Utah Construction & Mining Company -- Unique vocations can come along when you least expect; -- and an invitation to join a former supervisor in creating a new department for UC&MC in 1959, resulted in a totally new career direction for me; -- and, ultimately in my becoming a nationally recognized expert in construction equipment management. 

The need for this specialization was just being envisioned by some of the larger companies in the late '50s.  Until that time construction equipment had typically been treated as an expendable; -- but as costs continued to escalate, so did the need for better control.  Utah was a pioneer in this forsight; -- and the department we were asked to form centralized their fleet management in one corporate office, and turned an expense area into a profit center.

In the process: -- we established more accurate world-wide cost-tracking methods; -- standardized their fleet for purchasing and parts advantage; -- organized a more financially productive disposal system; -- and created a unique new equipment-cost estimating methodology that permitted more accurate projection of the true costs of ownership and usage.

I was privileged to play a major role in these accomplishments, -- from startup in 1959 until 1964; -- at which time I left UC&MC to accept a Senior Position with a small company publishing construction equipment data for the industry.