Page 360 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

SERVICE AROUND THE CLOCK
The service side of Peterson’s product support was key to Kiewit’s up-time on the dam. With hun- dreds of pieces of heavy equipment on the job, and round-the-clock coverage, Peterson’s Chico store had its hands full. For the first several months, Milt Taylor was Peterson’s point man in Chico, fielding all Kiewit calls. “I had the phone stuck to my ear for the first six months until they start- ed building relationships with the people in our store. Then they started calling them direct. And no matter what they asked, the answer was always, ‘No problem. We’ll take care of it.’ Because no is not in our vocabulary.”To be able to offer that kind of support, Chico got extra help from other stores in the Peterson network. “We still had all our reg- ular customers to take care of. So it was Peterson as a whole, working as a unit that pulled this thing together,” says Taylor.
machines all across the 210-acre jobsite. Peterson assigned two resident techs to Kiewit to help with warranty and proprietary issues and things Kiew- it’s temporary shop was not set up for. “Typically, we would do all the diagnostics and the difficult repairs,” says Taylor. “We did engine overhauls, transmission overhauls, and component overhauls because their shop was not equipped for that. Our resident field technician, Don Roush, would do those onsite or send them to the Chico shop. It’s all about up-time, getting the equipment running as quickly as possible and keeping it running.”
Roush was onsite from the beginning, working six days a week for most of Kiewit’s contract. Pe- terson field tech Sam Wheeler covered the night shift. Both men logged far more than 8- to 10- hour shifts. Together, they were Peterson’s con- stant presence on the job—welcomed, revered, and relied upon. “We didn’t look at them as Cat mechanics or outsiders,” says Shockman, “even though they had Peterson written on the side of their trucks. They’re just another one of the team. They did the exact same work as the Kiewit me- chanics—everything from helping out on inspec- tions to troubleshooting equipment to tearing stuff apart. But they did have different service materials than we did because Cat’s not going to give deal- er services to customers. That’s understandable. So we leaned on them for their expertise and advise when we needed it. They’re Cat.”
The Oroville job was an eye-opener for everyone. It’s still the tallest earth-filled dam in the United States. According to Nipar, “It was so big that it took half an hour just to drive from one side of the job to the other. I’ve never seen so many ma- chines before in my life at one construction site. I got calls from the customer any time of the day or night. When they’re up, you’re up. When they need something, you go.” During the immediate aftermath of the incident, Nipar was on-call with Dutra while they dredged out the river. “Their ma- chines were on pontoons out on the river, so you got your tools and the field techs, and you hopped
Peterson field tech, Don Roush, played a vital role on Kiewit’s spillway project
Kiewit had a crew of 21 technicians at the dam to do most of their maintenance and basic repairs. Much of it was done in a giant shop tent set up on containers near the top of the dam. However, service trucks often dispatched out to downed
358 | PETERSON: 85 YEARS AND GOING STRONG