The creation of Rental rate Blue-Book, Truck & Trailer Value
Guide, Equipment Cost-Reference Guide, and The Equipment Guide News, all took place between March
1964 and February 1973; -- and it was probably the most satisfying time in my entire career life.
In 1963 I was working at Utah Construction & Mining Company in San Francisco in the Equipment Department.
This was a pioneer corporate group that had been formed in 1959 to establish a professional management unbrella
over the company fleets; and I was one of the first two staff brought onboard. My reaponsibility was overall cost tracking,
fleet management, economic disposal, estimating, and logistics; and the whole effort was a magnificient educational
experience. Specializiation in fleet management in those days was only beginning to be recognized as a vital tool
in corporate health; and we achieved significant results almost from the beginning. In the process, I became an equipment
management expert.
Approximately during the same time period, there was a small company named Equipment Guide-Book Company
formed in Palo Alto, California to publish construction & mining equipment cost data. Their research arm was called
National Research & Appraisal Company; and in late Fall of 1963 they approached me with an offer to join their group as
Director of Research.
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Initially, -- as Director of Research; -- and
later as Executive vice president of this specialized publishing company; -- I had relatively free rein to create
new information products for the industry, and to broaden my expertise My Equipment Department experiences at Utah had
made me very aware of the information needed by the typical industry professional, and with the freedom to create tools to
serve that need I enjoyed the challenge. It was also in those years that I became a Senior Member of the American
Society of Appraisers, and participated as Expert Witness in a number of cases.
