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- [00:01]
Bill Witt
This Dirt Talk episode is with Rod Bol, who is the CEO of Komatsu North America. He leads a team of thousands building and supporting machines that move dirt, mine resources, and keep our world moving. Starting as an analyst, he worked his way through other OEMs, eventually landing at Komatsu with their acquisition of Joy Global in 2017. He officially took over as CEO of Komatsu North America in 2025. I really look forward to sitting down with Rod. It's awesome. I've spent quite a few years trying to get some recognition from the OEMs, and to have Komatsu in the studio is a pretty big deal. His past is awesome. How he rose through the ranks to that top position is as cool as it gets. We had a great conversation and I hope you enjoy it Here it is.
- [01:07]
Rod Bol
Cool.
- [01:07]
Bill Witt
Well, super excited to have you.
- [01:10]
Rod Bol
Thank you.
- [01:11]
Bill Witt
Where'd you, where'd you start your career? Did you go to school?
- [01:15]
Rod Bol
I did, yeah. I went to Eastern Illinois University. During that time, I worked for a company called Menards Lumberyard. Sure. So worked full time, went to school full time, got a business degree.
- [01:27]
Bill Witt
Okay.
- [01:28]
Rod Bol
Was actually married with my high school sweetheart, so went to school together. And after school, when looked at opportunities, there were seven in Chicago and one in Peoria, Illinois, which is where I'm from, that area. And that was with Caterpillar. So actually went to work for them right out of school.
- [01:46]
Bill Witt
Okay. Was that. Did you grow up around that at all?
- [01:50]
Rod Bol
Yeah, I grew up in Canton, Illinois and Pekin, Illinois, between those two towns mostly. And my family has equipment. They have a tree removal company, they do municipal contracts and residential removal and kind of grew up around the equipment. They'd buy old trucks, we tear them down to the frame and then build a log loading unit out of it or an aerial unit. They buy an aerial unit from somewhere. So really kind of grew up greasing the trucks and working the ground crew in high school and then went away to the college and had to have a job to pay for it. So that's when I worked in the lumber yard. But always around equipment, always around the work, and knew when I graduated that's the side of the industry I wanted to be in. Yeah. All the interviews in Chicago were more consultant based type roles, analyst type roles. And it didn't appeal to me as much as getting into the work and getting into infrastructure, equipment and hands on. Sure. Even though I was doing a professional role, I still love the industry growing up around it.
- [02:56]
Bill Witt
Well. And in the Midwest to people that haven't really Been around that area. Like the equipment manufacturers are a big deal. You've got Komatsu, you've got Caterpillar, you've got John Deere, you've got pnh, you know, kind of quote unquote up the road like these, all these very historic American manufacturers are all in this one spot. And most everybody I feel like in that area has either worked for one of them, has family members that have worked for them like their dad worked for them back in the day. Like it's, it's a very, it's a very close knit world. Like you're either, I feel like you're working for the manufacturers or you're farming or you're probably doing both. 100 a lot of people do both.
- [03:37]
Rod Bol
Or you work for a supplier or a supplier that supplies all three of those manufacturers because there's a lot of local skilled trades that actually cover all three manufacturers or two. So it's not like they're unique in that way. They've got, you know, requirements for platforms or if you look at catwalks, sheet metal, just the basic type of fabrications where you want to keep your logistics down to a minimum. All of them will kind of look at the same supply base and evaluate whether they could support them or not.
- [04:09]
Bill Witt
Sometimes people reach out to me. They're like, yeah, my family's business, they make like seat belts for that machine. You should come by. I'm like, yeah, you know, I don't know, maybe one day I will come by. But you know, I don't know if that's the priority right now. But I appreciate it. That's, that's important. 100 but yeah, you've got. A lot of them are family businesses still just making seat belts or seats or this window for XYZ machines or whatever it is. It is pretty cool.
- [04:37]
Rod Bol
It's super cool. I have family members that make parts for all three manufacturers.
- [04:41]
Bill Witt
That's cool. That's really neat. So going to a company like cats not, it's not unusual in that area. A lot of people go to cat.
- [04:50]
Rod Bol
Yeah. Same with, with Komatsu John Deere. I think it's a very attractive job in that area. There's, there's really not a lot of options outside of health care, education and manufacturing.
- [05:03]
Bill Witt
Sure.
- [05:05]
Rod Bol
So from that perspective it's, it's sort of a natural if, if you're around equipment or around dirt work, it's a natural interest for many people.
- [05:14]
Bill Witt
When you get into the equipment world, what's your focus or what does it become?
- [05:20]
Rod Bol
For me Specifically I actually came in as an analyst. So interestingly enough, didn't want to go to Chicago to work in a consulting firm, but came in in a commercial role where I analyzed all the parts pricing. So had drivetrain, undercarriage and hardware and did the studies. You go look at what's the value, how do you bring a system together, how do you price out all the components within a system? Then I went from that to machine pricing and that was a lot of fun. And that was in mining. And once you get into mining, every single deal is done one time only. And so you get intimately involved with these global deals, even one off deals on a global level. So you get to know the dealer base, the customer base very well, what are their needs, how do you tie in warranty and commitments around components, consignment, even just the attachments and the configurations, how do you tie all that together to create value for the customer? So I feel like that was one of those really important roles to understand how the business comes together in the field at a customer level. And then from there I actually became a body sales engineer for their truck group. So I traveled the world going to mine sites to look at the loading tools, look at the application, look at the trucks, and built out the process for how you spec out a truck box. Which to most people seems pretty simple. But there's actually a fair bit of science that goes into what's the thickness of the liner package, where do you put the liner package, how do you minimize the weight but maximize the protection and the longevity. Sure did that for a few years. And that was a lot of fun in, in mining.
- [07:03]
Bill Witt
I think that's one of the biggest differences is the equipment is treated completely differently than it is in construction. Like the packages are much bigger, they're tailor made for specific operations over a certain amount of time. And then you have like one of the biggest differences is just maintenance within mining because oftentimes what, whatever that machine is hauling, say oil, sand or copper, it's worth more. Like you don't want that truck down unexpectedly because there's so much money being carried in the back of that truck that just like the economics are, are a lot different. So you, you have to bring in your machines at certain intervals. Like contractors should do that a civil contractor, like Ideally you're every 250 hours, whatever it is, doing your, your maintenance intervals. But, but in mining it's like, or it should be at least probably not always around the world, but it's, it's just a lot more serious.
- [08:02]
Rod Bol
100%. Because it's like money. Exactly. It's. It's a marriage. When an OEM builds a relationship with a customer and they put that piece of equipment or that fleet in, they're going to maintain it for 20, sometimes 30 years depending on what the piece is.
- [08:16]
Bill Witt
Yeah.
- [08:17]
Rod Bol
And with that comes the ability to support it. Whether that's training the technicians, putting the parts on the ground, actually maximizing each component's life, but then balancing the component lives so that when you down the machine, it's a plan down, you get through the entire machine, get it back to work with the shortest amount of lead time possible for while that machine is parked for its outage. So the coordination that's required is extraordinary. You have to have amazing people on the ground that are completely tied in with the customer. They understand what the customer's planning and they have the flexibility to move because it's very common as well for them to move their outages in and out depending on where they are with production. So the knowledge required between the two parties is at an all time high.
- [09:06]
Bill Witt
And, and you have to be really good. There's just not a lot of wiggle room in mining and in a production based environment when it's predicated on 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. When you're working in a world that doesn't stop, you have to keep up. And if you don't keep up there's problems 100%. And so you have to operate at a really high standard to even be at the table.
- [09:34]
Rod Bol
I feel like you're right on it. Selling a piece of equipment, I'm going to call it quasi easy to do.
- [09:40]
Bill Witt
Yeah.
- [09:41]
Rod Bol
But maintaining winning that second and third fleet, that's where the magic is. It's the commitment that you have have as a service provider and an OEM that the mine has the parts when they need the parts. They have the technical capability on the ground to make that machine work at its maximum production level. So it's, it's a ongoing, it's a day to day ongoing challenge for all parties to make sure we're aligned on what those needs are and we keep the equipment running.
- [10:10]
Bill Witt
It is. It's also cool going into the truck boxes and then even the loading tools. How again because of the money and because of how long these machines sit in one spot. They're tailored typically to the operation. Whatever they're hauling is how you design that truck bed. Or especially like I'm jumping ahead a little bit. But when I was touring the Texas plant. It was cool because every bucket being built for the loaders, this one's going to Peru, this one's going to iron ore and Western Australia. And so because it's going here, here are the differences to this one. This one's in copper at high altitude and within this, you know, this, this rock, it's really abrasive. So we need a tougher wear package here. Whereas these, this group, it's, it's not as tough. So they can get away with a lot less and they prefer to just get more volume even if the bucket's wearing a little bit more. And it's like, wow, to the untrained eye, like a truck is a truck. A truck bed's a truck bed. There's no, it's like, what's the difference between that and that? Or that bucket, that bucket, that bucket. But then you start to get into the intricacies of all this and it's like this is really well thought out.
- [11:24]
Rod Bol
100% beyond the truck box. As you pointed out, it's just sized for the mine based on their material density. The bucket for the loader is as well. So if you take the we 2350, it's the largest wheel loader in the world. Over 80 ton capacity. The bucket size, if you're in coal, it's 88 cubic yards. If you're in iron ore, it's 50 cubic yards. So the variation in the size is huge.
- [11:50]
Bill Witt
Yeah, yeah. And yeah, it's all, and it's all economics too, because I, I put stuff on the Internet from time to time and without, without fail when I post anything about mining, they're like, why don't they just use a bigger loader? Why don't they just use 2350s everywhere? Or why don't they just use 9 80s everywhere? Like just use bigger trucks? It's like that's not always, that's not always cost effective. Like there, there's, there's different tools for different applications and then each mine is different. And so you could have copper here and copper right next door. You could be in the same, technically the same ore body with two different approaches. Just because of the scales different or the mining company is different or just the, the, the, like the, the life cycle of the mine is different. There's all these variations. So I'm always snarky to the people on the Internet. I'm like, yeah, you're right. The multi, multi, multi, multi, multi billion dollar mining company didn't run those numbers. You figured out Something that they didn't. So you should start a mining company. You have this figured out, man. You could make so much money, get after it. But there's just, there's just, there's. There's so much sophistication to it, which I love. Like, the more I learn about it, the more, the more I'm enamored by this world that keeps our whole world moving. Like, I talk a lot about infrastructure. Construction is important, but without materials, natural resources, nothing happens in the world. Nothing.
- [13:25]
Rod Bol
Yeah. I think for many of us when we join the industry, we're looking at it as a job that's probably fun. Maybe it pays good or okay, it's not a Wall street job, so it's not going to fill the wallet as fast as many other industries. But the purpose that I think all of us in the industry share is supporting modern life and recovering and uncovering all those natural resources that make it possible. I think that's what makes it fun. When you come to a mine expo or a con expo and you're there together as an industry, whether that's your, your peer, competitors, industry partners, or even customers, we're all there to do the same thing. We want to build roads, we want to build buildings, want to build bridges, we want to make modern life possible, create power. And it's a lot of fun. It's sort of a unifying element of our industry.
- [14:17]
Bill Witt
Yeah, well, and that's why I'm so passionate about getting the word out about these industries. Because I think people on the street, they think mining, it either doesn't exist anymore or it's facilitated by these people in these evil layers somewhere with maybe like underneath a volcano or something like that that are sitting there rubbing their hands together like, yes, this field of flowers and butterflies. There's a lot of money underneath, so let's get it. And it's like, I don't know, maybe there's people like that in the world. I haven't met them though. I've met a lot of people in mining. They're all like, no, we're just here to produce what society needs and make a little bit of money to support our families along the way. Like, and we're proud of what we do. And that's why I've had a little. I think the narrative has started to come back. But for a while there, it was like every mining company, you'd go to their website and it was all. All about flowers and stuff like that. It's like, well, but you're a mining company. Like, show me what you do. You. The whole business is pulling stuff out of the ground. Like, why. Why aren't we talking about that? Because without that, no one can live at all. So, like, the industry kind of. Because it got so beat up, like, shied away from that, now it's coming back, which I really appreciate, and it needs to be back. But it's just. It's funny. The. If you pull. Like, if we went outside and polled 10 people walking by what they think of mining, it would probably be one of those two things. Like, we still do that. Really. They would have the picture of, like, the 1915 coal miner in West Virginia is, like, probably. Or somebody panning for gold, like the Gold rush shovel or. It's the worst thing ever. We need to stop it in every way. While they're driving on aggregate roads, while they're in a house built with concrete and steel and metal wired by copper, while they're on their phone with. With silica and with. With iron and everything imaginable within it. That, again, came from. Came from mines. As you. As you get into mining, you're. You're traveling a lot, I take it?
- [16:32]
Rod Bol
Yes. I had the opportunity through multiple companies to kind of travel the world and meet minors on almost every continent.
- [16:40]
Bill Witt
What, like, you're at this point, what, still a young man, like, 20s, early 30s, like mid-40s?
- [16:49]
Rod Bol
Yeah.
- [16:50]
Bill Witt
Well, no, no, no, no.
- [16:50]
Rod Bol
Oh, when I started.
- [16:52]
Bill Witt
Yeah.
- [16:52]
Rod Bol
Yeah. Early 20s, 24. Yeah.
- [16:55]
Bill Witt
Like, at least for me, it's been. Traveling has been one of the best educations I could have ever asked for. Maybe the best education I've ever.
- [17:03]
Rod Bol
I agree.
- [17:04]
Bill Witt
How. How was that, as a young individual going? Like. Like, Peoria, Illinois, is a. It's not like a booming metropolis.
- [17:14]
Rod Bol
No, not at all. And I didn't even live in Peoria proper. I lived in the little towns around it. My first flight ever was for work.
- [17:21]
Bill Witt
Okay.
- [17:22]
Rod Bol
Yeah. To West Virginia. We went out, actually, to. To go to the coal mines. That was my first flight of my life, and it was an experience in itself. West Virginia is a very different culture than Illinois. What I grew up with, and I think there's certain things you learn that the world is vastly different, and it opens your mind to a lot of things. But I would say the biggest takeaway I had then, and it continues on to this day, is how much commonality and similarity there is for the people in our industry. Globally, mines are generally not near a city. Salt Lake being probably one of the exceptions in North America. Most of the mines are hours away from A metro area. And they're in small towns, and the people there are hardworking. They do shift work. They're getting up in the middle of the night to get ready, go to work, pull a big shift. And it's a tough way of life. That hard work is consistent globally. And I think it opens your mind up and your view up that we're doing this. If you think about most of us, we're doing this to not just better what we do here in the US but really how do we supply the world's needs in the industry, specifically in mining and that coordination. You meet these global mining houses, they take that very sincerely. They give back in all these local communities because you hear the stories growing up and like you said, the perceptions. But then you see the schools that they build, the rec centers that they build for the communities, the training. One of the things I saw early on that really kind of blew my mind is something I wouldn't have never thought about in Peoria, Illinois, is they have simulators to teach someone how to drive a vehicle. Like, we grow up, we all learn how to drive in driver's ed in high school. There are people in a mine in Central Africa that have never been in a vehicle or never driven a vehicle. They've ridden a bike.
- [19:22]
Bill Witt
Sure.
- [19:23]
Rod Bol
So just getting the basics of safety, how to operate that vehicle, how to shut it down, how to brake, just the very simple things that we take for granted. It was interesting to see that and see how much excitement when someone comes out of the simulator and they've done a good job and they're ready to go operate this piece of equipment. The amount of pride it strikes me is that pride of doing the hard work, taking on the challenge, is very consistent with what all of our skilled trades people do in the US as well. So I think that kind of opened up my mind to how the rest of the world runs. And there are many things that we take for granted every day. But there are also these sort of common beliefs, common senses of purpose that are fun to go experience. And you bring back some stories of just crazy things that you've seen at the mine site. You see a group of guys standing there with AK47s and you say, hey, can I get a picture with one of those? And he hands it to you.
- [20:27]
Bill Witt
Sure.
- [20:28]
Rod Bol
I have one of those pictures. I don't think a person in the US would have handed me their AK47.
- [20:35]
Bill Witt
I definitely don't think so. The top question I'm asked is, what does Bill Witt do? Our purpose is to build the dirt world's next generation. The dirt world is the companies and people building the critical infrastructure and supporting those who build our critical infrastructure that we need to live the lives that we do. Our business is much bigger than me. I run around the world building art brand. But the business itself does two things. One, we help develop the next generation through our product called billwhit improve. It's a daily training and development platform at about 300 civil construction companies are using to not just make their people better workers, but better people. And of course, we have the 2026 Ariat dirt world summit, the best opportunity to develop yourself and your teams as leaders. So check us out. Billwhit.com, book a meeting with us and we'll talk to you soon. I've noticed that, too. I actually wrote about it in my newsletter. It was published today. Funny enough that. That everybody. That's the question always. People always ask, like, so what are the differences? And I'm like, what's been most surprising is how similar it is. I can be in. In. I mean, we went to these mines in Indonesia that were like, way out there way. And I was. We stayed in this town outside of this coal mine, and I was running. I run everywhere I go. I mean, the whole town was watching me run because they were like, what's this guy doing here? This guy? And I don't. I don't really fit in no place like. Like rural Sumatra. But then you go to the mine, you're like, all right, how. You know, how good can this be? And you go there and you're like, this is just like, I'm in. I don't know, name your American state or Canada or Australia. Like, they're. Everybody here is. They're just. They're doing their jobs. They're professionals. They. They have this immense sense of pride, and they're really good at what they do. And it's like, wow. Even after as many years now as I've been traveling, it's like, I'm still surprised just at how similar people are. Humans are. No matter. I mean, it could be different religion, different socioeconomic background. They could be living in a house without even a concrete floor. And yet they're still proud of what they do, and they still want a better life for themselves and most importantly, their families. Yeah, that's it. And they kind of want to be left alone. Most everybody as well.
- [23:07]
Rod Bol
Agreed. And I think one of the things that's universal in mining is the focus on safety. And, you know, people will. They have these opinions without ever having gone, that maybe mining is more unsafe in these other countries.
- [23:20]
Bill Witt
Yeah.
- [23:21]
Rod Bol
But to your point, not only are the equipment and the facilities, the infrastructure world class, in many cases, their processes are as well. There's actually things that we learn all the time as a global company that we bring back to the U.S. we have 69 operating procedures in the field for safety. And most of those are learned from a global mining company somewhere in the world. Some here domestically, but some elsewhere. And I'm really proud of that because we're always elevating our standard based on what we see globally. And when we compare that to other industries, the mining safety record is incredibly good. It's upper echelon. We're oftentimes looking at recordable rates from 0.4 to 0.7 being very bad. And in many industries they're just trying to get to two.
- [24:10]
Bill Witt
Yeah. That's also been one of the most striking things, is just how safe these operations are.
- [24:15]
Rod Bol
It's.
- [24:15]
Bill Witt
I, I remember the first time I went to Chile, it was like that. I was like, how good can this be? And I go there, I'm like, whoa, this is extraordinary. Indonesia was like that. Saudi Arabia was like that. I was like, yes, this is gonna be like the wild, wild west. And you go there, you're like, this is more buttoned up than most mines I've been to in the States.
- [24:37]
Rod Bol
We share everything. We've done everything, we do all of our training for free when it comes to safety. And that doesn't have to be an end user customer. It can be an industry peer, a supplier. We're very free with it because when we look at safety, we think it's beyond a company. It's really about all of us helping share with the industry. And many of us actually think of ourselves as safety ambassadors and take it beyond the workplace. We take it home, we share it with a neighborhood. We see a guy weed eating without safety glasses and walk over and hand him a pair.
- [25:11]
Bill Witt
Sure.
- [25:12]
Rod Bol
And you get an awkward look. Sometimes you get a nasty comment back. But when we see the right thing, it's hard to look at the wrong thing and not do something about it.
- [25:22]
Bill Witt
Sure. What, what was a place you went early that was very surprising. Not necessarily in a bad way. It could be in a very good way.
- [25:32]
Rod Bol
But I think for me, Australia was probably the one that opened my eyes to safety and sort of that next standard. And this was 20 some years ago, so that was very interesting to me. Just the basics. I remember I was out there for maybe Two, three weeks. And by the third day I had actually burned the skin off the top of my ears because I just had a standard hard hat. And I noticed many of them had a full brim hard hat. And I eventually asked for one. And they wore long sleeves and they wore them everywhere for sun exposure. And I picked that up then. I still do it today when I work in my timber. I've got long sleeves, I've got the full brim hard hat to limit the sun exposure. So just kind of getting exposed to that next level standard. When I thought we were good, I saw better. So that was probably very interesting to me early on just to see how they operate. I think Africa was another one that was very eye opening at a pretty young age. Fell in love with the countryside, the wildlife, and have now had many trips and vacations even to Africa. I love it. And you know, like any country or series of countries, there are cities and areas that can be dangerous. But there are also wonderful scenery and people that you would never experience in the US So I think that kind of opens your mind up to while we have all these amazing things we can do here in this country. There's some pretty cool places in the world to go and teach your family. I spent about three weeks this summer with my family in Africa. And just watching my kids interact and learn and experience these things at very young age. I never got a chance to do that. It changes. It changes who you are. It changes your worldview.
- [27:26]
Bill Witt
I think that's partially why I really appreciate people in mining too is because most of them have lived around the world. And so like. Like Americans were. Most everybody you talk to in America has only worked in America. But then you talk to anybody in mining. Oh yeah. I spent a little bit of time in Western Australia. Then I went to South America. Then I did some time in South Africa, Did a little, you know, stint in Russia. It's like they've just been all over and there's this perspective that they have that it's like. It's hard to put my. The way I've explained it's like everything's kind of like black, white, gray. And then you start to get this new perspective through global travel. That's like you're adding color to life in a way is the best way I can explain it. Or it's making like life. It's taking life from 2D and it's giving this. It's some like three dimension. Like some. It makes it more like tactile is. I haven't found A good way to explain it.
- [28:20]
Rod Bol
I actually know exactly what you're saying. I think about it as a young guy and I still have a Polaris razor. I love the atv and I've got videos of me doing hill climbs when I was young. Like crazy hill climbs. When you watch the video, it doesn't look like anything because you can't appreciate the actual height, the slope, the speed, what's, what's there. But when you were there, it was just this incredible thing. Your adrenaline's running and you feel like, oh, that was amazing. Then you watch the video and it's like, yeah, it's interesting. So I, I agree. I think living it is a much different experience than being told or even watching it on a screen.
- [29:02]
Bill Witt
Sure. Yeah. So you do that and then you find your way to pnh, which was Joy Global.
- [29:13]
Rod Bol
Correct.
- [29:13]
Bill Witt
So Joy Global had at that point acquired pnh.
- [29:18]
Rod Bol
Yep. Well, so, yes, Joy Global was a convoluted history.
- [29:22]
Bill Witt
Yeah, there's a lot of steps involved.
- [29:24]
Rod Bol
Yeah, yeah.
- [29:24]
Bill Witt
So, but it was Joy Global.
- [29:26]
Rod Bol
It was Joy Global at the time. Yeah. I joined them in January of 2011. I followed one of my peers and very industry, very close friends from the industry followed him across to PNH. Joy Global @ the.
- [29:39]
Bill Witt
Time. And PNH at that point, still primarily.
- [29:43]
Rod Bol
Shovels. Yeah, they also joy mining as part of that business. So there's a very large soft rock underground business there as well. So early on though, I was just on the surface. So I came into their corporate office only for about 15 months, and they were asking if someone was interested in running the west region out of Elko, Nevada. And I had been to Elko many times over the years and I loved it. I'm an outdoors person and I thought, you know, I'm gonna give this a shot. So I went home and asked the boss and she was open to go check it out. We went out there in early June, it was the week of Elko Expo and it snowed up over the summit in Spring Creek. And she looks at me and says, it snows here in the summer. I'm like, I think it's pretty rare. And it was, it turns out that was the only time it snowed in that late in the year while we were there. But yeah, we moved out there and for pnh, ran the west region for a few years and just had a great experience. Running a service center is similar to being in just a third party dealer, but with all the support of a larger global organization. So you have access to all the experts, the engineers, the Training and just learned a tremendous amount. It was a amazing community to live in. Many people think of Elko as being really remote, which it is. But you have a lot of transient people that come in from all over the world, Many South Africans and Australians, and. And through that, you. You get exposure to a different mindset, like in the town. I think I shared this with you at dinner at the town. The speed limit's 25 mile an hour in town, and people not only adhere to it, and if someone walks up to the street, no matter if it's a crosswalk, center of the block, the minute someone walks up to the street, both sides of traffic immediately stop. And it's the mind influence over that town and over that culture. And so the culture has a greater sense of purpose. Not everybody is aligned on the purpose, but more. And that makes it a really fun experience. And one when you look at, like, being on the sports field with your kids or your customers kids or your competitors kids, and your coaching, and I literally had that experience. I coach my kids soccer team, all three of them. And one of the teams I had, the local cat dealer's son that I coached, his daughter ended up babysitting my kids, and I had a number of customer kids that were on my teams. And just building that relationship outside of work as part of that community was probably the most fun I've ever had in a community, because we're all there for a somewhat common.
- [32:28]
Bill Witt
Purpose. That's. And that's. I feel like I first felt that years ago, the first time I went to west Texas.
- [32:36]
Rod Bol
Actually.
- [32:37]
Bill Witt
Yeah. Not that west Texas is like the model of the perfect society. There's clear issues. But it's. It was interesting because it's like, oh, everybody's on the same operating system here. Like, everybody's. Everybody's here for the same reason, which. It gives it this. You have this, like, commonality between everybody. Or it's like going to a university and you see someone else, you know, wearing the. Whatever university. You have this, like, you have nothing really. You don't know this person. You could actually end up hating them. But, like, because you have the same shirt on, you're like, oh, we're in this together. Like, right. It's. It's interesting being in a physical location like that where, yeah, you have this common sense of purpose, especially in today's world. I feel like a lot of people are very disconnected from the world around them. But a place like Elko or even kind of around, like, Kennecott, you know, in Salt LAKE or like Fort McMurray, you know, you have these places that everybody there is there for one reason. Either they're working there or they're family members of those working there or they're working for suppliers that are serving those working there. And it's, it's just like this unique human experience with everybody on the same.
- [33:57]
Rod Bol
Page. Yeah, yeah, 100%. And if I think back on the communities I've lived in, whether it was Nevada or I was in east Texas, not west Texas, but it was a small town, is where Letourneau started their business or at least moved there in 1946. And that community's biggest, one of its biggest employers is the Komatsu factory, was letourneau. And it's very similar. There's a supply base that's in that community. The city very involved great, great city leaders that have been very supportive of that business. The local university was also started by letourneau. So there's a relationship there. So you have that same commonality and it makes it a lot of fun. When you have an open house at the factory, which we did. Many of those community members are all there and they all feel like they're part of it and they see these loaders that are the biggest loaders in the world and they're going anywhere in the world. So they're going to Australia, Africa, China, Latin America, so they're Canada. They're going everywhere from that base. So not only does the factory feel like they get to touch the world, some of those key industry or community members that are more associated with the factory, they feel like they're, they have a bigger stamp on the world. So it makes, it just makes it exciting and a lot of.
- [35:16]
Bill Witt
Fun. I've even felt that I, I have fallen in love with Australia and I've tried to figure out why and there's a few different reasons but like when you go to Perth, for example, it's, it is a big city, there's millions of people there. But it's, it's, it's. Australia is a resource driven economy. We're not. Resources are a very small part of our economy and the biggest resource of which is oil and gas that dominates. It's not extraction of really anything else. We do copper, gold, etc. But on a percentage basis, very small. But you go to Perth and like a big portion of the population is involved in mining in some capacity. And so no matter where you go in the city, there's going to be somebody with that, you know, you know, the.
- [36:06]
Rod Bol
Shirt. I've Got some.
- [36:07]
Bill Witt
Yeah. The shirts the Australians have with the high vis reflective stripes on it, that's either yellow, orange within a blue, a blue bottom half to it. You'll see those shirts everywhere. Everywhere. And in the whole town, there's just like the thumbprint of mining throughout this entire major city. And then you go to the airport, it's just like since it's flying, fly out, there's miners everywhere. And just like this whole giant city revolves around this one industry. And you even get the feeling there and, and even, even if you have nothing to do with mining, everybody knows that mining is. It's.
- [36:44]
Rod Bol
Important.
- [36:45]
Bill Witt
Right? Like, it feels almost like people are a little more grounded in a sense, because even if they've never been to a mine in the Pilbara, they know people that have been there and it's. It. Anybody that's in resource extraction, I feel like, is just more grounded, more connected to reality because they understand in a way how the world.
- [37:04]
Rod Bol
Works.
- [37:05]
Bill Witt
Or. I, I first saw this when I went. It was like one of the first gigs I had with some loggers in South Carolina. And I'm just like, I'm in the backwood. No, middle of nowhere, South Carolina. I'd never been to South Carolina in my life. And the first place I go is like the deep woods. And these guys, I mean, it's like deep South. These guys are speaking English, but like, you're not sure if it's English or not. Like every sentence is just one word. But these people, like growing up in a city, it's like these loggers, they're the ones destroying the environment. And then you go spend days with these. A week with these loggers and you're like, wait a minute. I've never met people that are more environmentally conscious than these people. And it's, it's because they depend on the environment to feed their families. Like, they spend, they spend more time in the woods than anybody in a city. They're like, they're more connected to nature, ironically. And they. That's how they feed their family. And sure, they're cutting this tract down, but then they're making sure this tract is growing. And then this one's growing even better and this one's growing even better. Like it's a sustainable resource. They want to sustain it because they know that's important. And it's just. That's another. I'm not here to just like love on the resource industries, but that's another reason why I love it so much is I feel like people are just more Connected to the world around them by working in.
- [38:30]
Rod Bol
It. Yeah, 100%. We obviously have a forestry business and get a chance to spend a lot of time with that industry. And what's amazing to me, and I heard one of them say this, but I actually relate to it. It makes sense to me. We can say we're going to save the environment by not eating vegetables, by not planting the soil and harvesting it and having erosion and all those things. But instead our choice as a society is we want those vegetables for the nutrients. We want to do it responsibly with as least environmental impact as possible. Forestry is no different. Their requirements for reforestation are very high. And when they look at harvesting they're looking at it in a sustainable way. And that's across all the US and Canada and if not the world. And so from that perspective I've experienced the same. They're incredibly environmentally conscious. But they also know that what they're doing is what makes all of us have a nice bed to sleep on or nice furniture to sit on. All the things that we need to run modern.
- [39:36]
Bill Witt
Society. Yeah, yeah. How much time did you spend focused on.
- [39:42]
Rod Bol
Shovels? Rope shovels? Yeah, rope shovels. Probably from 2011 through 2016. So maybe five.
- [39:51]
Bill Witt
Years. And was it, was it primarily. What is it? It's the 2800 and the.
- [39:55]
Rod Bol
4100. Those are the two primary models. Yes. We also make 1900s, 2100s for other markets. But in North America it's primarily the 2800 XPC. The 4100 XPC. And now we make a 4800 XPC which is population is growing pretty, pretty fast. That's a 135 tons per per pass. So it's.
- [40:16]
Bill Witt
A. It's.
- [40:16]
Rod Bol
Insane. It's an awesome machine for.
- [40:18]
Bill Witt
Sure. I've talked to Kudelco about it and they, they only have said good things about it. They're just like you have to see it. It's.
- [40:24]
Rod Bol
Extraordinary. Yeah. It'll three pass a 400 ton truck which is.
- [40:27]
Bill Witt
Great. That's a big machine. It is those. They have to be some of my favorite mining machines though. Rope shovels. They're just extraordinary pieces of equipment. And the fact that they're not hydraulically driven like they're essentially just using ropes for lack of better.
- [40:49]
Rod Bol
Term. Correct. With a 7200 volt trail cable hanging off the back. It's all electric.
- [40:54]
Bill Witt
Motors. There's.
- [40:55]
Rod Bol
Electric. Zero emissions at the face. It's. It's an amazing piece of equipment. And the technology is 100 years.
- [41:02]
Bill Witt
Old.
- [41:02]
Rod Bol
Yes. That's what's amazing to me. The. The motors get more efficient. I mean, we. We run AC motors in them now. There's regenerative technology. As we're going through this swing and braking phase, we're recovering that energy and putting it back into the machine to reduce the consumption of power. But, yeah, I mean, the basics of that machine are close to 100 years.
- [41:22]
Bill Witt
Old. Yeah, there's. I've done a lot of cool things at this point in my short time on earth, but, like, one of my life highlights is sitting in the Cabo 4100 and just I. I could sit there for 12 hours. And I know I don't do it every day, but the operators seem to enjoy it too. It's, It's. It seems monotonous to the untrained eye, but I. It's anything but. It's. It's. But just watching. Yeah, just the, the sound of the dipper rolling, you know, going, filling up. Yeah. And kind of the machine's shaking around a little bit. And then you swing over and you hear kind of the. The wine of the machine swing into the truck. And then the truck comes into view. And you're like, the truck looks small somehow. How does that truck look small right now? But it does. You're. You're peering over the truck, and then the, the kind of the, the. The clanking of the dipper opening and the kind of the, the cables kind of slapping together and the steel slapping together and the. The material dumps out the bottom there. And then the, the sound of the. The returning to dig. Like the whole thing is just intoxicating. Like, I feel like that's all we need to do to inspire the next generation for mining. Just put one at a time in the buddy seat of a 4100. Problem.
- [42:43]
Rod Bol
Solved. 100%. The thing about getting in, whether it's a hydraulic shovel, a rope shovel, or even a wheel loader, when you're in the pit and you see how dependent the entire operation is on the loading tool the trucks are. I think for most of us, as we enter the industry, it's like, oh, that's interesting. The truck is big, and you see it moving and you see, you know, whether it's 250 or 400 tons going down the road. So it's incredible just to see that. But when you understand how it starts with the loading tool and it's so dependent on how efficient that operator is. So your point about the operator, could it get it monotonous? But they're Actually filling that bucket and working the face even when they're not loading the truck so that when the truck comes in, they're ready to drop. And you'll see some that get just incredibly skilled and they can dual side.
- [43:34]
Bill Witt
Load. That's the.
- [43:35]
Rod Bol
Coolest. It is super cool. There's a mine in Nevada that's broke records for 4,001 hundreds because they're double side loading and they just have some world class.
- [43:45]
Bill Witt
Operators. Yeah. Well, and for people that. Can you explain double side loading for somebody that's never seen.
- [43:50]
Rod Bol
It? Yeah. So the shovel is positioned at the face. You'll have a truck coming cab side which is traditional. And then non cab side, you'll have another truck queuing while that truck's being loaded out. So they literally load out one truck. They swing over. Now they're loading out the other truck. Another truck is now backed in. So essentially that shovel has almost no downtime. It's just continuously feeding two.
- [44:14]
Bill Witt
Trucks. It's incredible to watch. Yeah, they have like the shovels have like a ball or something hanging off the back for the trucks to then spot themselves on the other side. Yeah. But the shovel never stops. It's just amazing. So you work with PNH and then Komatsu ends up buying Joy Global.
- [44:38]
Rod Bol
So. Correct. Well, I went from Nevada primarily working with the.
- [44:43]
Bill Witt
PNH2. Were you mostly in gold mines or were you that was just your.
- [44:47]
Rod Bol
Base? I had all the western U.S. so I had the PRB, the Powder River Basin coal fields, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Utah and I had both started it with just surface. We ended up acquiring mti, an underground hard rock company back in those days. So I got responsibility for our all hard rock underground, which in that time was primarily still water. Just a great company Sabanier.
- [45:13]
Bill Witt
Today. Yeah. And we still in.
- [45:15]
Rod Bol
Montana. Yeah, we do a lot of business with.
- [45:18]
Bill Witt
Them. I spent summers in Red.
- [45:19]
Rod Bol
Lodge. Oh.
- [45:19]
Bill Witt
Nice.
- [45:20]
Rod Bol
Yeah. Oh, that's a beautiful countryside. And you don't even know those mines are there because they're underground. You go all the way to the mine and your whole drive is beautiful scenery cabins. It's just a beautiful place. And then I also serviced and led the underground soft rock for us. So we had Trona Potash coal across the western US as well. Primarily based out of south of Salt Lake and price is Wellington is where our facility.
- [45:50]
Bill Witt
Is. And the prb. When did the PRB start to slow down? I know it's now picking back.
- [45:56]
Rod Bol
Up but like 15 years ago I think it started to trail off. And it's been a Pretty much a steady decline. It's leveled off now. And I think that the companies that are in there today Are doing a good job of maintaining cost structure. And it's really supply capacity is there for substantially more production. It's demand limited. So the supply is there. I think the technology, the expertise, the desire to do more is there. It's just really the demand side that's been a.
- [46:31]
Bill Witt
Roadblock. But it was like back in the day, that was the most booming mining market in America. The good old days of the prb. Like, the numbers they were putting up. When you go into charts, See the tonnage of what they were exporting, it's like they were doing what they were exporting. How.
- [46:49]
Rod Bol
Much? Yeah, they're a fraction of what they once were. I think they're about 256 million tons.
- [46:54]
Bill Witt
Roughly.
- [46:54]
Rod Bol
Ye. In terms of production. But, yeah, I was four times that.
- [46:58]
Bill Witt
Before. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you had single mines doing 100 million.
- [47:01]
Rod Bol
Tons.
- [47:01]
Bill Witt
Yeah. Wait, what? A lot of shovels there. And now, I mean, out west, gold is, like, just on a tear. And a lot of people, when they think Nevada, they think Vegas or they think aliens, which is there, are there, too, then. Most of Nevada, I feel like, Is like a military testing a military installation. Like, a large portion of Nevada Is dedicated to the United States military. And then you have a large portion of Nevada that's dedicated to gold, Primarily some silver and copper as well. But the amount of gold coming out of Nevada, it's like one of the biggest gold producers in the.
- [47:45]
Rod Bol
World. I feel like, oh, 100%. Yeah. And I mean, if you look at most of northern Nevada, all the way into some of the other states, Idaho and Utah as well. The bureau of land management has millions of acres of public land, and it's primarily uninhabited. I'll probably get this wrong, and maybe it's changed today, But Elko county is like the size of the state of New jersey. And it's just sort of the northeast county in the state. And there's maybe 50,000 people across all the towns that live there. So it's not very populated. And the ore bodies that are there, we're going to be uncovering for years to.
- [48:24]
Bill Witt
Come. That's.
- [48:25]
Rod Bol
Amazing. So it is exciting. It's a time where we see more mining investment. We see mining companies from all over the world Looking at how to expand there. And I think we'll continue to see growth. We're going to need labor in northern Nevada. I think that's been a challenge for 10 years because it is Sparsely populated, but for people that love the outdoors, there's probably no better playground. I've done 300 mile rides in my side by side on the Pony Express trail. It's still there. The Pony Express trail still runs across Nevada. And you can go see the ruins from when the young men would come across there. And they'd have a little campsite and a hitching post and you can just camp wherever you want. It's an amazing thing. So growing up in the Midwest, you don't have access to public land. Sure. But going out there, it's like one of the best kept.
- [49:18]
Bill Witt
Secrets. Well, I grew up in Arizona. It's the same thing. Like, you come to Tennessee and it's like, nah, we don't have public land. If you don't own it or you don't know somebody, nah, get out of here. But out west, you can almost go anywhere. It's extraordinary. Yeah, it's, it's. I've said this, like, I think the fly and flat model is completely underutilized in America. And I think that's in a large part the solution. Like, I would do fly and fly out. In another life, I would do fly and fly out. I wouldn't live in Marencia though. Like, personally, just having grown up in a city now, I'm not, I'm good. I'm not living in Miami. I'm not living in, you know, Arizona. I'm not living, I'm honestly, I'm not living in Elko. Like, I like visiting. I'm not living there. But then these whole other countries operate fly and fly out. You just operate flights out of Vegas or somewhere. These, these big population centers. I don't see why people wouldn't want to do that. Flying for two weeks, you go, do you work less than half the year? Technically. You see, you see your family more than you would working a normal job 9 to 5. Like, it's a pretty good gig. It's a pretty good gig. And I, I keep saying, like, I don't use it more in the States because I would again, me being young person, I'd sign up for it. First time I saw it, I was like, this is great. I just get to hang out in these nice rooms. I get fed every day. And then I get two weeks off. Come on. Or one week off. Come.
- [50:47]
Rod Bol
On. Yeah. No, I think that's a great idea. I think where are we are behind the times. Because most countries you go into, they do take advantage of that and they get a lot of talent that comes from the metro Areas that really are looking for that type of work, they just don't have access to.
- [51:04]
Bill Witt
It. Even like, I mean, Nevada, you've got California right next door. You've got tens of millions of.
- [51:09]
Rod Bol
People.
- [51:10]
Bill Witt
Right. There's so many people. And I think a lot of people would want to do.
- [51:14]
Rod Bol
It.
- [51:14]
Bill Witt
Yeah. So Komatsu acquires Joy.
- [51:21]
Rod Bol
Global. Correct.
- [51:23]
Bill Witt
2017. In 2017 and that's how you then become associated Komatsu.
- [51:28]
Rod Bol
Correct. Yeah. I was at the time in the Longview plant running the loader group and Komatsu acquired us. Then got a chance to really get to know our K limited executive team and the local Komatsu management team and very quickly kind of fell in love with the company. Actually, I think most of us were pretty nervous. What's it going to be like? I hadn't been through the acquired side of an acquisition. I had been through the acquiree side and that was a good experience. I think our companies back then did a good job of doing the right things for people. But Komatsu absolutely takes a very thoughtful approach. It's very much in their nature as a company to come in and listen. And I think that acquisition almost, I won't say immediately, but very, very quickly got me fully on board with the Komatsu way. How they want to build the company, how they look at the long term. It's one of those companies that you can always stand proud and know that it's high integrity, it puts people first, safety first, quality first, customer first. And if we can't talk about those things openly with a customer, then we're probably not doing the right thing. So, yeah, it was. For me, it was a very quick amount of time to get to a level where I really bought into the company strategy.
- [52:53]
Bill Witt
Before. I don't want to skip over the letourneau stuff. So you were in Longview.
- [52:56]
Rod Bol
Texas.
- [52:57]
Bill Witt
Correct. Which is like it's very hallowed ground in the earth moving.
- [53:01]
Rod Bol
World. I think so as well.
- [53:02]
Bill Witt
Yes. It's very. Only like real earth moving enthusiasts know how important Longview, Texas is. I think places like Peoria, Illinois get all the. Get all the credit. But letourneau, I feel like is one of the godfathers. Like up there on the same pedestal as a Benjamin.
- [53:25]
Rod Bol
Holt. Absolutely. I.
- [53:27]
Bill Witt
Would. Earth moving.
- [53:28]
Rod Bol
Yeah. I'd put him up there with Benjamin.
- [53:30]
Bill Witt
Franklin. I mean, yes, he's.
- [53:32]
Rod Bol
Amazing. You've probably read his book Movers of Minimum Mountains. But he innovated on the shop floor. There'd be chalk outlines of products he wanted to build or changes we needed to make, or they needed to make back in those days. But he innovated everything from the products themselves to the materials that go in them. He started the Longview plant in 1946, but in 1951, he started a steel mill so he could deliver all of his own custom alloys for all the structures. At one time he was a market share leader for offshore oil rigs. Those oil rigs, some still run to this day. But then he also built the recovery machines on aircraft carriers to get the planes off if there was an incident. He built cargo handling, containerized vessel handlers, tree crushers, snow trains, earth scrapers, the first wheel loader. You just go through the list. And that all came out of R.G. letourneau and his team and the community there supported him. He's very close, very religious man. He started a university the same time. It wasn't a university then, it was a trade school. But he started that the same time he started the plant. He wanted to make sure everybody that worked for him had an education. He wanted to make sure everybody that worked for him was a professional. He also built machines that built homes. So there are still RG letourneau homes in Longview, where the machine would come in at a plop out of a mold. You'd have a block home and they'd throw a roof on it. Actually, the roof was also concrete. And you know, for, geez, better part of 80 years, some of these structures have been there. And then he invented some of the buildings that are still there to this day. The domes, they actually were built to be tore down, be mobile. And they were going to go as part of Billy Graham's pilgrimage across Europe. They'd throw up these domes, great acoustics. And so the technology was very good. And obviously reliability and longevity of the structures. Turns out they're there 50 plus years later today. But we've actually taken some down. We've. We've only got two left. And they're really not production anymore. They're more. There is like storage, historic and storage. And we'll see what we do with them museum wise, long term. But yeah, just an amazing individual, passionate about the industry. And I think for us today, we look back on some of our personal heroes in the industry and they weren't about making money. That guy was never about the commercial side of the business. He wanted to solve customer problems. And when you meet that Longview team, they talk about the lineage of the engineers that came before him that go all the way back to R.G. letourneau. He taught this lesson and that now carries all the way down through the guy running the motor business for us. And it's. To me, it's just one of those things. It's bigger than a paycheck. It's bigger than a title. It's really about carrying on the legacy. So, yeah, Longview, for me, is a very special place. The people that work there are incredibly committed to the business in the.
- [56:51]
Bill Witt
The. The actual. Where they do the loader manufacturing. To this day, there's a. There's a new facility, but the actual line is the original building, isn't.
- [57:00]
Rod Bol
It?
- [57:00]
Bill Witt
Correct. So. So they. I mean, they've been building there for. Since the.
- [57:04]
Rod Bol
50S.
- [57:04]
Bill Witt
Correct. And so the. The floors you're walking on are the floors RG Letourneau walked around.
- [57:10]
Rod Bol
On? Some of them.
- [57:11]
Bill Witt
Yes. Yeah, some of.
- [57:12]
Rod Bol
Them.
- [57:12]
Bill Witt
Yeah. Yeah, some of them are. So it's like this. And. And, like, people like, you know, Thomas Edison or Steve Jobs or these, like, very famous inventors, American inventors, get all this credit. But when it comes to, like, nothing happens in the world without Earth moving, and there's very few people that have impacted Earth moving more than that guy. Like, even when Caterpillar, they built tractors, they needed a Dozer blade. RG Letourneau built the original Dozer blade for the Caterpillar tractor back in the day and. Out of.
- [57:45]
Rod Bol
Peoria.
- [57:46]
Bill Witt
Right. They're manufactured out of there. And like, you said, built the loader, built the scraper. Like, I have books out there. You've seen them, and you just. Page after page, it's like, what is that? What? Like a tripled scraper that is run by one guy in the back.
- [58:02]
Rod Bol
Okay. All.
- [58:03]
Bill Witt
Right. That's crazy. That's craziest earthmoving thing I've ever seen. You go to the next page. What is that? What? It's a. It's a tree stomper.
- [58:11]
Rod Bol
Like.
- [58:11]
Bill Witt
Yeah. And it just stomps the trees through the tougher land. Okay. That might be the crazy. Then you go in the next one, you're like, that's a. Like an Arctic rover, like, for, like, Antarctic expeditions. I'm like, what? And I mean, every page is like, what was this guy doing? It just. There's. There's few people like that that have ever existed that have minds so active, which I. That's like, that's the American spirit. I feel like that's what. That's what got us here, is people like that that had these extraordinary minds were like, nothing's.
- [58:50]
Rod Bol
Impossible. I think. Absolutely. I mean, it is the. What drove The Industrial Revolution and all the way up until today. And I think those people still exist. Their focuses may be different. I think you see more in the technology specific.
- [59:05]
Bill Witt
Space.
- [59:06]
Rod Bol
Yeah. What we can do with software. Software and advanced computing is where a lot of those minds seems like they've pivoted back during the Industrial Revolution was how do you mechanize things? And for a guy like R.G. letourneau, it wasn't about mass producing a product. It was about how to solve mining or construction or forestry's biggest challenges. He did things for the military as well. How do you make our military more safe? How do you make them more productive? So his. His mind was all about solving those challenges.
- [59:39]
Bill Witt
Mechanically. I feel like they built munitions there.
- [59:41]
Rod Bol
Too. They did.
- [59:42]
Bill Witt
Yes. Yeah, yeah. But. And that. That's where I read a extraordinary book that's right there. The Earth Changers. It's a really old book, but it's out. It's about the guys that. That the six companies that built the Hoover Dam, what they did after. And RG RG Letourneau is in there. Kaiser is in there. Like Morrison, Knutson, Steve Bechtel, these guys, most of them really spooled up World War II to support the war effort. And then Post World War II, as America was then, well, we need to shift our industrial capacity that we just built for the world's biggest war. Let's go then. Make our country better. And then. Wait a minute, we need to go rebuild Europe now. So how do we do that? Now we need to do that. And then now we need to, like, go build a great base in Greenland, you know, and we need to go build a dam in Afghanistan and. And develop oil fields in Saudi Arabia. And that's what these guys did. They were just these American wildcat earth movers that would just go all over the world building stuff with the stuff they were creating along the way. It's the coolest.
- [60:49]
Rod Bol
Thing. Oh.
- [60:50]
Bill Witt
100%. And I think we have gotten caught up a little bit. There's a great book. It's called Smart People Should Build Things. We've got caught up a little bit too much in, like, the smart people going into the legal profession and technology and this and that, which is great, good for them. But the world. We're still in a physical world, right? Like, everybody still needs food. Everybody still needs shelter. Everybody still needs water. We need to treat our wastewater. Like, that's still. It's still as important today as it was back then. So.
- [61:26]
Rod Bol
Anyway. But I think I agree with you. I think you're starting to see momentum back into the heavy equipment industry, whether it's construction or mining, where those mines, the technology side of it, are no longer a conversation. You're seeing it go to work. And I'll use autonomy as an example. You know, Komatsu launched its first autonomous machines 20 years ago, and it took a long time for it to really take off. You started with Gabby in Latin America and Chile, and we've grown from there. Western Australia was an early adopter. You've been to probably some of those Rio Tinto mines, as have I, where they're running autonomous trucks. It's a pretty incredible thing. And then you now see that across Canada, we've got autonomous mines in the US now. So the industry is starting to see that come back. And I think one of the things we recognize as an industry is maybe we don't have all that expertise that we need those minds. And so partnership within the industry and without bringing in people that are truly good at developing autonomy or AI mindset and frameworks and platforms. But then also, how do we stay relevant with the work they're doing in other spaces? And so for us, it's creating open architecture, so opening up our machines and the technology to partnership. We've historically, as an industry, not done that. And we see that as a company, we're starting to do that more. And we've decided, at least from a mining perspective, to open up our platforms and bring in some really key capable partnerships. And so with that, hopefully it creates a little bit more momentum to bring those minds back into the mechanical world of what we're trying to do with equipment. And where do we take equipment, you know, in the future? I think Komatsu had an interesting program they worked on where they've developed an underwater bulldozer, one of my favorites. It's very interesting. And I think when you look at testing the boundaries of what's possible, that shift to bringing technology to the heavy equipment space will necessitate more of those types of products and mental.
- [63:45]
Bill Witt
Frameworks. But, and that to me is exciting because I feel like the industry over past decades has gotten away from innovation in a lot of ways. Like, it feels like maybe we've just discovered the best ways of doing everything. Potentially that could be it. Like, I just missed the golden era of innovation. And then they actually, bulldozers work really well. So we're just going to do bulldozers, excavators, hydraulic work really well. Trucks, these electric shovels. We figured it out 100 years ago. Incremental improvement so on and so forth. But I think there's like, there's, there's more we can do as an industry, which is exciting to me, but it requires bright minds. It requires true innovation, which means taking risks, which means being wrong a lot of times, which means just trying random stuff. Like, what if we made an underwater bulldozer? Well, how do we do that? I don't know. Like, give it a little snorkel and then make it remote control, when remote control is not really a big thing. And then, you know, Komatsu did it a long time ago. Now they redid it, which looks sweet, like, sign me up, I'll buy one, take it around my lake. Yeah, Moving, moving dirt underwater. But it's exciting to me. I feel like we're getting back to this, this era. I've heard it even called in the states of like American Dynam. What is it? American dynamic dynamism. I sound like an idiot right now. American dying.
- [65:13]
Rod Bol
Dynamism. I think dynamism, okay, maybe just.
- [65:17]
Bill Witt
Being a leader, it's something along those lines. Yeah, but, but like innovation, like even, even the past two years, from Autonomy perspective, it's like every time I go on LinkedIn, there's a new autonomous equipment.
- [65:31]
Rod Bol
Startup.
- [65:31]
Bill Witt
Yeah. Every week. And it's like two years ago there were two games in town, Caterpillar and Komatsu. And now there's these guys, like, I don't know if they're going to work out or not, but it's like every week there's another guy in San Francisco, like, yeah, just raise like $20 million and we're going to go make bulldozers that don't need people. And here's the prototype. It's like, what? How'd they even get that? Where'd that even come from? It's just like there's almost this new game that's appeared overnight and it's not. I don't even think it's something to cannibalize like a Komatsu's business. It's like, how does Komatsu work with those 100%.
- [66:10]
Rod Bol
People? We look at all those experts as an opportunity to advance our business. We know that if you're not careful, it could cannibalize opportunity. But we really don't take that approach. We think the technology wasn't there maybe 30 years ago, even 20 years ago, to go do some of these things and scale. We were very selective on who we partnered with, with Autonomy early on, because when you think about applying that level of technology, it isn't making the machine move, that's the challenge. I mean, if you've been in one of Komatsu's Imachines, they're amazing. Like, if you shut off the eye, run it mechanically like me, I'm a terrible operator, don't do a great job. The minute I put it in a machine control and set the grade, I mean, it's all I'm doing is putting it in forward and reverse. The machine's doing all the thinking. And if you think about where we're going, that's actually probably the easiest part. It's how does it interact with all the people. And the reason that interaction is so important is people are unpredictable. That's why I think we haven't seen as much as we could have on road relative to autonomy. Even the driver assist stuff, it isn't probably the person in the car that's running in the driver assist mode. It's all the people around them that are doing the crazy things. So I think as an industry with advanced computing, but with the shortage of labor, with the pressures on cost and delivering projects on time, the customer base is now more open to how do we advance and when they're open to that, it's a different discussion on the job site itself. The job site looks different. And I think up until this point, I don't think we were there. Whether it was certain sort of leading edge early adopters might have been, but in general we weren't there. I think today people are seeing case studies and examples of some of the early adopters doing very well with it. And now they're more open to, okay, I have to change the way I work. And by changing the way I work, I'm going to engage with the OEM differently. But then I'm also potentially looking at what are the other consultative technologies, supporting technologies that I want to bring together with the OEM for something that's done in concert. And historically, those parties didn't work that closely together. Just as a think about it as sort of a symbiotic relationship. It's more of an ecosystem now. Just like your iPhone, you know, you think about what it does with a camera, with all the variety of apps and tracking health metrics and all these just amazing things that you wouldn't have thought of 20 years ago being in one device. I think the technology that's coming to the market today, people are looking at the machine and saying, how do I make that machine add value in different applications in different ways? Because now I have access to technology. I never had.
- [69:11]
Bill Witt
Before? Sure. No, I think it's really exciting. I mean some people are saying it's our, our downfall. The machines are going to come after us one day. I don't believe.
- [69:19]
Rod Bol
That. Maybe you can shut them down pretty.
- [69:23]
Bill Witt
Easy. Yeah, just hit the big red button on the side of.
- [69:26]
Rod Bol
Them. That's.
- [69:27]
Bill Witt
Right. So how do you go. So the order of events here, it was the Joy Global. So PNH bought.
- [69:39]
Rod Bol
Letourneau.
- [69:41]
Bill Witt
Correct. Joy Global bought.
- [69:43]
Rod Bol
Pnh. So Joy Global was a trade name of pnh Joy Mining. So it was not really an acquisition. It was a trade name where it brought together Joy Mining and PNH. Yeah. And in the early 2000s, 2000 they made Joy Global the parent company or trade name. Then in 2012 was when they actually launched the brand externally. So it came across as this new brand. It just was sort of an inactive brand is how I would think of it. And then at that point it became sort of that parent brand that brought Joy Mining and PNH together in the.
- [70:20]
Bill Witt
Marketplace. Because the first time I saw a brand new letourna loader it had a PNH badge on it because it was at that point.
- [70:27]
Rod Bol
Pnh.
- [70:28]
Bill Witt
Correct. And then now it has a Komatsu badge on.
- [70:31]
Rod Bol
It.
- [70:31]
Bill Witt
Correct. So you end up at Komatsu. How do you go from shovels to running a plant, making loaders and underground mining equipment and drills to then running the North American part of the.
- [70:50]
Rod Bol
Company? Good question. So I had a lot of dealer development in my background and then of course when I ran the west was a company owned dealer if you will. So a lot of experience in that space and they gave me an opportunity to come run the mining in the field. That's actually the transition out of the factory into the field. Go run the mining division specifically for us and Canada for our company owned stores and our independent dealers. Because we have a blended network. Our North America business is a little complex in that we have some locations, we have an amazing dealer in Canada called SMS that supports mining. And then in the western US today it's primarily Komatsu owned facilities. But then we have partner dealers or independent dealers like Modern Machinery or Power Motive or RMS in Minnesota that also cover mining. So in areas like Nevada, we're 100% owned by the company. So we have what I would call a factory owned store. Anything you need, Komatsu wise, you'd be made available to you in Canada with rope shovels and wheel loaders and drills. You're going to buy all that through Komatsu factory store and then the complement to that is a traditional Komatsu line, the haul truck and hydraulic excavators that you'd buy from sms. So we operate together, but as two different business units. So I came back to the field in 2018 to do that, to run the mining division and to build the relationships out with the dealers so that Komatsu could show up as one Komatsu in the field. And I would say we're still on that journey and there's a lot more work to do. And then this April, well, actually, I was kind of skipping a step. In 2021, I got the opportunity to take on construction, forestry, forklift, and technology in addition to mining. So then I took on supporting our broader dealer network, which is about 27.
- [72:53]
Bill Witt
Dealers. Was that always the.
- [72:55]
Rod Bol
Intent? I wouldn't say that. I think I got to know our CEO very well at the time. Long.
- [73:03]
Bill Witt
Time. He was also named Rod, wasn't.
- [73:04]
Rod Bol
It? He was, yeah. I think that being Rod worked out in my advantage in that. In that case. But he had 38 years with the company, so he had a tremendous amount of time. He also came from mining. And I think when you come from the mining side, and particularly if you're on the field side of the business, which I was, you get an opportunity to really get to know.
- [73:22]
Bill Witt
Customers.
- [73:24]
Rod Bol
You. You try to understand what are their real needs and how do you, as an OEM or a dealer, bring your products and services and technology together so that you're really advancing their business? It's about their business, not your own. And I think because of that experience, they gave me an opportunity to learn the construction side, to learn the forestry side, and look at what elements of all those previous learnings could I bring to that? And how do you also come together As1 solidified OEM? Extending the capacity and capability of Komatsu to improve the value of service we provide to our dealer network as well as the customer. So because I had that background, I think they gave me that opportunity and it was just a tremendous learning experience. I had a ton of fun. Much like mining, as you go around and meet construction customers, they're similar, but I would say a little bit more unfiltered. You get a really honest shot sometimes of what their challenge of the day is. If you played a role in that challenge, you'll know about it. So that was a lot of fun to sort of take away some of the political correctness and get to experience what they're going through and have the opportunity to help them in a meaningful way and build those relationships. With yet a new set of customers. Because when you grow up in mining and you go to mine expo, let's say every four years you're going to see people that you've met 25 years ago and you see every so often when you get into construction, that group is so much larger now you're meeting a lot of people for the first time or companies for the first time. And I think that for me that was sort of refreshing to see the challenges. But then to also recognize as large as Komatsu is, there's an opportunity for us to offer them things that maybe we historically haven't offered as much in mining. That partnership on things like safety was very natural. We're working on their job site all the time. Our hours safe or unsafe are their hours. And so the relationship that we had drove us to do things best in class. And I looked at that as how do we do more of that with construction or with quarry or with aggregates or larger contractors. How do we offer them more in terms of expertise beyond equipment so that we're added value beyond just selling them a machine or a.
- [75:51]
Bill Witt
Part? Yeah, because construction, like we've said, it's not, there's not. It's not better or worse, it's different. It is more transactional I would say from an equipment standpoint. Now like ideally it's not but like historically there's more. It's selling a 20, 20, 20 ton excavator is more transactional than a 800 ton.
- [76:13]
Rod Bol
Excavator. Oh for sure. No.
- [76:15]
Bill Witt
Question. So the, you can, you can apply that sophistication from mining to construction, which I think is great. And then it goes the other way too because sometimes I want to grab some of these people in mining by the lapel and just shake them like what did they do with you? But let's use your words like let's. Can we have a real conversation for goodness sakes. Like stop talking like that. And but in construction you don't have to worry about that, right? Ever, ever, ever until you get into gcs. But, but people self perform contractors now. You don't have to worry about it. Like you know exactly where you stand, which I love. Like that. That makes it so fun too because it's again, it's not always good but it's, it's more human I feel like to know like, okay, all right, we're in with this guy or we're not in right now.
- [77:06]
Rod Bol
Right. We got a lot of work to do. What are we going to do.
- [77:09]
Bill Witt
To get there's no passive aggression here. There's just aggression. We have a problem, great. But we at least know we have a problem. We don't have to beat around the bush about it. So let's just go solve it. Which I think is most of the time more.
- [77:20]
Rod Bol
Productive.
- [77:21]
Bill Witt
Yeah. The Komatsu business, it's a very big company. It's a Japanese company. And so you have the mothership based in Japan. Where in.
- [77:35]
Rod Bol
Japan? Our headquarters are in Tokyo, but we have plants all over the place. And our origins actually are in Komatsu City. So our founder Materio Takeuchi, he started in Komatsu City. He was a miner and the mine had played out and he didn't want his people to go without work. So he actually transitioned from having his repair shop that supported the mine to actually making equipment. And he traveled the world, he learned concepts and modernized and put together this plan to maintain all these skilled trades and build equipment and has obviously built a global company. From, from that standpoint, it's over 100 years old.
- [78:17]
Bill Witt
Yeah. So it's, it's a, a Japanese company. But then you have these groups like the North American group or whatever. I don't know. Is a group the right word? And then like.
- [78:28]
Rod Bol
Europe. Yeah. Division, if you will. Yeah. I, I think if you look at North America, while we are a Japanese owned company, we've bought a number of American.
- [78:38]
Bill Witt
Companies. Like very American, like PNH, P&H.
- [78:42]
Rod Bol
Started in 1884 in Milwaukee. You look at our electric drive truck division which was once Wabco out of Peoria. You look at the loader group in Longview which was once letourneau. And then we haven't talked about it at all. But Joy Mining on the underground side of our business, business started in 1921. So you know, that's another company that's over 100 years old, that's a US company. If you look at the American side of things, the mining division, the nucleus of it is in North America and we're a net exporter. If you roll all the Komatsu businesses together here in North America, we're actually a net exporter to the tune of 10 +billion in the last seven years that leave our country. Which is awesome. Like we, while we are a Japanese company, we think of ourselves more as a global.
- [79:33]
Bill Witt
Company.
- [79:34]
Rod Bol
Sure. Because it has acquired all these American based companies that are traditional. I think after acquisition, one of our concerns, because we had heard in the parent company there's a lot of protectionism around the core ip, which makes total sense. Well, we had a lot of core IP in the US with these mining companies that we owned. And we were worried, what does that mean? Like how does that work for us? Are they going to invest in it? And they absolutely have. And if you look at Milwaukee, where P and H was founded, they put together a plan, a business plan to actually invest in Milwaukee. We have a $300 million facility in South Harbor, Milwaukee, totally world class, where we've modernized all of our manufacturing for rope shovels. Our previous company, Joy Global, might have had those types of plans on the books, but they really just didn't have the global scale that Komatsu brought to it. So it's exciting to see what Komatsu has been able to do for the mining.
- [80:37]
Bill Witt
Business. It is a pretty interesting marriage. And then I feel like just the American culture and the Japanese culture together offers a lot of advantages too. Because the American culture, we're very individualistic, we're very entrepreneurial, we're very hard headed. Sometimes like just, just, just pull yourself up by your bootstraps and just get it done at all costs. Let's just make it happen. The Japanese, they're extraordinarily hard working as well. But there's this, there's this history there that's unbelievable. Through their culture, that is just the richness of it is like, I mean you start to see it when you go there, but you're like, man, this is deep. And then this, the sense of humility is there. That's just really probably unlike anywhere else in the world. There's like both sides have such unique perspectives and cultures and you put the two together and I'm sure this challenges of times because they are very different, but they both, I feel like it's very.
- [81:42]
Rod Bol
Complimentary. I agree. I would say that was one of my bigger learnings. Having joined Komatsu, I think many of us get trapped in our experiences and we've gone through a number of situations over the years. And then you begin to assume you know why a problem occurred because you've experienced a similar problem in the past. And I think that's one of the early things I learned from Komatsu is, is that a story I'm telling myself or do I know? Because understanding root cause, when you look at the Komatsu values, quality is at the top. When they do that, when they say look, quality is at the top, whether it's quality of product, quality of people, quality of service, they're wanting to understand the root cause, why did this fail? And so they take the time to work it from many different viewpoints and then build consensus that we've all looked at this problem. And from, let's say, an engineering standpoint, I agree. From a manufacturing standpoint, I agree. From a financial standpoint, maybe I don't agree. Okay, well, now how do we need to shift in order to come up with a solution that works? That mindset of looking at, we think we know the problem. Okay, let's get into the data, let's uncover it, let's not make assumptions, and then let's work it through through the experts and involve all the stakeholders. I think the stakeholder involvement is probably one of the most refreshing things I've seen. It's a spirit of collaboration and partnership that they take through to their dealers and then to the end user customers. Well, there's a tremendous amount of work they do to get that feedback into the products they develop, into the services they develop. And that's a lot of fun. Like when you can go back to a customer and say, hey, we heard you and here's what we've done. And they're like, hey, you know what? That's right on. That's what I was telling you. And so I think the spirit of the Japanese culture, of how to collaborate and build consensus and get to root cause with quality and the American spirit of innovation, I would say communication and transparency, of being direct, you bring all that together and it's a fun, it's a fun culture to navigate.
- [84:01]
Bill Witt
Well. And each side pushes one another too. I think that that Japanese side's like, well, we need to be more calculated about this. Let's do our homework. But then the American side's like, let's just, can we just kick the door in? And you know, and sometimes one side is right, but most of the time I've learned is like, the best place is somewhere in the middle. And maybe it's, you know, on this problem, it's closer over here on this, on this problem, it's further over here. But like somewhere in the middle is really where pretty cool stuff happens, 100%. And I, like, we were talking at dinner. I think that's like part of the reason why you're here right now with the podcast is I think from the American side of things, because I've seen this with another company that's Japanese, but that I'm dealing with. The Americans, like they've, on the messaging front, have had to push a little bit and say, hey, we need to get out there more. Let's tell our story. Yes, we, we do make great products. We are this great engineering company, but we also have to tell people about it and the world's changed and we've got to go further in this direction. And then I feel like the, the mothership, so to speak, has come around to it. Like, okay, you know, it's, let's not go crazy, but let's go put our toes in the water and see how this goes. And then it's like, it's working out okay because again, that's where the world is going. So, okay, we'll do a little bit more. And now it's like a company like Komatsu wearing this has a Formula one.
- [85:22]
Rod Bol
Sponsorship.
- [85:23]
Bill Witt
Yeah. It's like that was. Honestly, that was the last thing I expected to see was a company like Komatsu sponsoring one of the 10 Formula One teams. But it's like, that's cool that it got me really.
- [85:36]
Rod Bol
Excited. Same including most of our employees. I mean, we're as a group, we've looked at Komatsu internally and said, look, we're probably one of the least known global companies. 100-year-old company doing these incredible things across the world in key markets. And we have an opportunity to just refocus some of our resources and efforts to get that story out there. And F1 to me was a beautiful place to start because it's year round in terms of the events they're all over the world, the scale of it and the energy around, it's incredible. When you go to an F1 race, it's unlike any sporting event I've ever been to. And you actually meet or you can meet the engineering teams and then you figure out like Williams has 100 plus engineers that are behind that car and you've got people watching a million different monitors. I think there's 64 plus monitors just on the tires and they change the hubs to pour air differently. They change it. You know all those things about the car. But you realize the focus on quality, innovation, technology and communication like F1 has the spirit of what our company tries to do. And the Williams organization just to a person is a quality group. And from our perspective, it was a natural partnership. We actually did partner with them in the mid-90s as well and help them with build out their transmission back in those days. And I think the unique thing about it today is yeah, we can offer ideas on equipment or parts or innovations, but they actually can offer us ideas on how to bring those things to life, how to market them and make them available for more of the general populist. Consumption on what makes this company special. So I think we're absolutely looking at the brand and how we put the brand out there and doing a much better job of really connecting with not only our industry, but beyond our industry. When we look at associations, we've got members this week that are at ces. I know a number of our competitors are there as well, but we went last year and it's sort of a new entry for us is to go be more of a part of those types of engagements. So, yeah, I think we're excited to look at our brand differently and to put it out there. We're still a very humble company. So I don't think you'll see any ad campaigns that are over the top, but what you will see is a more robust effort to get the Komatsu brand in front of a general population, better out there in front of front of the.
- [88:21]
Bill Witt
Industry. And it doesn't. I don't think it has to be over the top. I actually think there's. I mean, some of the best ad campaigns are the most elegant and sophisticated and it. And it has to match the company. Like, it's. It becomes disingenuous if you're a Komatsu. But then you go do this ridiculous ad campaign. It's like, well, those two don't. They don't.
- [88:43]
Rod Bol
Match.
- [88:43]
Bill Witt
Which. That's like the whole point of storytelling is it needs to be.
- [88:46]
Rod Bol
Authentic.
- [88:47]
Bill Witt
Right? And that's, that's why I'm excited about it. I'm like, I'm hoping to be a small piece of it, but even, like the, even, like the 9,000 actually surprised me when they did the whole, like, they documented the whole thing from the factory. And then here it is going through the, like the small German towns, you know. And where do they make it? Dusseldorf.
- [89:07]
Rod Bol
Or. Yeah.
- [89:08]
Bill Witt
Dusseldorf. Dusseldorf. So here's the, you know, the 9,000 going through the towns. And then here we are putting it on the. The barge, the little riverboat to send it down the river. And then here it's going across and it's getting up into Canada and it's going up in the oil sands. We're building it now. And then it's. It's in the face and here's all these people and yay. That was pretty cool. I was like. Because that even just a few years ago, that wouldn't have not. Would not have happened with a brand new machine, brand new PC 9000, the first one ever that's been in a production setting. They. You. You would have been very Hush, hush about.
- [89:47]
Rod Bol
That.
- [89:47]
Bill Witt
Correct. You, you wouldn't, you wouldn't have been talking about, could have been there for years without you even talking about it. And to me, that was cool. It was like, oh, cool. Like they're, they're bringing me along with this new shovel. They don't need to do this before, they would never do this, but this is where the world is. Like, I want to come along. And now I feel like I'm part of the PC 9000, as dumb as that sounds, but it got.
- [90:12]
Rod Bol
Me. Yeah, no, I mean, we're industry fanboys as well. We love the big equipment and what we do. And I think to that point, especially as we look at the next generation and the younger generation and letting them tie in what we do to their personal life and part of their Persona is more important. Like, you look at social media presence and I'm not as active as I should be, but I look at my kids or even nephews and nieces or friends and you see how much they put on social media about where they work and what they do and the fact that we work in a really cool industry with an amazing customer base building what I think are modern marvels. This is naturally something really fun to put out there and be a part of. So, yeah, we have a lot of work to still do in that space. But to your point, I think we have turned the corner. We've got a global brand team that's really helping us evaluate our presence in each of the markets. And we've built out the team, in my opinion, with some real experts to evaluate what are the best mechanisms, I would say the most effective mechanisms to get that message out there without wasting dollars. I mean, if you think about why Komatsu is that, yes, they're very humble, but they also spend more of their time and money looking at quality, looking at customer application. Our Gemba philosophy, which is very strong, it's part of the Komatsu way, is out being in customer sites and learning from them. And I think that's where they put more of their resource historically, how do we make the best machine? And along the way we've realized, you know what, you need to have a legitimate amount of effort put into the actual just marketing of this to get that general brand awareness out.
- [92:09]
Bill Witt
There. Well, and the feeling in connection to a brand matters. And you create that through storytelling like that in humans are, we're story driven creatures. We've told stories for thousands of years. It's the things that resonate with us most, like the Bible for Example, it's a collection of stories like any good movie you've seen. Like it's driven by story or athletes. Like, sure, you have to perform. You're not really going to be invested in like the 184th player in the NBA. Maybe you are, I don't know. But I mean, okay, there's, there's arguments to make about that, but. But you have to perform. But that's not everything as well. You have these athletes that then almost transcend the sport because there's this story associated with them as well, like a Kobe Bryant or a LeBron James or Michael Jordan. Like there's this, there's this aura to these guys and there's this story that also I feel like then propels them even further into like again, beyond basketball, into just like this, this. Very well known individual companies are the same way. I think there's companies that have performed really well for a long period of time. But like an Apple, they have this story with them as well. Like when you're using an iPhone, you feel like you're part of something. You're part of Apple, you're part of this job's legacy that he created. I don't have that feeling with some of these other electronics that I'm using day to day. I don't even think about them. But like my iPhone, I like, I like being a part of it. Even if that sounds.
- [93:49]
Rod Bol
Silly. No, no, I relate.
- [93:51]
Bill Witt
100%.
- [93:51]
Rod Bol
Yeah. And I think for our industry, that's one of the things unique, regardless of the manufacturer. You get to be a part of something that's big, something that's meaningful, something that allows modern society to exist. And you can do it in a way that's good. You look at Komatsu and one of the things that was really apparent to me right away was they meant what they said about sustainability. Part of our vision is to be a part of a thriving planet. And it's not something that they just speak to. They do that through the various power plants they're looking at putting into the machines themselves, whether that be hybrid, electric, hydrogen. They're developing products in each of those camps. But they've also looked at it in terms of the facilities themselves, reducing as much as humanly possible. Wastewater, recycling, pallets, on and on. You look at what they're doing from not just a product standpoint, but even how they bring that product to life, how we deliver it to reduce the environmental footprint. It's something to really be fun, to be a part of. And one of my first exposures to really getting out and being hands on. They partner with this amazing group company, it's called Green Forest Work and it's us based primarily, but they've done some projects outside of the country. And just the Komatsu side of it, we've planted over 700,000 trees. And as a leadership team, we've gotten out multiple times and physically did the planting. And it's chaired by Dr. Chris Barton, he's the president of the company. But because of that he applies his knowledge of the science, so he looks at biodiversity. And so typically in an area that may be a reclaim or reforested, you might see 40 or 50 species that have come back to that area. With his process, he's trying to restore it back to its original ecosystem. He'll get that biodiversity up to 180 plus species that now thrive in that. And Komatsu takes that very seriously. That partnership is special to them. And then we get entire leadership teams involved to go physically do the work and so see how it works. And you just look around and see the smiles and then you kind of quickly can make the self assessment. Is this where I want to be? Absolutely. It's the type of environment I think anybody want to go be a part.
- [96:22]
Bill Witt
Of. Well, and I would argue the core business is about sustainability because I think sustainability has been hijacked a little bit too. Like the definitions, they've bended it a little bit, but it's really about enabling the future. You're just enabling and making a better and better and better future. And the reality to the world too is that we're trending to 10 billion people and we have to support 10 billion people. And we have to do that in a better and better way, more sophisticated way. But the reality is we have to create more. To do that. We need better infrastructure, we need better power generation, we need better food production, we need better water wastewater systems, we need better aircraft, better automotive technology, better electronics technology. In general, all of that is enabled by PC8000 digging into a face, scooping up whatever it is, however many tons of ore, putting it into a truck and hauling it to a plant for processing like that, that is part of sustainability, enabling a better future. And so, and I think that that story isn't told enough as well, is like the core business itself is sustainable, even construction, like there's no better future without better housing and better roads and everything we're using day to day. We need to make it better. We need to build it so that it lasts longer, so that it has less Impact so that it uses less materials, so on and so forth. But all of that requires excavators, dozers, trucks. It's all still the physical world. And without great machines doing that, like we don't have a future. There is no sustainability which that, that's where it gets, it gets me excited as well to be in this world because it's like if I'm really serious about sustainability, there's no better place to be than natural resources and infrastructure because that is where it starts and ends as far into the future as I can.
- [98:29]
Rod Bol
See. I agree. And if you think back 20 plus years ago, there was a big focus on making equipment more productive and that's still the case today that everyone's always trying to maximize the machines. But today we are at that tipping point where you see technology come in and looking at one solution doesn't fit all. And from our perspective, I think Komatsu has taken a very responsible approach to how it looks at electric drive. When you look at those rope shovels that we talked about started in 1884, they're all electric drive and have been zero emissions at the face. And we're going to keep it that way. And then you mentioned the PC 9000. We're really excited about bringing that machine to market. But the cool thing about the PC 9000-8000-7000-5000, 500, 4000 all the way down. There's an electric option for.
- [99:21]
Bill Witt
Those. Well that, yeah, that's trail cable out the back. Trailing cable out the.
- [99:25]
Rod Bol
Back? Yeah, yeah, 100%. And so what we look at is if we can, if the infrastructure is there, let's make this as low impact as possible. And if you can't, if you're completely remote and it's not possible, we want to have technology that uses diesel and in some cases diesel electric and regenerate power on the machine to make that more efficient. So that's one of the things I like about the company is it's not a one size fits all. They look at application and then they take these machines and try to maximize them for the customer and for the.
- [99:58]
Bill Witt
Application. Well and that's also what I really appreciate about the Japanese. Like, like you said, they're, they're very driven by like well, prove it kind of thing. Yeah, and we've seen this with the automotive manufacturers. They've gone down this or they went down this road, they're now starting to go the total opposite way. But they went down the like. No, the future is electric vehicles. That's it done, period, period. Everything internal combustion, dead, going away, the dinosaur, we're going all in. And then one manufacturer though, Toyota, go figure was like, I don't know, like these hybrid systems are actually extraordinary and we think we can make them a lot better and we would argue they're more sustainable and so they're like we're actually not going to go that direction. We're going to go, we're actually going to invest more in hybrid. Go figure that turns out to be like a great solution and it's maybe not the end game but it fits like reality today. And so maybe every mining truck future state is battery powered. Maybe, I don't know. But with a trolley, maybe with a trolley maybe, yeah. But like anybody in mining knows it's far fetched for right now, especially right now. But like there's this great interim solution that is electric. These loading tools that are driven by power when possible, they're very efficient. Extraordinary. And then these electric drive powertrains that Komatsu has probably pushed more than anyone else with the 980, the 930, like that is more proven from a powertrain standpoint than I mean it's as proven as anything, as proven as a Prius, I mean how many miles and tons that that is hauled and the efficiency is extraordinary. So for me I've been looking around, I'm like why don't we do more of, why don't we make that better? Because that's extraordinary. Why don't we talk more about this like even just the electric drive, the 980, like it's extraordinary. Like wait a minute, it's electric. So you have these giant electric motors driving the back. But, but, but it's that big. Like it's so cool. It's amazing how it works. It's like this space age technology but it's been around for decades and it's just gotten better and better and better and better. Which to me again is, I think it's really.
- [102:30]
Rod Bol
Exciting. Yeah, same. I think if I look at the industry, maybe last five plus years there's been this big shift to electric wheel motors and for us that's just exciting from the standpoint. It validates the technology that we've put into that application for 50 years and so we continue to explore different options. So like you said, we obviously have the diesel electric that is our core flagship today, but we also have a battery test machine that we run and look at how to power that, how to make it mine ready. Because if you look at what would be required, battery size Wise to compete with a diesel machine, you're talking about a battery the size of the truck and you're not going to cart around a battery to power a truck. So then it really becomes how do you build an efficient infrastructure to dynamically charge the vehicle? And that's what our team's doing today. And I think our competitors are very much doing the same things or similar things. So we recognize that the future probably isn't what we have today. But how do you maximize internal combustion engines with hybrid technology? And right now one of our really popular models and excavators is the PC 365. And the 365 was known as the HB or the Hybrid version. For a number of years it didn't really get the level of interest that we expected it to because it's more productive. It's lower fuel burn. And the machine itself, very simple to use. It's got ultra capacitors. So as that thing goes into dynamic swing, we're putting energy back into that ultra cap and then recovering it and keeping the engine at much lower idle. So it like to your point, on the Toyota hybrid, it's similar, similar concept, but it didn't take off because it was marketed as.
- [104:27]
Bill Witt
Hybrid.
- [104:28]
Rod Bol
Yes. So we just removed the.
- [104:29]
Bill Witt
Hybrid. Go.
- [104:30]
Rod Bol
Figure. And, and we just call it the PC365 because it's a higher performance machine. Now that we focus on the higher performance. We sold out of all the units that we had, go figure. And it was, it was kind of funny. But it's that mindset and I guess the comments I was making earlier about, I think the industry's at an inflection point where technology is now becoming more central to just your common operators. It's because they want to do the right things for their business. They want to be able to communicate to their customer base that they're doing things more efficiently, more sustainably and all those things. So I think as an industry you'll see a variety of things get tried, but I think the most responsible will continue to develop hybrid internal combustion and look at hydrogen, hydrogen fuel cell and some of those other options. And Komatsu obviously is doing that across various product.
- [105:24]
Bill Witt
Lines. I'm all for trying a bunch of stuff. It's interesting taking the hybrid because it has been politicized, but it's like, would you want an excavator that does this or an excavator that does this but is burning less fuel and is better? Well, I want the better one, of course. I want the better One. But then you're like, well, it's a, it's a hybrid. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Just give me the basic one. But it's funny, like, that's one thing. Like the Europeans, for example, the, the electric drive machines especially are standard over.
- [105:54]
Rod Bol
There.
- [105:54]
Bill Witt
Right. Because they burn less fuel and fuel is more expensive there. And so they can't even conceptualize, like, why would you not use one of these? It burns so much less fuel. It's so much more cost effective. Like, what? Why not? And it's like, I don't have a good reason. I can't give you a good reason because I agree, like, it is better. Who doesn't want to burn less fuel? Like, that's great to do the same amount of work. Of course you want to burn less.
- [106:20]
Rod Bol
Fuel.
- [106:21]
Bill Witt
Right. But yeah, it's just been, you know how it is. But it's exciting. What's going on? You, you went from a guy that was on site a lot or on the factory floor a lot, and now you are the, I don't know, big cheese CEO.
- [106:44]
Rod Bol
Yeah. North America.
- [106:45]
Bill Witt
Yeah. Since you're a Wisconsin guy, make a cheese.
- [106:48]
Rod Bol
Reference.
- [106:49]
Bill Witt
Yeah. You live in.
- [106:49]
Rod Bol
Wisconsin. I live in Wisconsin.
- [106:50]
Bill Witt
Yeah. But work in Illinois. What, what does your day to day look like.
- [106:56]
Rod Bol
Nowadays? Well, I'd like to say I've transitioned to really just focusing on strategy most of the time, and that's the plan. But I still definitely feel like I'm a student of the industry. So I do spend a fair bit of time with the operations, understanding what's the challenges of the day, what are the like currently, you know, what are we doing with supply chain to manage trade policy and things like that. So spend a lot of time there. Sure. But I think for a given month I'll spend a couple weeks visiting dealers and looking at how they're running their business, what are their challenges, what can we do better to partner with our dealer network? With that, I'll usually visit customers and visit their senior leaders and ask similar questions. I like to get out on site and see technology and see things running. I've been spending more time with the technology side of our business, making recent visits to some of our autonomous sites, and even had the opportunity recently to go visit Earth Brain in Tokyo. Earth Brain is a JV between Komatsu and Sony and some others. And the goal was to really understand where are they going with the technology and the technology services in that market because they're further along than we are in the US and it's Partially driven by regulation. The government is very involved in their project. And whether it's infrastructure, general construction, there's requirements for not mine site, job site design and having a digital twin for how they're going to approach the project, they want to make sure it's done efficiently, they want to make sure it's done environmentally correct and all those things. So with those standards, technology becomes even more, more important because then you can visualize like this is exactly how we're going to tackle the job. So I try and spend more time looking at where are we going. And you know, I know right now the US is looking at some deregulation in terms of mining and other things, which is positive, but there will, there will be eventually more regulation around the way we work and being on the front edge of that. How do we create solutions that our customers can use to meet those requirements? Because if you think about Sarbanes, Oxley and some of the other regulations that have been put out into the workforce over the last two decades, it requires a lot more in support in SGA and just general legal and accounting costs to just run a business. And if we can create tools that allow a contractor to easily visualize how to attack the job, how to account for the job job and how to hand that off to their end user customer so that their job is then easier, then we're going to be a supplier of choice. So for me it's really looking at, okay, we're at this inflection point in the industry, where do we go from here? I spend a fair bit of time on the looking at how do you expand our services, our products and so a little bit of M and A and just looking at industry. So it's been a big shift to go from being an operational person to being more in that strategic camp. I'm surrounded by great people, so the transition's actually been a lot of fun. But it also opens your eyes to all the things you don't know or that you thought you knew about what maybe an executive group does. And for me, I'm always trying to serve the role and I have a lot more work to do in order to in my view, execute and serve the role as best I.
- [110:32]
Bill Witt
Could. It's, it's funny, I, I'm 30, I'm still a bull in a china shop and, and, and I often fall victim of thinking I know what's best or like this company, like I could do better than these idiots, you know, or like people say that about the government, this and that and then I, I, One of the, one, one of the books I read last year was about caterpillar. But like decades ago, it wasn't like modern caterpillar. It was kind of like them going through crises and how they managed it and restructured and so on and so forth. It was extremely dry. I don't recommend it at all. But, but if nothing else, it gave me this appreciation for like, oh wait, this is way more complicated than I thought. So to think I could, I could come in me some, some, some, some dummy and do better. I'm like, I don't think so. I, I, I, I, this is, this is way more than I thought. Which was like much needed dose of humility. Like, oh wait, I actually don't know how the world works. And, and that's also the thing about this industry. I, I'm smart enough in construction mining to never assume I know what's going on. And I see people fall victim to this all the time on the Internet. That is like when you see something you don't understand, you're like, well, that's stupid. Or you just dismiss all these idiots like they don't know what they're doing instead of asking, why are you doing it that way? Why do you have that machine there? Why do you have one big machine instead of two small machines? Like, I've seen most of the time you're doing it, you know you're doing it wrong. But instead of you ask and then they're like, well, xyz, and you sit there, nine times out of ten you're like, yep, I get it. All right. That makes perfect sense. But that's the cool thing about this world is there's just so much nuance. And especially somebody like you, I mean, mining, you can learn something new every day. And then you have construction that has so much nuance to it. I mean, building a road in Florida versus building a road in Illinois, two totally different ball games. Because in Illinois there's winter. You know, in Illinois and in Florida there's water. Like it's, and then, and then forestry is a, and then materials are Material handling is a whole different game. So it's just, I could only imagine how much you have to even try to grasp to do your.
- [113:00]
Rod Bol
Job. Yeah. And I think you hit the nail on the head. I think one of the biggest learning opportunities for me was to come in and not assume, you know, what the answer is, because I think many of us feel that way. I've been in this industry my whole life, so I generally think, well, that doesn't make sense. We need to change it. So then what I learned very quickly is if I say that, it'll.
- [113:20]
Bill Witt
Happen.
- [113:21]
Rod Bol
Sure. And sometimes that shouldn't just happen. More questions needed to be asked. So I do a process where I try to self trigger on what is the question I need to ask to get that person to the same place I'm at or to get me to the same place that other person's at. And that, that what is, what is the story I'm telling myself. That phrase triggers in my mind regularly when I think, geez, what? This doesn't make any sense to me because that happened. I mean like what you're saying is very natural, but what you'll find is there's generally a common sense reason for why. And then the simple fix may be simple, but the ramifications, the downstream impacts and the people that are impacted, that's a totally different, different discussion. And you know, I, you've probably heard this a million times as everyone else. Change management is one of the most difficult things we do and I think for any industry and construction and mining is no different. What we're talking about in terms of what's a common sense solution, new technology, sustainability, all of those things require very deliberate change management. And I don't know that anyone has effectively done that across the industry to draw in the new talent or to do things differently. You mentioned fly in, fly out. That's a pretty simple idea. It's a very common sense approach to how do you get more talent into remote minds. But what's the change management side of it? Where do you start and do the people that need to do that change, do they believe they need to do the change? Are they still trying to get more people to just come to them? And so I think, you know, as you take on more roles in a company, taking that step back and looking at it, okay, my job isn't to solve this problem. My job is to get people in place that can study that problem, but manage it not only across their own division, but get all the other stakeholder groups aligned and circling all the way back to your comment about Komatsu and its Japanese roots. That's one of the things that I'm super passionate about that gives me enjoyment with this company. They want to take that broader stakeholder view standpoint. They want to look at how does this impact society, the customer, the dealer and ourselves and our suppliers. They have a special name for the supply base, it's called the Midori Kai. And they meet with the Midori Kai Every single year I get a chance, the last couple years I've got a chance to, to go just spend time with 400 suppliers. And they are genuinely, as a company concerned about giving good forecasts, giving good requirements to each one of those suppliers so that they're successful 100 years from.
- [116:08]
Bill Witt
Now.
- [116:08]
Rod Bol
Sure. And so that broader stakeholder perspective, and I don't remember if you mentioned this today or was it yesterday evening, but that's where I think our industry is headed, where people are starting to look at the broader stakeholder group saying, look, we're not just competitors, we're part of this industry together. And how do we create value together, how do we partner to create regulation that makes sense for the industry, for the customer, for the end user, for society. And so that's a fun journey to be on. And I think people that came before us, they were maybe solving more of the day to day problems. We have the benefit of all the great things they've done, the technology, the efficiency, the quality that are inherent in products today. And now we have an opportunity to maybe tackle some of the bigger issues if we can kind of come together more as an industry and solve those things together with that broader stakeholder.
- [117:06]
Bill Witt
Perspective. It's funny too, from a leadership standpoint how you could like, you have to be just very. I've had to remind myself of this often recently. It's like you're always being watched and people are always listening and you have to be really careful of what you say as well because you can even make like some offhanded remark of like, well, that's kind of silly that we're doing it that way. That's all you need to.
- [117:35]
Rod Bol
Say. Yeah.
- [117:35]
Bill Witt
Yeah. And then it just snowballs. Now that person that you said that to has been thinking about it for three days, hasn't been able to sleep, and then now they're to their people, XYZ and this and that. And then you come back two weeks later, you're like, what the heck's going on? Well, you said it was silly. Oh no, no, I didn't, I didn't mean that like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And so it's especially you being new, like you, you always have to be really diligent with, with what you say, what you do, but you probably have to be even more careful because all it takes is like a sentence to just start rolling a snowball down the hill and then 1, 2, 6, like what just.
- [118:16]
Rod Bol
Happened. Yeah. Yes. I've experienced this a couple of.
- [118:21]
Bill Witt
Times. At least I have To. Yeah, plenty. Well, cool. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm super excited. Super excited. I'm a huge Komatsu fan. I'm excited that. I mean, even just the conversations we've had with Komatsu over the past year, it's totally different than it was for many years, honestly. And Kamasu has always been good, but it seems like it's really started to change over the past year. And like with again Formula one and some of these other things coming together, it's like, this is really cool. This is great. There's something happening.
- [118:57]
Rod Bol
Here. Yeah, there is. And it's exciting to be a part of Komatsu at this time. And I, I like to think that we've got some great leaders that are being very innovative right now. But the reality is we have the benefit of all those that came before us and their challenges were very different and they've built out a business where now we're at a point where we're looking at it broader scale and saying what can we do differently to create that brand trust, that brand knowledge so that the broader customer base really understands what we offer. Because I personally believe having worked with multiple OEMs, it's a world class company. It just hasn't got the story out there as much. So when we have opportunities like this to engage with a quality individual like yourself and be a part of the dirt talk, that makes total sense to me. Like this is a real opportunity for us to have a genuine conversation about where the company's going, who it is. And yeah, I'm incredibly excited about Komatsu's future and the products that are coming down the pike and the capacity and capability that they're putting out into the market places just. There's never been a better time to be in the industry, in my.
- [120:04]
Bill Witt
Opinion. I'm gonna get out and see the 9,000 this year and I'm gonna go see the 4,800. That one might be neck next year. That's, I mean, yeah, but I want to go see those.
- [120:14]
Rod Bol
Machines. It's worth a visit. And if you haven't seen the Dynacut, we have a hard rock underground. It looks like a continuous miner with an oscillating cutting head. So you don't have to drill and blast. It just fragments the rock. That's a really cool product to go experience. We've got a number of hard rock underground bolters and drills that we've just launched. So yeah, there's some, some neat technology coming down the piping. Hopefully you'll come see us at Conexpo. We can spend some time. We got several new models we'll. We'll talk about during that.
- [120:49]
Bill Witt
Exhibit. Sweet. Yeah, the, the underground mining too. That's a different world. A different world. A different breed of individual. Like everything about as far as I'm concerned is different. They're pulling the same stuff out of the ground, but two totally different means and methods and just the people that do it. Again, for somebody that works underground, you're a special kind of.
- [121:10]
Rod Bol
Person. Absolutely. The courage that they have to do what they do. When you go underground. I remember the. One of the first ones I went to there was like a 40 minute ride from the portal, the entry point to where the face was. And it was a long wall. And when I got to the long wall, they gave me two options. I could wear these motocross, plastic chest protector or I could use rodeo pads that like a bull rider would, would wear. He's like, which one would you like? I'm like, why would I need those? And he goes, well that's in case like a piece of coal sloughs off and hits you. I'm like, maybe I shouldn't walk down the long wall. He's like, no, no, no. This is a. It's a precaution. It's ppe. It's not going to happen. And so I put it on and. But I remember putting it on and just being pretty nervous at the time. And I'd been around mining for years at that point. Just surface and then we walked the long wall. And you feel the gob crushed down past the power roof supports. And you know, you're like, was that the mind is caving? And he goes, yeah, that's the design. So the gob collapses and you feel the whoosh of the material coming down. And meanwhile you're just walking under this hydraulic power roof support. So it's just a totally different experience. It's a ton of fun. It's exciting. But for the people that go in and do it every day you think about the process, the checklist that they have to go through to keep themselves and their peer groups safety. It's huge. It's. It's a, it's a pretty special group of people for.
- [122:44]
Bill Witt
Sure. We went to a salt mine in Germany. I feel like, what's the, what's the loader company Komatsu.
- [122:50]
Rod Bol
Bought?
- [122:51]
Bill Witt
Ghh.
- [122:52]
Rod Bol
Ghh.
- [122:52]
Bill Witt
Ghh. Ghh. Yeah, they. And they're, they're like the.
- [122:56]
Rod Bol
Cadillac.
- [122:57]
Bill Witt
Yeah. Awesome machine of that world. Yeah. I've Only heard good things about those machine. Another great buy on Komatsu's part. But they're German.
- [123:04]
Rod Bol
Right?
- [123:05]
Bill Witt
Correct. Correct. So they, they had those. And we want. We're in Germany. We're in East Germany. First time in East Germany, we go to this salt mine and they have these, these caverns that they mine that are like 140ft tall. It was extraordinary. It was just like you're walking into this cathedral and it was all lit up and it's salt, so it's white and it's just very reflective. And you're like, like, wow, this is incredible. And they. I don't know if you know this, but they mine it in like bread slices. So they, they create a small cavern up above the deposit that they want to mine. And then they start at one side, drill it, shoot it, and then from the bottom, dig it until all this is gone. And then the next slice, drill it, shoot it, dig it, and it's just. And then they end up with this giant cavern that they then can use for hazardous waste storage. And they can seal it off. And it's like, this is crazy that this exists. I cannot believe.
- [124:06]
Rod Bol
This.
- [124:07]
Bill Witt
Yeah. But anyway, I could talk about mining all day long. Thanks for.
- [124:12]
Rod Bol
Coming. Thanks for having.
- [124:13]
Bill Witt
Me. Really.
- [124:14]
Rod Bol
Good. Yeah. This. Appreciate the opportunity to tell a little bit about Komatsu and my story. So I greatly appreciate your.
- [124:21]
Bill Witt
Time.
- [124:21]
Rod Bol
Sure.
- [124:21]
Bill Witt
Yeah. Excited to do more Komatsu Con Export Expo and I'm sure all sorts of other stuff, so appreciate.