Page 177 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

When a paver goes down, the clock starts ticking.
– Rich Poppoff, equipment superintendent, DeSilva-Gates
DeSilva-Gates was the last of the big contractors to switch over. They were loyal Cedarapids users for years. But when BOMAG bought out Cedara- pids in 2013 and started making changes, things began going downhill fast. “We were out in Tra- cy with two brand-new [Cedarapids] pavers—at $600,000 apiece—and they kept breaking down,” says Rich Poppoff, DeSilva’s equipment super- intendent. “I was the guy out there every night telling them we’re going to run these pavers be- cause they’re brand new. Normally we could get them back up and running again, but these were catastrophic failures, pull-them-off-the-freeway, four-nights-in-a-row failures. We probably lost $150,000 over those four nights because when a paver goes down the clock starts ticking. You’ve got about half an hour before Caltrans rejects that load of asphalt. And you’ve got other trucks lined up waiting. So it’s thousands of dollars a minute if a paver goes down.”
Top to bottom: Rich Poppoff/L during paver training; DeSilva’s Cat AP1055F paver; DeSilva’s Cat paver with Weiler MTV machine
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