the decade was the earth-shattering D10, at 700 horsepower with elevated
high-drive sprocket. Launched in 1977 after
eight years in development, the high-drive
sprocket allowed a cushioned undercarriage
to absorb uneven ground shocks. Modular
construction made for easier maintenance.
Caterpillar’s research and design program produced the first of its range of excavators. An in-house design, the 225 was the
forerunner.
For its forestry customers, Caterpillar
developed the 518 log skidder, the only other
new product line of the 1970s. And G-series
graders made the scene, the company’s first
with articulated frames and hydraulic controls. The 85-ton 777 dwarfed Caterpillar’s
mechanical drive trucks.
At the smaller end of the scale, Caterpillar launched the D3 crawler tractor, the 910
wheel loader and 931 crawler loader simultaneously. All three carried the 3204 engine in
the 60-horsepower class.
1970s: 225 excavator
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1970s:D10 tractor
Cat spreads its wings: the 1980s
This decade was a time of change. After suffering financial turmoil, Caterpillar shook
itself off, revamped almost every machine in
its roster, and added 13 new product lines.
The number of excavator models skyrocketed; at one point Caterpillar offered 29 basic
models. To supplement its own machines
Caterpillar formed a marketing agreement
with Eder in Germany to import seven models
of small wheeled and crawler excavators, and
imported the E-series of 10 excavators from
Japan in a joint venture with Mitsubishi.
The move into articulated dump trucks occurred when Caterpillar acquired the British
company DJB Engineering Ltd. and its nine
models. The acquisition was a natural as DJB
had always used Cat components.
Another important product was the loader-backhoe. Caterpillar designed its models
in-house and the first of a long line, the 416,
appeared in 1985. The following year saw
the first Cat Challenger rubber-tracked, highspeed tractor, in development since 1974.
Caterpillar’s shopping spree continued
with the purchase of the Solar Turbine Division of International Harvester, giving it a line
of powerful gas turbine power plants. From
CMI Corporation it bought manufacturing
rights to pavement profilers, asphalt pavers
www.finning.ca
and soil stabilizers. It also purchased Raygo
Inc., adding soil and asphalt compactors. To
boost its logging involvement, Caterpillar’s
agreement with Tanguay of Quebec, brought
log loaders and harvesters to its customers in
the woods.
In 1986, Caterpillar shuffled its big tractor lineup, moving horsepower downward
on the D8, D9 and D10 to accommodate the
top-of-the-line D11N at 770 horsepower.
Mining takes the spotlight: the 1990s to now
A new 300-series excavator line consolidated the array of machines from the 1980s.
Caterpillar also entered the large hydraulic
excavator market with the introduction of the 5130, targetting
surface mining projects.
The decade was most signi
ficant for Caterpillar’s mining
products. The D11R boosted Caterpillar’s largest crawler tractor to
850 horsepower. The world’s largest production grader, the 500horsepower 24H, took the crown
from the 16H. Two huge haulers
appeared at the top end of the
line, the 793 and 797 (the world’s
largest truck) at 240 tons and 400
tons capacity.
Caterpillar’s wheel dozer line
expanded upward with the 844
and 854. The company moved
underground with a line of articulated trucks and load-haul-dump
machines from the joint venture Caterpillar
Elphinstone Pty. Ltd. in Australia.
Telescopic handlers were new in the
1990s with the purchase of the British company DJI Industries. The decade also saw a
return to Cat’s agriculture roots with new
combine harvesters from a joint venture set
up with Claas of Germany.
Responding to customers in a burgeoning
landscape market, Caterpillar’s latest product,
skid steer loaders, place the company squarely
in the compact machine market.
From one end of the size spectrum to the
other, and across industries, Caterpillar is the
world leader in heavy equipment.
1990s: 854G wheel dozer
On Target
Off Highway
Highland Valley Copper finds Finning
solutions to keep business moving
forward, even when times are tough
Story by Cait Wills
t’s no surprise that Highland
Valley Copper mine is one of
Finning (Canada)’s most loyal
customers. After all, Canada’s largest copper
mine – located in Logan Lake, B.C. – has been
using Cat off-highway trucks for 20 years.
“We bought the first Cat fleet in 1988,”
says Frank Amon, manager of operations for
Highland Valley. “At the time, we had four
truck fleets, totalling 75 units – two different
makes, all of them old,” he says. “In 1988,
we started replacing them.” Highland Valley Copper wanted vehicles known for their
durability and versatility, which led them to
Caterpillar. “We looked at truck fleets,” says
Amon, “and the process of elimination led us
to the Cat 789s; we were one of the first to use
that fleet,” he says.
But, due to a global drop in copper prices,
the mine had to concentrate on keeping operating costs as low as possible, and the decision to upgrade to the 789s wasn’t made
lightly. “Highland Valley Copper – like copper mines worldwide – was going through a
tough time,” says Amon. So, Finning helped
Highland Valley find trucks that would meet
its needs without busting the budget. “We
were able to find refurbished vehicles from
all over the world. We have some that came
from Australia, even.”
The 789C mining truck is, according to
industry specs, “engineered for performance,
designed for comfort, and built to last.” It’s an
off-highway truck with 1770.15 horsepower, a payload capacity of 177 tons, and a loaded
speed of 52.6 kilometres per hour. Used for
high-production mining and hauling applications, one of its most popular selling features is its long life.
Amon says one of the most attractive aspects of the 789s is the versatility of the fleet.
“When we started purchasing the 789s, we
bought 10 to 12 units at a time, replacing the
old ones as we went,” he says. All told, the
company purchased 38 units. Now, those
older 789s serve a new purpose at the mine:
“We have 14 active 789s as haulage units
and we’ve converted two into water-trucks,”
he says.
These machines are still working, despite
the fact that Amon started purchasing Cat
793s for mining in the early 1990s.
“The 793 is a bigger truck, so it’s more
affordable to run at a lower cost per ton,” says
Cam Hergott, mining accounts manager for
Finning. “Operator costs are lower, and the
www.finning.ca
793 has a higher yield.” Moving more tonnage proved to be a wise economic decision
for Highland Valley Copper.
Like the 789, The Cat 793D is known for
durability, but it provides more horsepower.
(The 793D has 2337.4 horsepower, versus
1770.15 horsepower of the 789.) The newer
machine also has a larger payload capacity:
218 tonnes, 41 tonnes more than the 789.
The 793 is a great choice for long uphill hauls, and tricky downhill loaded hauls. Perfect for Highland Valley
Copper; a low-grade, low-strip, open
pit, truck/shovel operation.
The mill and three open pit
mines – the Valley, Lornex and Highmont
– cover more than 34,000 hectares, which
means high payload capacity equals lower
operating costs. That speaks to Highland
Valley Copper’s bottom line, which Amon
says, was crucial in making the determination to stick with Cat and Finning (Canada).
“In 1999, copper had gone down again and
we were going through a rough time. We
even had to shut down for four months.
Times were bad, so the operating costs and
high haulage were factors in keeping production costs low,” he says.
Now, copper markets and mine reserves have caused Highland Valley to extend the planned completion date of 2008.
“We changed that to 2013,” Amon says and,
ard of care Finning supplies. Hergott agrees:
“We have a close relationship with Highland
Valley Copper. We currently have two dedicated parts people, Murray Adams and Brent
Huculak, a product support person, Mark
Mulroy, and an onsite technician at the mine,
Rick Cameron. He works five days a week at
the mine and serves as a liaison. Because he
can review any diagnostic issues and assess
repairs, it helps with the transparency between the companies.”
“One of the big factors was the
level of support and service we receive,” says Amon. Finning serves
Highland Valley both at the mine
and at the off-site component shop, 75 kilometres away in Kamloops, B.C.
“When you get the production equipment, the initial cost isn’t as important as the
support you get. The component rebuilding
for major items like torque converters and
engines all help us keep our costs lower,” says
Amon. Hergott, too, notes that the component shop is a key factor in providing superior service to Highland Valley.
“One of the ways we supply support to
Highland Valley is with our component shop,
which we recently expanded to 4,090 square
feet,” Hergott says. “The expansion provides
Highland Valley Copper mine staff the opportunity to come to Kamloops, see the shop
and review any component failure on site;
it’s a great learning tool.”
The relationship between the two companies has allowed Finning to work hand-inhand with its customer to provide operational
support, failure analysis, feedback and more.
With the shop expansion, Finning is able to
meet Highland Valley Copper Mine’s growing expectations as its fleet expands.
Of the mine’s relationship with Finning,
Amon says, “Our current plan is to run the
793s through right to the end of the mine life
and, if the close date is extended again, we’ll
look at renewing the fleet at that time.”
“When you get the production
equipment, the initial cost isn’t as
important as the support you get.”
because of that extension, Highland Valley
has committed to enlarging its fleet. “We have
eight 793s on order, which will bring our 793
fleet up to 38,” he says.
The decision to stick with Cat instead of
going with another product speaks not only
to the superior engineering of the off-highway trucks, Amon says, but also the stand-
A FINE-TUNED FLEET: The level of service
support was an important consideration when
HVC made its buying decisions
price wise: Top left, Finning technician
Ed Mikalishen and the Kamloops component
shop team keep HVC’s costs down
www.finning.ca
Sparwood
(Re)builds Pride
Sometimes it takes a bit of
lateral thinking to turn a
good idea into a great one
STORY BY LISA RICCIOTTI
PHOTOGRAPH BY DANIEL WIENER
ebuild it and they will come.
That could be the motto for
a successful Finning Quality
Rebuild program that’s helped put the town of
Sparwood on the map. Ringed by the Rockies
in the heart of the Elk Valley, scenic Sparwood
is best known as home of the world’s largest
truck: the nearly seven-metre-tall, 235-tonne
Terex Titan. Yet it’s heavy metal of a different
kind that’s attracting international attention.
Global buyers look to this coal community
for its Sparwood Specials, Caterpillar D10 and
D11 track-type tractors rebuilt in Finning’s
Sparwood shop.
Buyers of Sparwood Specials get the equivalent of a brand new dozer at a significantly
lower sticker price. Still, that’s not the driving force behind this unique program, which
continues to prove its worth 20 years after
the first D9 Sparwood Special rolled out of
the shop. The real reason lies in the story of a
good idea that grew into a great one.
Terry Barber, now the global mining used
equipment manager with Finning in Calgary,
is pleased to share the story. Between taking
phone calls from Pakistan and Egypt to close
equipment deals, Barber finds time to stroll
down memory lane as he relates the origins
www.finning.ca
TEAM SPARWOOD: Clockwise from bottom left, Bob MacArthur,
Randy Loewen, Tim Campbell, Al Burns, Gary Loewen, Mark
Wilton, Larry Lento, Cliff Wickwire and Silver Aragones
of the Sparwood Special program. He remembers it well because he was there.
In 1979, Barber was a young Finning mining sales rep, working under John Powell in
the Sparwood area. One of his customers was
Kaiser Coal, forerunner of Elk Valley Coal,
which now operates six open pit mines in the
region. As a leading producer of high-quality metallurgical coking coal, Elk Valley Coal
today relies on a 400-piece mining fleet of
heavy equipment to produce 25 million tons
of coal annually. The situation was no different 30 years ago: Kaiser Coal also needed
to maximize fleet availability and reduce
downtime.
Knowing this, Powell proposed an idea to
Kaiser, radical for the time – leasing. Powell
pointed out the options that continue to
make leasing popular: new, reliable machinery would mean more productive time.
Leasing rates would be lower than down
payments on new equipment or rental costs;
and maintenance expenses would be lower,
since this leased equipment would be covered
by warranty.
Kaiser inked the deal, and Finning’s first
Tractor Lease Program was born. “It started
in one mine, and soon expanded to another
four,” says Barber. “At the height of the program in the mid-1980s, we had 50 tractor
Elk Valley Coal: a history
135 million years ago Dead plant
matter piles up at the bottom
of prehistoric lakes during the
Jurassic era, forming spongy peat
bogs. Sediment accumulates over
millennia, burying the bogs. Geological pressures create the Rocky
Mountains, hardening the bogs
into carbon deposits, then coal.
54
Fast-forward to 1873 During the
Gold Rush, prospector Michael
Phillipps checks out the Elk River
Valley, looking for gold. To his
disappointment, he finds coal.
1884 Geologist George Mercer
Dawson shows more enthusiasm
for B.C.’s coal. His report, released
in 1886, draws national attention.
units out, all on rotating lease programs.”
Darold Thorp, regional manager of
Finning Sparwood, has seen proof of the program’s efficiency: “One company that had a
fleet of 30 unreliable tractors of various ages
was able to replace those with a dozen good
new leased ones.”
Then, global economics threw a wrench
into the program. In the late 1980s, the value
of the Canadian dollar and the yen “went upside down,” says Barber. The tractor leasing
program was increasingly unprofitable for
Finning. But when the going gets tough, the
tough get creative. Instead of packing it in, the
Sparwood Finning folks turned their good,
new idea into a great one.
“We came up with a new take on the rebuild program,” explains Barber. “A custom
rebuild would allow a rebuilt tractor to maintain availability standards.”
It sounded good: continue supplying the
mines with new dozers under a lease program, but add in the bonus of rebuilding
those leased tractors at the end of their lease
term, either sending them back to the mines
for another tour of duty, or selling them elsewhere to put profitability back in the program. But could Finning take a hard-worked
dozer and give it a second life?
“There was never any question in my
mind,” says Gary Loewen, now a field dispatcher with Finning Sparwood. He became
the chargehand of the original crew who tackled the task. “So I put together some good allround mechanics who could work as a team,
dedicated to making it a success.” The Sparwood Special Rebuild emerged.
Terry Barber convinced the mines to give a
Sparwood Special a try. “It worked famously,”
he says. Twenty years on, the pride in his voice
is still evident.
1887 Colonel James Baker, a
Cranbrook landowner, forms a
syndicate to develop the Crowsnest
coalfields. By 1896, it acquires
250,000 acres of coal lands and
a provincial railway charter.
1897 Twenty miners from Cape
Breton arrive at Coal Creek near
Fernie, producing 10,000 tons
of coal and 361 tons of coke.
By the end of 1898, the rail line
is complete; markets grow and
mining expands.
1900 to 1913 Coal production
peaks at 1,528,934 tons prior to
the First World War, then slowly
declines, with minor fluctuations,
over the next 40 years.
www.finning.ca
1959 Annual production hits an all-time low at 850,000 tons. The British Columbia coal industry
faces extinction.
1960s Traditional coal markets
disappear in North America. The
Crow’s Nest Pass Coal Company
sends test shipments to Japan
for use in steelmaking. Success!
www.finning.ca
In 1968, contracts are signed,
leading to the coal resurgence.
California-based Kaiser Resources
Limited purchases mining rights of the Crow’s Nest Pass Coal Company and begins mining at the Elkview location.
1980s Mining methods switch
from underground to surface, from
Remember When…
The gratifying part is
seeing the look of satisfaction
on the faces of guys in the shop. There’s a tremendous amount of pride.”
That pride, along with technological
changes to the dozers (such as the introduction of a high-drive track on the D10, which
allows its undercarriage to last longer) are responsible for the increasing number of hours
a dozer operates between rebuilds. Originally
they went back after 5,000 hours; today it’s up
to 12,000 hours. And many Sparwood Specials now go back into the field for a second
or even third time.
“Historically it’s been a good program for
Elk Valley Coal,” says Doug Stokes, Elk Valley Coal’s vice president of operations. “We’re
currently using Sparwood Specials in four of
six mines, and one of every four of our dozers
is a rebuild. The D10s and D11s are the backbone of our operations. We work them hard
but they’re a cost-effective, reliable machine.
Using the tractor lease program has improved
our availabilities, and Finning has been a
good partner.”
After a pause, Stokes adds a final thought:
“Elk Valley Coal’s long relationship with
Finning has been a positive part of my mining career.” And undoubtedly the Sparwood
Specials are a very special part of that relationship as well.
dark, dangerous pick-and-shovel work to mechanized open-pit mines. Kaiser Resources becomes B.C. Coal, which becomes part of Westar Resources.
2003 The Canadian metallurgical coal mines previously owned by
Fording Inc., Teck Cominco Limited,
Consol Energy Inc. and Luscar Energy Partnership consolidate as
the Elk Valley Coal Partnership.
2008 Today Elk Valley Coal is North America’s leading producer
of metallurgical hard-coking coal.
The company operates six open-pit
mines in the region.
Sources: Elk Valley Coal and The Sparwood
Virtual Museum of Coal Mining
Finning words of wisdom
ness and leaks. Whatever fails to meet
Cat’s reusability guidelines is replaced.
The block may need to be line-bored
to new Caterpillar specs; crankshafts that
show cracks during electromagnetic testing are replaced; rod bearing bores may need
to be reground; faulty valves replaced. New
pins and bearings are put in all moving parts
and components are painstakingly cleaned.
The undercarriage, which bears the brunt
of wear from the mine grind, requires
particular attention.
Dents are removed, and the cab is refurbished to like-new. Finally, when the unit
passes final performance tests, it’s sandblasted and re-painted. Then comes the capper: a
Sparwood Special decal is put on the cab window, often the only clue that it’s a rebuild, not
a new dozer.
“I love seeing a tired tractor go through
the process and come out looking new,” says
Thorp. “As for the satisfaction of seeing them
back in action, I know I see a lot of Sparwood
Specials on the mine sites, but unless I’m
close enough to see the sticker, I can’t tell.
photograph By Daniel Wiener
Pride. It’s a word that comes up frequently
in conversations about the Sparwood Specials. Al Burns, a journeyman welder and part
of the original crew, continues to work on rebuilding Sparwood Specials today. “You have
to take pride in what you’re doing to make it
work,” Burns says. “You have to think about
keeping quality up and costs down.” Burns
remembers a recent buyer from Korea, who
came to Finning’s Sparwood shop. The buyer
couldn’t tell the Sparwood Special rebuilt D11
from the new one beside it.
To get a dozer pristine after it has ripped
rock and pushed mountains for 12,000 hours
at the mines takes a bit of doing. “The crew
takes the tractor down to the frame and starts
over,” says Thorp. “They can tear it down
within a shift.” But putting it back together,
with safety checks along the way, can take
10 weeks. A crew of four mechanics plus one
welder is dedicated to each rebuild.
A Sparwood Special rebuild includes replacing hardware and rebuilding the engine
as well as the transmission. Components are
inspected and tested for wear, cracks, straight-
www.finning.ca
www.finning.ca
Big
Thoughts
IT’S ALL THAT: Kidco uses the 24H, Cat’s
largest grader, for construction
Meef, this is applications
a giant 24H
Calgary’s Kidco has a
huge advantage over
the competition. Its
giant machines get the
job done faster
STORY BY TRICIA RADISON
This baby is a 330C
58
f you happen to see an enormous Caterpillar machine in
a Calgary construction zone,
it’s safe to assume you’re in Kidco country.
Southern Alberta’s largest earthmoving company, Kidco Construction Ltd. doesn’t believe
in keeping things small.
“We like big stuff,” laughs company president Ryan Erickson, explaining why Kidco
owns equipment such as the 24H, Caterpillar’s largest grader. Sized for mining, the 24H
is rarely seen outside of places such as Northern Alberta’s oil sands.
But service is first at Kidco and in the construction industry, that involves getting the
job done fast. Years of experience, skilled
employees and a large fleet contribute to the
company’s ability to move earth at record
speed. And it’s the willingness of Kidco’s
managerial team to think outside the box
and come up with new solutions that sets
the company apart.
Owner and CEO Ken Renton made the
decision in the 1990s to use giant mining machines to move dirt in a large urban centre.
Renton founded Kidco in 1985, starting with
a small fleet and firm industry knowledge.
He and his brothers, Ian and Doug, had purchased their father’s construction company in
1977, renaming it Kidco Holdings Ltd. When
Ian and Doug left to pursue other ventures,
Renton started Kidco as it’s known today.
A full-service earthmoving contractor,
Kidco employs 250 people and has two
dozen projects underway during peak season. Projects come in all sizes and range
from subdivisions and golf courses to roads
and man-made ponds.
www.finning.ca
“We had to look for the right people from
inside and outside of our organization to
handle different aspects of the job. With the
changes made, we were able to successfully
complete the job.”
customer account manager at Finning’s Calgary branch, has worked with Kidco for three
years and says that the company is consistently on the cutting edge of earthmoving.
“Ken and Ryan are innovative,” Provencher
explains. “They put their heads together
and come up with the most resourceful
ways to move dirt.”
Provencher cites Kidco’s use of rigid
frame trucks rather than articulated
trucks. Most earthmoving companies
opt for articulated trucks because they’re designed for softer underfoot conditions. Large
rigid frame trucks typically used in mining require a solid haul road that takes time
to construct.
For Kidco, the advantages of using rigid
frame trucks outweigh the inconvenience of
creating haul roads on sites. The trucks can
move more dirt per load and, with top speeds
of 65 kilometres per hour, Kidco can reduce
cycle times. “It’s just another tool in the tool-
“Ken and Ryan are innovative.
They come up with the most
resourceful ways to move dirt.”
The five-mile stretch of road took two
years to complete. Erickson estimates he used
a third of the company’s fleet for the job, including many of the large pieces of Cat iron
that make Kidco unique. Kidco’s fleet includes Cat 657G scrapers, 385 excavators and
D11 dozers, again more often seen in mining
applications than in the city.
Renton began purchasing large Cats in
1993, starting with 651 scrapers, as a way to
meet clients’ requirements. Paul Provencher,
Logistical challenges
Stretching 53 feet long and towering 15
feet off the ground, Kidco’s 24H dwarfs
the 30-foot long, 11-foot tall 14H motor
grader used in similar applications. Its
size has benefits: it can do in one pass
what smaller graders do in two. But it
also presents some challenges.
Moving equipment such as the 24H
from site to site isn’t easy. At Kidco
though, it’s part of a day’s work. Most of
the company’s projects are located within 200 kilometres of Calgary with occasional projects in Lethbridge and some
as far away as British Columbia. Wherever they go, they’ll take the big machines
with them if the job warrants. “We have
the right hauling equipment to make
sure we can move them effectively,”
Erickson explains. “Secure your permitting and away you go.”
www.finning.ca
Ring around the city: As Calgary grows,
so does the need for infrastructure experts,
such as Kidco
Remember When…
In 2006, Kidco completed its first supersized project, constructing a section of Calgary’s Stoney Trail Northwest Ring Road for
Alberta Infrastructure and Transportation
(AIT). The $22-million project involved grading, storm sewer installation, paving,
pond construction, landscaping, utility
installation and movement of 5.5 million cubic metres of dirt. Kidco served
as general contractor and this was the
biggest job it had taken on for AIT.
The bulk of the project consisted of heavy
earthmoving, Kidco’s specialty, but there
were other tasks the company hadn’t done
before. Managing a large number of subcontractors added to the already significant
paperwork and record-keeping required by a
government client.
Erickson, then-manager of operations,
says he quickly realized he wouldn’t be
able to manage the entire project himself.
“We needed a team approach,” he explains.
REMEMBER WHEN…
Field Service 1962
box,” Erickson says of the rigid frame units.
The company used to call on three or
four smaller graders to maintain haul roads
capable of withstanding the weight of the
rigid frame trucks. Eager to increase efficiency, Renton and Erickson began looking for a
better option. They found it in Cat’s largest
grader, the 24H, which joined Kidco’s fleet in
January 2007.
It’s not every heavy equipment operator
who can handle one of Finning’s monster
Cats. Operators have to adjust to the size,
horsepower and capabilities of large equipment. They must ensure they have a good
grasp of the job’s scope to use the machine
effectively. At Kidco, operators start off on
smaller units, train on site, and move up to
bigger things.
Kidco is pleased with its giant grader.
“We’ve found it handy,” Erickson says with a
grin. “The faster we go, the better, so we have a
big grader to make that road we travel on nice
and flat.”
When it comes to making haul roads, efficiency is doubled with the 24H. That, says
Erickson, is the main reason Kidco thinks
big. “We have big equipment and enough of
it to get the job done. That’s what our clients
bank on.”
Kidco’s fleet is 90% Caterpillar, not by
accident. Years of experience with different
types of equipment led to the realization that
Cat offered the reliability Kidco needed to effectively serve its clients. The company also
appreciates the resale value of its Cat investment, as well as Finning’s support. “Finning
has been good along the way, helping us
maintain our equipment,” says Erickson.
Kidco is Finning’s largest customer in
southern Alberta for parts, service and machine sales. Due to the large number of ma60
FEWER TRIPS: Also part of the fleet
is this 775E, which holds more dirt,
making for fewer passes
chines it owns, calling Finning every time
one needed service was becoming a hassle.
To remedy the situation, Finning made two
field mechanics available to Kidco seven
days a week, 12 hours a day throughout
2007 to provide service and maintenance.
Darryl DeVries, parts and service sales rep
at Finning, says the arrangement is effective.
“Our technicians are on site at equipment
start up in the mornings and throughout the
day to provide service and maintenance,”
he explains. “It’s been an excellent tool for
Kidco.”
For Provencher, working with such an innovative company has been interesting. After
all, it’s not often he’s asked to find mining
equipment for a construction company. He
enjoys the challenge of locating the machines
Kidco wants.
Kidco expressed interest in a used 24H
several years before Finning was finally able
to locate one. “They don’t come up for auction very often. The mines constantly rebuild
them so there aren’t very many used ones for
sale in the world,” Provencher says.
A machine was found in Salt Lake City,
Utah. Since resale is rare, Provencher faced
the challenge of determining the value of the
24H and getting it priced correctly. Erickson is
aware of the lengths Finning has gone to help
the unorthodox company achieve its goals.
“We’ve sent Paul on some wild goose chases to try to find us this and that,” he laughs.
“That’s part of the reason we like Paul. He’ll
try to make things happen.”
Making things happen, regardless of
what other companies are doing, is the
name of the game for Kidco. The company
continues to develop innovative solutions to
help its clients achieve goals, even if it has to
move heaven and earth to find the right of
equipment.
www.finning.ca
READY FOR THE FLOOD: In 1948 the Fraser
River burst through a dyke. Finning was there
to help citizens prepare for the worst
www.finning.ca
For a long time, Earl Finning’s
dedicated field personnel were the
answer. Eventually, he needed
more bricks and mortar
Theof theBirth
Branch
Story by Jeff Howard
ompany founder Earl B. Finning
practiced MBWA – WD: management by walking around – with
dog. On his daily march along hardwood
floors at his Vancouver company he was
joined by his Irish Setter, Pat.
The “old man” would offer advice. Talking
back was risky. Jim Mulvaney, who started in
the parts department in 1939, says when Earl
B. said jump, you jumped. Once, Pat sniffed
out somebody taking a cigarette break.
“We’re not paying you to stand around;
you’re fired,” barked Earl. B. What he didn’t
know was the dismissed “employee” was a
Finning customer working on his equipment,
a common practice those days.
The fiery Mr. Finning had another side,
though. Bev Davis, who joined the company
from the army in 1947, comments: “He gave
me a dressing down because the daughter of
one of the men who worked for me was very
sick. The old man said I needed to keep him
informed so he’d be able to help the family.”
These folksy nuggets help explain Finning’s
impressive 75-year run to become the leading
heavy equipment dealer in Western Canada,
and Caterpillar’s largest dealer worldwide,
with business in six different countries.
“Earl B. was a generous man, who didn’t
want you to know it,” recalls Mulvaney.
Finning turned down Mulvaney’s request for
the raise he sought for his employees. “But in
the same breath, Earl B. would say they could
use his station wagon to go for a vacation in
Alberta if they’d like.”
Just 36 when he founded Finning Tractor
and Equipment Company in 1933, Earl B.
Finning was the youngest dealer principal in
the Caterpillar organization. It was the Great
Depression, and the five employees hired
from Finning’s predecessor had been work-
ing part-time with reduced wages for several
years. “When Earl Finning took over, he put
us on full-time at our previous salaries,” said
Finning’s first parts manager, Jack Rollins.
“I don’t suppose anyone could understand
our feelings at the time, nor the intense loyalty this one gesture created.”
Despite the economic hard times, Earl
Finning offered customers a helping hand.
One logger needed a tractor but was so broke
he could hardly feed his family, let alone
make the down payment, writes Bob Ley
in his unpublished history of Finning. Earl
Finning delivered the machine anyway and
sternly told the logger he’d better pay for it
www.finning.ca
Maury Young
prototype: In 1963, the service depot
at Merritt was a model for others to follow
when he got the bill. But Mr. Finning didn’t
send the bill until the logger was on his feet.
His fairness and his determination “to take
service to customers’ doorsteps” continues
to be Finning’s driving force. Mulvaney says,
“Mr. Finning always said he’d stand behind
everything he sold, except manure spreaders.
He kept his word.”
Thanks to honest dealings and determined
service support, Finning now operates in
55 communities in B.C., Alberta, Yukon and
Northwest Territories, has resident technicians
in another 61 out-of-the-way areas, more than
400 service trucks and Cat Rental Stores in
33 centres.
But building service to this level wasn’t an
easy task.
Back in the winter of 1933, Con Gurney
was the service department. On one occasion, Gurney hiked 20 miles over Mission
Mountain in the middle of the night to get to
Pioneer Mines in Bridge River, B.C., proud
owners of the first diesel-powered crawler
tractor in the province. He was able to hitch
a ride for the last part of the journey but his
feet were badly frozen. Four months later, he
was still wearing bedroom slippers to work.
Gurney went on to become general serv-
www.finning.ca
ice manager. From this position, he helped
spread his brand of service commitment. That
was great for customers, but was not always
welcomed by employees.
“Mr. Finning always
said he’d stand behind
everything he sold,
except manure spreaders.
He kept his word.”
“With Con, you were never quite sure how
long you’d be gone on a certain job,” explains
Finning retiree Peter Clarke. “You could be
gone a year because Con wouldn’t give you
the whole story. This was particularly troubling to our wives who’d have to phone Con
for our whereabouts.”
But with machine populations increasing
in the 1950s, the company could no longer
rely on heroic service rescues alone – facilities
needed to be built to support customers in remote locations.
Caterpillar expressed concern. “But Mr.
Finning wasn’t going to be told how to run
the company; he still believed in resident
servicemen and not in launching a building
campaign. Con, a conservative sort, agreed,”
recalls Clarke.
Fortunately, Mr. Finning had an ace up his
sleeve. His son-in-law, charismatic and MITeducated Maury Young, was nearly finished
his Master of Science degree in Industrial
Management and was ready to take over the
reins; he’d joined the company in 1947 and
had seen customer growth firsthand. More
importantly, he’d mastered the art of negotiating with his father-in-law.
With Young at the helm, the company was
able to re-finance, and expansion of Finning’s
branch network to support customers took
off. “We’re hanging our hat – and the future
of the company – on the proposition that
we must give the finest service possible,” said
Young in 1962. “Our future lies more in the
hands of every employee in the service department than in any one other particular group
within the company.”
Almost prophetic, his words guided
Finning’s service capabilities and delivery over
the next five decades.
No doubt the old man, and his dog, would
be impressed. Now get back to work.
12 Decades
Strong
Andrew
Peter
A couple of tradesmen in Omaha,
the Kiewit boys started a true
construction empire
STORY BY KATHERINE FAWCETT
n 2009, Peter Kiewit Sons Co.
celebrates 125 years of continuous operations. Few companies of any kind can boast such a lengthy and
successful record, let alone one in the everchanging and highly demanding world of
construction.
Kiewit was named one of America’s Most
Admired Companies in 2007 by Fortune magazine, and it is consistently ranked among
the top 10 contractors by Engineering NewsRecord. It has always taken on new challenges
to deliver world-class solutions to projects
of all sizes, in all markets. But without the
flexibility to adapt to changing social, political and economic realities, Kiewit might still
be a local contractor, if it were around at all,
instead of the international business icon it
has become.
“The secret to Kiewit’s longevity has been
that it’s grounded in good mid-Western values, such as consideration for employees and
their families, a strong work ethic and team
spirit, dedication to safety, quality and employee training, an employee stock-holder
64
program and a great deal of good-old common sense,” David Wallace says. He’s the
senior engineering manager at Kiewit’s Vancouver office. “Being an older, established
company means the legacy is passed down
from previous generations... It takes a generation to train the next leaders of Kiewit, we
don’t hire mercenaries off the street. We grow
our own leaders.”
In fact, in 12 and a half decades, Kiewit
has had just seven presidents. “This is unprecedented in modern times, where leaders, like
professional sports coaches, generally have a
very short tenure in these roles,” says Wallace.
Kiewit’s history goes back to 1884, when
brothers Peter and Andrew Kiewit formed
a masonry company in Omaha, Nebraska.
They were a local success story, working on
several state landmarks. Eventually the firm
was renamed Peter Kiewit Sons, and was run
primarily by Peter Jr. and his brother Ralph.
In 1931, the Kiewit brothers began selling
shares of company stock to key managers to
raise capital and motivate staff. This philosophy of company ownership would become a
major factor in the company’s future success.
When the Great Depression struck, building contracts virtually dried up, so Kiewit diverted its energy into one of the few growth
sectors: highway construction. Success in
this field led to expansion into nearby states,
marking the beginning of the Kiewit system
of decentralized district offices installed in
strategic geographic locations.
During the Second World War, Kiewit once
again shifted tack, and acquired contracts
to build barracks, army bases and airfields
throughout the Rocky Mountains, along the
West Coast and in the Far North. By the end
of the war, Kiewit had built more than $500
million in military contracts, had been recognized by the Unites States government for its
wartime contribution, and received invaluable experience in disparate geographic areas.
The cold-war era saw Kiewit build a
number of bases for the American Strategic
Air Command, as well a top-secret air base
in Thule, Greenland, the ballistic early warning system radar screens and part of the DEW
(distant early warning) line of military sta-
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REMEMBER WHEN…
established geographic locations across Canada and the United States,” says Wallace. He
credits the company’s locally hired staff, who
know their territories, the company’s capabilities, and the local market. “Despite the ups
and downs of our business, Kiewit is committed to recruit from local universities and technical schools, putting an emphasis on
training and career development.”
Today, Kiewit British Columbia’s
biggest project is the Sea-to-Sky Highway Improvement Project, stretching
100 kilometres between Vancouver and
Whistler, through some of North America’s most challenging mountainous
coastal terrain. Highway 99, in this section, will benefit from 65 kilometres of
safety, mobility and capacity upgrades.
Work is on-budget and on-schedule, to
be completed before the 2010 Olympic
Winter Games. Most will be completed
TRAIL BREAKERS : Left, Kiewit has
always stressed employee training and
development. Above, the company was
instrumental in building the DEW line
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by the end of the 2008 season, leaving some
final top lift paving, landscaping, and signage for the 2009 season. Already the public
is benefiting from close to 20 kilometres of
four-lane highway improvements.
“This is the best time in my whole 32-year
career for civil engineers who want to help
build Canada’s infrastructure,” says Wallace.
“It has never been so good, in my lifetime,
or so interesting. I’m currently heading up
our design-build proposal effort, with our
ConnectBC group, to win the Port Mann
– Highway 1 project.”
Wallace’s enthusiasm is understandable.
There aren’t many other construction companies who’ve developed capabilities for
contracts as large as these. “You have to go
overseas to find other contractors of this financial size and capacity,” he says.
Peter and Andrew, the Omaha brothers
who started it all, would likely be pleased,
maybe even surprised, to see how their company has evolved over the last 125 years. From
humble beginnings, they spawned a construction empire that has both stood the test
of time and made history.
In 1954 Ed Green and Bart Finning assemble
tractors for the DEW line
tions. Kiewit also expanded its infrastructure
work during the post-war years. In a joint
venture with Poole Engineering Co. (now
PCL), Kiewit worked on such major projects
as the St. Lawrence Seaway in Ontario and
“Le Métro,” Montreal’s Island Subway tunnel
project prior to Expo 67, to name a few.
Mining had been part of Kiewit’s operations since the mid-1940s, basically as a way
to keep highway construction equipment
busy in the winter. During the 1960s and ’70s,
Kiewit became more active in coal-mine operations, as well as other energy facilities such
as the James Bay hydro project in Quebec.
Shortly after celebrating its centennial,
Kiewit began looking for related business opportunities in which to invest capital accrued
from successful mining and construction operations. In the mid-1980s, Kiewit purchased
a controlling interest in Continental Can,
Mapco (a petroleum company out of Oklahoma), Metro Fiber Systems (MFS – to install
fibre-optic networks in several large American
cities), California Energy (which led to investments in geothermal plants in Indonesia),
and a start-up fibre-optic communications
carrier called Level 3.
“Kiewit has adapted to the changing world
and marketplace by emphasizing its long-
A Nice
Stretch
Ron Macmillan’s grandpa got results
building roads with a horse and
buggy. Today there’s no end in sight.
Story by Katherine Fawcett
hen settler and pioneer Archi
bald Macmillan started clearing the land to build roads
and homes in the Peace River Valley in the
1870s, he didn’t realize he was building a
foundation for his own family’s construction empire.
Archibald’s son John, now retired at 76
years old, started Red Earth Construction in
1956 with a single Cat dozer. Today, John’s
son Ron, 48, is president of Macmillan Construction Ltd., one of the most successful
construction companies in northern Alberta
and British Columbia. With 20 pieces of Cat
equipment, Macmillan Construction is active
in everything from oil field work to municipal government jobs. Ron Macmillan spoke
about this construction dynasty.
What got you started in this business?
I’d spend summers working on the road
crews learning how to operate the equipment.
I guess I just stuck with it. All the family has
worked in this business at one time or another; my two older brothers, Archie is oldest,
then Billy, Linda, my sister, myself and Brenda,
the youngest. My 19-year-old works here full
time. My 16-year-old and my wife also work
here, part-time.
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What project are you most proud of?
Oh, that’s a hard one. There have been so
many. I guess what I’m most proud of would
be that all three generations of Macmillans
have worked on the approaches to the bridges leading into Peace River. Grandpa worked
on the first bridge approach with his horse
and buggy. My father built the main highway
and bridge approach and me and my brother
Archie did approaches for the DMI Bridge.
What sets Macmillan Construction apart?
Probably our people. We’ve always had a lot
of long-term people. We try to we maintain
a newer, well-maintained fleet of Cat equipment to keep ourselves with the best operators
and best people. And we probably pay the best
wages in the industry. We are in a changing
workforce. A few people are starting to retire
now after 25, 30 years. We try to keep a group
of people who are going to stick with us. It’s
our main goal, ’cause without the employees,
the machines can’t do anything.
What’s your favourite equipment to operate?
The grader. I ran one on the road crews for a
few years, doing the finishing. You’re the guy
that does the last pass across the road and it’s
polished off. You get the finishing touch.
What’s your most unusual project?
It was when my brother Archie was here,
back in the early 1990s, Shell Canada took
us all the way to Anticosti Island, Quebec, to
cut seismic line. They trucked our machines
and our people out of Alberta all the way to
Quebec. It’s a long way to go. That was pretty
unusual.
What’s ahead?
I hope to maintain the pace I am at right now.
If I could maintain the size and the good
line of employees I have, I would be happy.
I don’t care to be the biggest guy on the street.
I’m just happy with my stress level when the
company is the size it is now. At one point we
had more employees. That was in the 1980s.
Now there’s between 30 and 40.
What’s your greatest challenge, day to day?
Our biggest fight is to keep people happy,
keep them so they want to stay here. That’s
why we’re always upgrading the equipment.
Make it so guys want to stay with us.
What’s your dream project?
A nice road job. It’s always good to build a
nice stretch of road, a long-term or planned
project.
The
Long Haul
Ten years after the birth of the 797,
the world’s largest mining truck is still going strong
Story by Caitlin Crawshaw
eoff Shantz has a photo of his
daughter standing in front of the
wheel of a Caterpillar 797 truck on
“Bring your child to work day,” two years ago.
Decked out in a hard hat and steel-toed
rubber boots, the 14-year-old grins proudly at
her dad. The top of her hard hat reaches barely a third of the way up the tire of the 797. At
more than 20 feet high and 47 feet long, the
797B boasts a maximum payload of 380 tons.
To put it in perspective, if that payload were
bull elephants, the 797 could hold about 70
of them.
Shantz, a senior reliability inspector at
Syncrude’s Aurora mine in northern Alberta,
explains that everything about the vehicle is
larger than life. Even minor repairs on a truck
are big operations, requiring huge equipment
and lots of teamwork.
“It’s pretty much a minimum of two people and, like, a 20-ton crane. There’s nothing
small in this truck…on every shift we’ve got
probably 30, 40 technicians just to maintain
our fleet. It’s a big piece of machinery.” And
that’s a big understatement.
Shantz has seen the 797 evolve since
1999, when Syncrude began using its first Cat
797 from Finning (it was purchased in 1998).
At the time he was a field mechanic, who developed a hands-on knowledge of the truck.
These days, he’s part of a committee comprised of technical experts from Syncrude,
Finning and Caterpillar. For the last few years,
the group has worked to fine-tune the truck,
improving its reliability. These days, the most
recent incarnation, the 797B, runs at about
84% availability. In other words, in a 24-hour
work day, this vehicle is on the road for more
than 20 hours.
“As far as I know, between Finning, Syncrude and Caterpillar, we’ve got the highest availability on the 797 in the world right
now,” says Shantz.
While the truck itself is a marvel of engineering, the idea behind it is simple, explains
Finning’s Alex Colquhoun, who worked with
the truck for five years as a reliability specialist in Fort McMurray, Alberta. Because of the
large volumes of material that must be transported in the oil sands, it’s advantageous to
have a smaller fleet of bigger vehicles.
“If they wanted to move the amount of
material today with smaller trucks, they’d have
to double or triple the size of the fleet. They’d
need three times as many people and three
times as many workdays needed to do any
preventive maintenance – and they’d need
three times as many tires,” says Colquhoun,
now Finning’s mining equipment manager.
Paul Kearney, Syncrude’s manager of
mining at Aurora, explains that the first
797s were used at the company’s Mildred
Lake mine, and then the Aurora site when
it opened in 2000. In addition to allowing
the company to take advantage of the economy of scale, the vehicle has proven itself
in northern Canada, he says. The truck can
handle all kinds of weather, such as frozen
roads in winter and soft ground in spring,
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and still offers a smooth ride. “The machine
is very popular with the operators in comfort
and how it handles,” he says.
Kearney adds that over the years, the
truck’s evolution has allowed Syncrude
to move even more materials per load.
The truck has grown from a 380-ton
truck to a whopping 400 tons.
And Caterpillar continues to make
small changes, he says. A web-based
monitoring system compiles detailed
information about how the equipment is
functioning and allows Syncrude to recommend further refinements to maximize the
performance of this maximal truck on its oil
sands sites.
Finning’s Brent Davis has also seen the
truck evolve over the last decade. He sold the
first 797 to Syncrude in 1999, when he was
working as a mining account manager.
“Syncrude and another oil sands company, Suncor, were getting some of the first field
follows in the world,“ says Davis. “It was im-
“You imagine putting your
house in the back of a pickup
truck and driving along;
it’s quite a feeling.”
www.finning.ca
portant at the time because it was the first big
truck in Canada in a long time and, of course,
the first truck of its kind in the world.”
The 797 replaced another truck the company had previously been selling, the 793C,
which had a payload capacity of 250 tons.
Initially, Finning sold six 797s to Syncrude,
and the next year, eight more. Soon, the truck
was on the fast-track to becoming an industry
standard. These days, customers are purchasing larger fleets of 797B trucks – sometimes
20 or more trucks at a time.
“It definitely has evolved from a new
pilot test truck that we were developing for the oil sands. It’s very successful
and the population is getting quite large
in the oil sands now,” says Davis, now a
general manager for mining marketing
(Northwest Territories and the Yukon).
In fact, in 2007, Finning marked the delivery
of its 100th 797 to northern Alberta.
Davis goes quiet for minute, searching
for a way to explain the experience of the vehicle. “It’s like driving your house.” he says
finally. And there’s a note of incredulity in
his voice, even though he has ridden shotgun. “I’ve never driven one at that speed, but
Service preventive maintenance check plan 1963
REMEMBER WHEN…
FINELY TUNED FLEET: Each 797 contains an on-board
Vital Information Management System microprocessor
that monitors machine health and payload information
STOPS ON A DIME: Fully loaded, the 797 achieves
speeds of 68 km/h. Oil-cooled hydraulic 42-inch
disc brakes bring it to a halt
OLDER BROTHER: Today’s 797
grew from the 793C, pictured here
top photograph courtesy of suncor
I’ve been a passenger in a full load at 64 kilometres per hour. You imagine putting your
house in the back of a pickup truck and driving along; it’s quite a feeling.”
To put it another way: imagine carting 1.4
million pounds zooming with you on your
drive to work.
The good news is the brakes work just fine.
At Caterpillar’s vehicle testing site in Arizona,
Davis watched a fully loaded truck travelling
at that speed “stop on a dime.” It’s no surprise:
each wheel is backed by 10 to 15, 42-inch
brake discs. They’re cooled by a computer
system that pumps more than 1,000 gallons
of oil per minute through the coolers and the
brake discs.
In fact, driving the 797 isn’t that different
from operating a much smaller vehicle, and
is a favourite with operators, says Davis. After
all, at its heart, it’s just a big old two-passenger,
two-door dump truck with rear-wheel-drive.
“It’s like driving your car,” he says again.
Yeah, right, and your car usually has 70 elephants in the back. www.finning.ca
Have an
Ice Day
In February and March, a fleet
of Cat machines plows a 600-km
strip of ice, hoping that -27°C
holds on a little longer
STORY BY JASON UNRAU
uring winter in southern
Canada, icy roads call for an
overdose of rock salt to tame
slippery conditions, but in the Northwest
Territories, ice is a good thing for transportation. In fact, for 1,400 kilometres of seasonal overland routes, the ice becomes the
road and the more ice, the better.
Welcome to the world of frozen highways, constructed with a flurry of activity
and a fleet of heavy equipment. When the
mercury bottoms out, winter roads link
many communities that would otherwise
be inaccessible. But they also open up a vital
industry route between Yellowknife and the
diamond mines to the north.
In February, if you hang an abrupt and
rather unceremonious left off Highway 4,
some 68 kilometres northwest of Yellowknife, you’ll find yourself on the longest
ice road in the NWT. Before it closed for
the 2007 season, the Tibbitt-to-Contwoyto
Winter Road snaked its way across nearly
www.finning.ca
600 kilometres of frozen lakes and over
64 portages, places where the road crosses
rocky islands or frozen arms of land between the water bodies. It’s a private road,
built in a joint venture among the handful
of mines along its length.
For an average of 10 weeks per year this
opaque, windswept trail provides a lifeline
to four diamond mines operating in the
territory’s remote and unforgiving barren-lands. “When this road was first built,
a heavy season was 760 loads. In the ‘92,
‘93 era, we thought that was a big deal. Last
year I think it was 11,600 loads,” says John
Zigarlick, chairman of Nuna Logistics, the
company that the joint venture partners
hire to construct, maintain and manage
the road each year.
Zigarlick’s involvement with the road
began in 1983 when he was president of
Echo Bay Mine Ltd. The mine required an
economical way to get machinery and supplies to its Lupin gold mine. Back then,
without the luxury of GPS and radar to determine ice thickness, Zigarlick and his crew
drilled holes every two or three kilometres
to test the ice. With thousands of big rigs
laden with heavy equipment and fuel driving to and from mine sites today, the thickness must be monitored with pinpoint
precision.
“We use ground penetration radar, a
new innovation,” says Zigarlick. “It’s actually getting quite sophisticated now.”
Road builders start reconnaissance of the
route in mid-December. After they profile
the ice road using amphibious Haglunds,
flooding begins. The goal is to remove the
insulating layer of snow and build the ice to
a uniform thickness.
Of course, Cat equipment is involved, in
two stages; first D4 and D6 dozers maintain
the land portages prior to ice road construction. Second, when the ice road reaches sufficient thickness (about 70 centimetres),
the heavy 140H, 140G and 14G graders are
Easy does it: A curve on approach to a
portage helps redirect the under-ice wave
roads to nowhere: Summer aerial views
of portages, such as this one, look like roads
cut randomly across deserted islands
put into play to keep the laneways smooth
and snow-free. Snow piling up on the ice
road can be a real hazard, compromising ice
thickness and strength. Many of Nuna’s offhighway plow trucks are likewise powered
with Cat engines.
Meet Tony Mecir, Finning’s mining account manager, whose job it is to look after
the provision and maintenance of Cat equipment for De Beers and Tahera mine sites and
Nuna Logistics. When ice road construction
swings into high-gear in mid-January, Mecir
is on his toes to ensure the 150-person crew,
stationed at three camps along the route, is
equipped with fully-functioning machinery.
If something breaks down, Mecir must dispatch either a repair crew or, in the worst-case
scenario, break down a 100,000-pound Cat to
ready it for Hercules aircraft transport.
“The biggest challenge is having the machines shipped to very, very remote locations
where you have no access roads and you have
tight time constraints,” Mecir says. “So you’re
basically at the mercy of the airlines, the people who have the Hercs.” And preparing for
such a dispatch is no small task. One or two
mechanics are required to disassemble a
machine in Edmonton for transport and a
similar amount of time and man-power is
necessary on the receiving end to put it back
together again.
“When the ice road is not there, it’s the
only way to get this equipment to site,”
added Mecir. “It’s not uncommon to spend
$50,000 to $100,000 to get a machine into
site, depending on where it’s going.”
Breakdowns can range from the mundane
to the unbelievable as frigid temperatures occasionally dip down to -70°C, testing the resolve of the heaviest iron.
“You will see raw steel break and crack,
grader blades will break, motor grader draw
bars will crack and break in half,” says Mecir.
No matter the temperature, Mecir and the
Finning techs service the equipment.
Road building commences from three
camps along the route – Dome Lake, Lockhart Lake and Lac de Gras – simultaneously.
According to Zigarlick, if construction were
done in an end-to-end fashion, it would be
www.finning.ca
www.finning.ca
cial burden is shared by members of the
joint venture based on total tonnage divided by the amount of loads and distance
travelled. Other businesses, not part of the
venture, are charged on a cost-per-ton/
kilometre schedule. Last season, a total of
330,000 tons were transported and as of
the start of the 2008 season, Madsen expects truckers to deliver 300,000 tons of
equipment and supplies; among the cargo
are Finning’s Caterpillar machines – crucial
to sustaining the NWT’s burgeoning mining sector.
mid-January, Tahera, owner of the Jericho
mine, filed for bankruptcy protection citing insufficient funds to continue its operations. “It’s a very small percentage player in
the road,” says Erik Madsen, Nuna’s director
of winter road operations for the joint venture. Last season, he says, Jericho accounted
for just 500 of the 11,000-plus loads. “Most
likely we’ll stop the road at Lac de Gras this
year, making it 180 kilometres shorter than in
previous seasons.”
Madsen was unwilling to disclose the
cost of the ice road but would say the finan-
Of ice and diamonds
The Tibbitt-to-Contwoyto Winter Road serves Canada’s northern diamond mines.
no
rth
west
Jericho Mine, Tahera: When Nunavut’s first diamond mine opened, it employed 180 people. Its primary
backer, Tiffany & Co, forecasted
an average annual production
Contwoyto
of 375,000 carats, but
Lake
Tahera filed for bankruptcy protection in January.
nu
na
te
vu
rr
t
ito
ri
es
Lac
de Gras
Ekati Diamond Mine, BHP Billiton:
Since opening for production in
1998, this open pit mine has
produced over $1 billion
in rough diamonds and
employs 850 people.
Mackay
ad
er Ro
Wint
yellowknife
Diavik Diamond Mine,
Diavik/Aber: This mine has grossed $100 million
annually in sales, since it
opened in 2003. It produces
approximately eight million carats annually and employs 700 people.
Lake
Tibb
itt t
o C
ontw
oyt
o
impossible to complete the job on schedule.
Weather permitting, the road reaches optimal thickness of approximately 107 centimetres about five weeks into construction,
opening up the lifeline for the heaviest gross
vehicle weights, as much as 194,000 pounds,
to be dispatched.
There’s a stream of big rigs heading to and
from the mine sites that includes road maintenance crews plowing snow from two lanes
(a primary inbound one and a secondary
return express lane for empty rigs) and a security team monitoring traffic and speeds. Activity on the Tibbitt-to-Contwoyto ice-way is
a delicate ballet of not-so-delicate machinery.
Inbound rigs are released from Yellowknife
four at a time every 20 minutes and must stay
500 metres apart and travel at speeds between
25 km/hr to 50 km/hr.
“There are certain parts where the speed
would be lower depending on the depth of
the lake and thickness of the ice,” says Nuna’s
Alan Fitzgerald, senior superintendent for
the winter road. “Certainly, controlling truck
speed is a critical factor in order to maintain
the ice integrity.”
Moving any faster can cause the ice to
blow apart. Moving vehicles cause a wave to
form on the underside of the ice, in front of
the wheels. Ice breaks can occur if the truck
overtakes the wave moving underneath, or if
the wave hits the land portage and is deflected
back into the unfrozen lake water under the
ice with too much force.
Despite the inherent risks, played up in
the History Channel’s popular television series Ice Road Truckers, the safety record of the
ice road is solid. Since the road’s beginning,
one person has died – succumbing to heart
failure after hitting the freezing water when
he plunged through the ice in 1983.
“I was a little browned off about that television series,” says Zigarlick of the History
Channel’s treatment of what has been a historically safe construction venture. Since the
series aired, the joint venture partnership has
opted out of participating in future episodes.
The partnership between Echo Bay Mines
Ltd., BHP Billiton, and Diavik Diamond
Mines Inc. recently lost a fourth member. In
Great Slave
Lake
Snap Lake, De Beers: Production
began in late 2007 at this newest
diamond mine in the NWT. De Beers
expects to produce 1.4 million carats
annually and employs 500 people.
Count On Us
In the year 2083
Finning has met industry challenges for
the last fifteen decades. We salute our
loyal customers and look forward to
providing great people, great solutions
and great results for years to come.
www.finning.ca
LIMITED TIME ONLY -
75TH ANNIVERSARY MERCHANDISE
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Everyday Heroes

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