Page 335 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

I’ve worked for a lot of different programs and places in the world. Peterson definitely stands alone. It’s the amount of effort they’re willing to put out to go the extra mile for the customer.
– Craig Bolton, Traverse operator, 2012-13; current product support supervisor, Peterson Trucks, Redmond
Craig Bolton at McMurdo Station, the last piece of solid ground on the journey to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station
By the end of the 2012-2013 season, Bolton was ready for some normal. When he got back home, he checked in at Peterson’s Redmond store where he’d worked before the economy took a nose- dive. Within a week, Bolton was back in a field truck. Several months later, Duane Doyle Jr. ran into Bolton during his rounds through Oregon as the product support sales manager. “I’d heard he was back from the Antarctic and I wanted to hear his story.” The two went out for a beer. Junior had no agenda. Bolton did. He’d spent plenty of cab- time on the Traverse thinking about product im- provements and what ifs. “I told Duane of some contracts coming up that Peterson would be very welled suited for. Then I gave him the phone num- ber of the guy in charge.” Duane Jr. made the call. It was January 2014.
What the contractor wanted were large rub- ber-tracked Challengers capable of pulling 100- tons of diesel fuel and supply sleds over long dis- tances in the frigid cold. They’d already put their first-generation machines out on the ice. Based on that experience they had a whole laundry list of improvements they wanted to make. But first they needed to find the right partner. “When I took that call from Duane I was very interested in his willingness to try new things,” says Tim Thom- as, the Traverse operations manager at the time. “The dealer that had done the earlier machines didn’t want to make any changes. They thought the original design was just fine. But they hadn’t
THE US ANTARCTIC PROGRAM
The National Science Foundation manages the US Antarctic Program, which includes managing facil- ities, infrastructure, and a contractor charged with operating three Antarctic research stations, two research vessels, and many seasonal field camps. The three US Antarctic research facilities include McMur- do Station, located on Ross Island; Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, located at 90 degrees South;
and Palmer Station, located on Anvers Island west
of the Antarctic Peninsula. Each station is located
in a unique environment, allowing a broad range
of scientific research to be conducted across the US Antarctic Program. The South Pole Traverse is the primary means of providing fuel to the South Pole for operational needs. Three round trips from McMur-
do Station are made each austral summer season, between October and February.
—from www.usap.gov
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