Page 173 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong
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the go-to guys when we have questions or con- cerns. And we always end up with a competitive advantage because our equipment is better than the competition.”
SWITCHING TO CAT
Today, OC Jones’ paving fleet is all Cat. But it wasn’t always so. For over fifty years, they were loyal Blaw-Knox users. “We started having issues with the track system on our Blaw-Knox pavers,”
says Frisk. “Their tracks were kind of an exotic sys- tem. They had rubber bands all hooked together, and sometimes they’d snap, and the track would break right in the middle of a freeway job.That was a big problem and very expensive. About that same time, Caterpillar was coming in with their pavers, so we started looking at them. They worked well. They had the support we needed. Plus, they had laser controls and Blaw-Knox didn’t. So we ended up switching to Cat.”
Al Hodson, Peterson’s paving salesman, worked hard to get OCJ to switch. It finally happened in June 2001 on an overlay job along I-880 in Hay- ward. “They were using a front extension screed on their Cat paver. As the job progressed, the screed plates were wearing quicker than normal. So, to eliminate downtime, Peterson supplied a second screed with new plates they could trade out as needed. When theirs wore out, we’d have one ready to go. We’d fix theirs while they were using ours. Eventually, they turned over their whole pav- ing fleet to Caterpillar.”
    O.C. Jones paved the last section of the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge over Labor Day weekend 2013
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