Peterson Trucks Moves Used Trucks Facility to 2595 Alvarado Street, San Leandro

San Leandro, CA — Peterson Trucks, a division of Peterson Holding Co., has moved its used trucks facility to 2595 Alvarado Street in San Leandro. The San Leandro lot has been the base of operations for Peterson Idealease, the rental and lease arm of Peterson Trucks, for several months. This facility replaces Peterson’s former location off of Highway 880 in Oakland

Steve Sundberg, General Sales Manager for Peterson Trucks, commented on the reasons for the move: “We want to give our customers the opportunity to take full advantage of our range of services. Now, fleet managers can come to a single location, view our used truck inventory as well as our rental and lease vehicles, and make the decision that best fits their business strategy. And the new lot is right around the corner from our International truck dealership, and parts and service center.”

Additionally, Peterson Trucks’ new facility is next door to Peterson Cat’s earthmoving sales and service facility, and is only a few blocks from Peterson Power Systems, which offers generator sales, rentals, and service. “We’re a one-stop shop,” Sundberg explained. “We have virtually any piece of equipment our customers might need, the technicians to fix it, and the parts to maintain it. And on top of that, we have purchase, rental, and lease options to fit a range of business plans.”

Peterson Trucks’ Executive VP and GM, Larry MacDonald elaborated on the advantages of moving Peterson’s Used Truck Center: “We’re now in a position to offer used trucks from our own lease and rental fleet. This means our technicians have been maintaining the vehicles since we acquired them, and it’s in our best interest to keep them in pristine condition. In short, we can assure that our used truck customers are getting a quality product.”

About Peterson
Peterson has been a family-owned Caterpillar dealer for seventy-five years. The Peterson family of companies serves over one hundred thousand square miles of the American West with an expansive line of equipment: Caterpillar machinery and on-highway trucks, International trucks, agricultural equipment, rental equipment, portable and stationary diesel-powered generators, natural gas turbines, air compressors, and advanced equipment guidance systems. With more than forty locations throughout northern California, Oregon, and southwestern Washington, Peterson employs over one thousand employees. For more information about Peterson Idealease, visit www.petersonidealease.com.

Peterson Power Provides Project Management and Engineering for Projects Big and Small, from Start to Finish!

In 2009, the single largest piece of gear that Peterson Power Systems ever sold was delivered: a fully self contained electrical switchgear building measuring over fifty feet long, sixteen feet wide, and sixteen feet tall. The unit weighed nearly one hundred thousand pounds, and was the primary piece of equipment in a multimillion dollar electrical upgrade project for the City of San Francisco’s Water Department.

Naturally, equipment this big doesn’t just walk itself onto a site. Before this unit arrived on the job, its contract was received (with all Ts crossed and Is dotted), the terms and conditions of the job were thoroughly negotiated, work schedules were reviewed and accepted… And then the whole thing was sent to upper management for approval. Finally, with ink dry on all the necessary signatures, the job was handed to the Project Management team. This was when the fun started.

Beginning in March 2009, the Project Management team worked to get the project off the ground. This meant organizing engineering meetings, visiting the site, and preparing preliminary coordination and arc flash hazard study reports.

A project of this magnitude calls for us to create many documents, both electronically and in print; the submittal review and approval process of these documents begins early in the project’s life and can continue right to the point of delivery. Several meetings with the customer and vendors help to expedite the process and reduce the paper volleys.

In any project, this portion of the job keeps the Project Managers and Project Engineers fully engaged until all questions are answered and all submittals approved. This project relied heavily on guidance from our now retired Chief Engineer Steve Cushman. In mid-June 2009, the customer’s equipment was released for production.

Part of the Project Management team’s job is to monitor production of the gear to insure an on-time delivery, avoid any liquidated damages, and arrange shipments to packagers as needed. As you can probably imagine, this requires constant vigilance with our vendors.

In the months that followed the initial release for production of the equipment, the team made numerous trips to various manufacturers around the country to observe testing of the unit’s components: In September, we visited a factory in Bland, VA with the customer to witness a test of the system’s utility tie 15kv transformer. Later in September, we joined the customer for a visit to a factory in Portland, OR to witness testing of the system’s utility tie 15kv switchgear. Also in September, we went to Atlanta, GA with the customer to witness a test of the unit’s paralleling switchgear (and flew into Atlanta during a major storm and flood!) Returning from Atlanta we stopped in Houston, TX (without the customer this time) to inspect the enclosure manufacturer’s progress and arrange shipment of paralleling switchgear and other components to the packager. Finally, in November, we returned to Houston with the customer to witness a test of the finished product.

On December 7, 2009, the unit was ready to ship; however, due to its size, it required a special permit and Highway Patrol escort through each state to travel from Houston to San Leandro. The five-state, 1,900-mile trip took two weeks of travel (at restricted speeds and hours of operation). The project management team monitored the truck’s route and progress on a daily basis.

The unit was delivered to Bigge Crane yard and reloaded for delivery to the customer’s site on December 21. The customer inspected it at Bigge on the 22nd, and was delivered on December 27—four days ahead of our December 31 deadline. Considering all the potential for delays in manufacturing and transportation, four days of breathing room was still cutting it close.

With the primary scope of the project completed, a substantial amount of upgrade modifications to the existing generators was completed by our Service Department over the next year. Throughout this entire process, the Project Management team kept detailed records of any changes made to the system, and provided the customer complete operation and maintenance manuals for everything Peterson Power Systems provided them.

Even in today’s electronic age the job isn’t finished until the paperwork is done—and, as you can see, the Project Management team will be involved from start to finish!

New Product Link Capabilities Include Mobile Application and Productivity Functionality

Source: cat.com

Caterpillar recently announced the availability of a new version of VisionLink: version 2.7. VisionLink is the Trimble-powered software that interfaces with Product Link, the performance and maintenance monitoring system installed on many Cat machines. Updates to VisionLink in version 2.7 include a multi-platform mobile user interface, a payload-tracking system for wheel loaders and off-highway trucks, and the ability to schedule automated delivery of VisionLink reports.

The new Vision Link mobile application is available for the iOS, BlackBerry, Android, and Windows mobile operating systems. It allows users to view the location of Product Link-equipped assets on a map, track scheduled services for their equipment, view fault codes and open alerts, and access idle, working and runtime… All through their smartphone!

Vision Link 2.7 also includes a payloadmonitoring system for wheel loaders and off-highway trucks equipped with payload-management systems capable of interacting with Vision Link. Managers of these machines can now use Vision Link to remotely monitor information such as total payload moved per day and total payload per hour and per unit of fuel. This new integration adds to VisionLink’s current productivity capabilities, which include the ability to track load counts and cycle times based on switch and machine movement input, as well as advanced integration with onboard grade control systems to enable detailed monitoring of earthmoving, grading and finishing projects.

Finally, version 2.7 of VisionLink now provides users the ability to schedule delivery of daily, weekly and monthly reports in advance. These reports are delivered via email to email addresses prespecified by the fleet management.

Join us at EUCI Oil and Gas Conference

Peterson Power will be at the EUCI conference in Dallas, TX on June 24-25, 2013. The title of this year’s conference is “Supplying Electricity for Oil and Gas Operations,” and the event will feature talks on latest power solutions available to oil and gas producers. Peterson will be extending a 15% discount on registration fees to its clients.

As a provider of rental and refurbished Solar turbines - and Cat natural gas generator sets - Peterson Power will be at this year’s conference to discuss mobile power units to meet the needs of the oil and gas sector. As a total solutions provider, Peterson has extensive experience in designing and engineering power projects in the remote locations that are often the sites of natural gas and oil extraction. We offer a range of services such as turbine rental, transportation, setup, training, fuel handling.

Join us at the conference to learn more. If you are a Peterson Power client and would like to receive a 15% discount on your registration fee, contact Vern Booth at cvbooth@petersonpower.com 

Or learn more about Peterson’s power solutions at http://bit.ly/ZVA3Cm

Peterson Cat is now your Soucy Track Dealer

Wondering what Soucy Tracks can do for your ag equipment? Peterson Cat would like you to find out!

As the new authorized Soucy Track dealer throughout our Oregon and southwest Washington territory, we’ll be hosting an open house with a BBQ lunch to give our customers the opportunity to learn about these revolutionary track systems.

Join us on one of the date below:

June 5, 11:30am
30815 Highway 34 SW
Albany, OR

Note: Our Soucy Track event on June 6 in Salem has been cancelled.

What are Soucy Tracks?
Soucy Track is a manufacturer of rubber track systems used to improve flotation, traction, and comfort for wheeled ag equipment like tractors, combines, and sprayers. The system uses an ingenious arrangement to turn each wheel on a machine into an individual track, thus combining the reduced footprint and improved soil compaction of a track machine with the maneuverability of a wheeled machine. Learn more…

Looking for a Career? Think Diesel

by Jim Knowles, Managing Editor of the San Leandro Times

The following article, which ran in the San Leandro Times on March 21, provides a number of reasons why a career in diesel would be worth pursing for a motivated student.

When Clint graduates from college he won’t have to wait around for the economy to recover. Most likely, if he studies and learns his stuff in the one- or two-year program, there will be a job waiting for him - a job that pays better than most recent college grads can expect. Clint is going to diesel college. The current high school student will go to Universal Technical Institute (UTI) in Sacramento in June to learn to be a diesel technician.

“I graduate from high school on June 13 and I start at UTI in June,” said Clint, a driven young man who works two jobs while going to high school and hopes to buy his mom a house someday. Clint and around thirty other students came to a career day on Saturday, March 9, at Peterson Cat in San Leandro, a joint program by Peterson and UTI to show students the opportunities open to them in diesel mechanics.

Several of Peterson’s mechanics were on-hand to speak and answer questions and talk honestly about the field, both the good and the bad. It’s tough work that isn’t for everybody, but a hard-working mechanic not only is well paid, he can get lots of overtime and travel—a lot of jobs are in Antarctica, Alaska, Guam, and around the South Pacific: remote places that need diesels to run generators for electricity.

“This day and age it’s all about electricity,” Peterson Trucks Service Manager Ted Fleming told the students. “All backup electricity runs off generators. If you want to work hard, you got a job.” Right here in the Bay Area, a lot of businesses need backup generators run by diesels: hospitals, TV and radio stations, supermarkets, and computer Companies... Any operation that can’t afford to lose power.

“Not all the diesels come into the shop in trucks and tractors. Diesel mechanics have to go where the generators are—on the tops of buildings, for instance—to do what they call field work, which means plenty of overtime.

“There’s a need for mechanics right now, and that will only grow in the future,” Fleming said. “As the economy comes back, there will be a huge demand for people in this industry.”

And diesel mechanics isn’t an old-fashioned occupation. It’s as computerized as any field these days. The first thing a technician does is hook up a computer to the diesel. Industrial-strength Dell laptops are on stands all around Peterson’s shop, ready for use. “The technology is always advancing, so you’re constantly going to school to learn each new technology that comes out,” Fleming told the students. “Mechanics have to know how to figure it out on their own, to diagnose the problem and fix it,” said Joseph Junta, a technician at Peterson.

Junta later led a group through the shop, where truck and tour buses sat waiting to have their engines pulled out and repaired. All the new diesels are equipped with special filters to reduce emissions. The filters are then healed to bum off the particles, Junta explained. Of course, these new filters have problems and need repairs, but that’s more work for diesel technicians.

“The pay is hourly, not a flat rate for each job, so there is no incentive to rush or cut comers; it’s more important to do the job right,” Junta told the students. “The job is a combination of working with everybody as a team and being able to solve it on your own,” he said. Junta said he did well by taking the jobs that nobody else wanted to do. Repairing RVs is tough because the engines are hard to get to, and the owners don’t want the inside of their vehicles to get dirty. So Junta said he volunteered to take every RV that came in. “I decided to take the jobs nobody else wanted and that paid off,” Junta said.

To learn more about pursuing a job with Peterson, visit http://www.petersoncat.com/employment.

Peterson Power Helps Work Boats Meet California Emissions Requirements

Replacing the prime engine in a seafaring vessel to meet modern emissions laws can be a major challenge. Clearances inside a ship’s hull are cramped in the best of circumstances and almost unbearably tight in the worst, so replacing an outdated engine can seem near impossible. However, Peterson marine customers using Cat 3500 series engines have an additional option: they can purchase an Emissions Upgrade Group (EUG) parts kit and have Peterson Power Systems install it for them... Without removing their old engines!
 
Marine Engine PSSR Randy Richter describes the benefits of EUG kits: “Putting a new engine in an old ship requires major changes to the ship’s hull,” Randy says. “Caterpillar knew its customers weren’t thrilled about this, so their engineers analyzed certain popular engines to determine which parts they could swap to lower the engine’s emissions output without changing the core.” Eventually, Caterpillar came up with EUG kits: each one includes an upgraded turbocharger, ECM, nozzles, cylinder packs... Everything needed to make an older engine run as clean as a new one.
 
“When all the new components are installed, the old engine meets today’s requirements. The customer doesn’t have to take his vessel out of the water, get the hull cut, and have the old engine removed to fit an engine with a different footprint than the one it replaces,” Randy explains.
 
Caterpillar makes EUG kits for several engine models, and they’ve been verified by the Air Resource Board (ARB), meaning that the State recognizes them as emissions reducers and considers a post-EUG engine to be Tier compliant.
 
Peterson recently finished the first EUG overhauls in North America to be completed without direct supervision from Caterpillar. “Cat engineers have been working with dealers pretty closely on these overhauls for the past year or two,” Randy said, “but we’re now at the point where they trust us to do everything correctly and we can offer this valuable service to our customers—they’ve been waiting for this service for a while now and are excited to overhaul their engines.”
 
To learn more about Peterson Power’s marine service capabilities, visit: http://goo.gl/cdQo1

Peterson Power a Complete Emissions Solution Provider

Adhering to California Air Resources Board (CARB) regulations can be complicated, especially when different regulations apply to different types of equipment. But from standby power generators to off-road tractors, businesses are required to implement approved emissions solutions on the majority of their diesel engines.

Peterson Power Systems is available not only to help customers understand current CARB requirements, we can also deliver an emissions solution that's right for your equipment, even if it means building it from scratch. Peterson engineers recently designed, built and installed a customized diesel particulate filter (DPF) for a customer with a standby power generation system.

The DPF was constructed on a skid, then delivered to the customer via truck. This allowed a team to perform minimal installation work on site.

For pictures of the installation, visit our Pinterest board at http://pinterest.com/petersoncat/power-systems/

For information on emissions solutions for stationary engines, dial 800.963.6446 and ask our receptionist to direct your call. 

Peterson Will Host CA Air Resource Board Training Courses on April 17.

Understanding CA emissions regulations for stationary engines can be a challenge, and some facilities managers and other industry professionals have difficulty determining the emissions solution that is right for their equipment.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) offers courses intended to clarify these rules and regulations so that facilities can select the most appropriate solution. Peterson will be hosting two of these courses on April 17.

The below courses offered by CARB will be held on April 17 at:
Peterson University
2700 Teagarden Street
San Leandro, CA 94577

Attendees are asked to register prior to the course at http://www.arb.ca.gov/training/courses.htm or by calling (916) 322-3937.

8:30am - 12pm: Course 304

Reciprocating Internal Combustion Engine (RICE) National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) & Standards of Performance for Stationary Internal Combustion Engines (New Source Performance Standards (NSPS))

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued rules that reduce emissions of criteria and air toxic pollutants from stationary internal combustion engines. These engines are used at facilities such as power plants and chemical and manufacturing plants to generate electricity and power pumps and compressors. They are also used in emergencies to produce electricity and pump water for flood and fire control. This training will include an overview of both RICE NESHAP and NSPS rules.


1:30pm - 5pm: Course 301
Air Toxic Control Measures (ATCM) for Stationary Compression Ignition (Diesel) Engines

This half day course provides information regarding the State of California's Airborne Toxic Control Measure (ATCM) for Stationary Compression Ignition Engines. This ATCM, which applies to stationary diesel engines used in both non-agricultural and agricultural operations, is resulting in a reduction in the emissions of and exposure to diesel PM from stationary diesel engines throughout California.

Free Webinar from Diesel Technology Forum

Facilities managers and professionals interested in learning more about the role of emergency power generators in emergency preparedness are invited to attend the following free webinar on March 18:

WEBINAR SERIES
Preserving Public Safety:  Role of Backup Generators in Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Relief and Recovery

Interruptions of electrical power, even of short duration, create situations that imperil public health and safety.  Emergency generators must be able to provide reliable, immediate and full strength electric power when there is a failure of the primary power supply system.  This free webinar will provide an understanding of the basic issues surrounding the use of emergency backup power systems, technology and fuel choices, operating conditions, and case studies.  

Speakers will include representatives from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security - Homeland Infrastructure Threat and Risk Analysis Center (HITRAC) and leading product, system and field experts representing Caterpillar and Cummins Power Generation.

When?  Monday, March 18 from 11:00-12:30 pm (PST).

Who should attend?  Federal, state and local policymakers; elected officials; emergency planners; property managers; business owners; and media.

What will this webinar address?
What technologies are available to provide emergency backup electrical power?
What are the differences between technologies?
What are the limitations on use of each of these technologies?
What lessons have we learned in the recent Superstorm Sandy about backup generators?

Register now - there is no registration fee but space is limited!

Profile of a Peterson Cat Ag Customer

When most people think Cat equipment, they think big iron, big jobs, and big diesel engines—all things that are typically associate with the construction industry. But the modern Ag business has no shortage of high-powered gear, and any farmer can tell you that their industry is every bit as stressful and labor-intensive as those of the contractors, loggers, and utilities Peterson Cat also serves. One Peterson customer, Mark, is a grass seed farmer in our Oregon territory, and he provides an excellent example of how complex a modern farm can be.

Mark farms about five thousand acres in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, between Eugene and Albany. He owns some of this land, and he rents the rest. That is a fairly large farm by our standards, but larger operations do exist. Mark is responsible for seeding, growing, and harvesting this acreage, and he uses several pieces of heavy-duty gear from Caterpillar-allied brands to do it: four Lexion combines, a Challenger 900-series high-horsepower articulated tractor, and various seeding and tillage tools and rental tractors. Growing grass seed is a very equipment-driven business.

The farming business is cyclical. Mark’s work goes on year-round, and follows a rhythm that predates all other human invention, even in our age of high-tech wonders: If we were to start observing Mark’s operation a few months ago, in October, we’d get to see what can be thought of as the beginning of the planting cycle—planting the seeds for the 2013 crop. Mark seeds his fields in the fall, and when the rain starts—typically late October or early November—he’ll check their drainage. If everything looks good, he’ll give the field a shot of fertilizer and a spray of pesticide and weed control using equipment like AgChem, Spracoupe, or Rogator spraying gear.

Winter on the farm is spent applying additional fertilizer and spraying for pests. Mark must rely on decent weather, since too much rain will make it impossible to fertilize his field. If the water table is more than six inches below the surface, Mark can’t properly apply fertilizer. The ag business has many gambles like this. Farmers must rely on the weather for everything they do, and as everyone knows, you can’t count on the weather to do anything reliably!

Things really heat up on Mark’s farm in spring; he and his crew begin prepping equipment for the busy summer season. In June, when the crop is at the proper point in its growth and pollenization cycle, they begin harvest by cutting their grass crop with a windrower, a self-propelled machine that cuts the grass and leaves it piles in rows (Mark operates eight windrowers). Mark and his team, mostly family, will work day-and-night to mow the crop, which will then spend approximately ten days drying on the ground.

When the cut grass is dry, Mark’s team will harvest the seed—the crop he sells for his living—using Lexion combines, the enormous Cat-powered devices that separate the seed from the chaff (the dried grass stems and leaves). Mark’s team will typically spend about sixty days harvesting; as the combines fills with grass seed, the chaff they discard is accumulated in the field, where is later baled using a Massey Ferguson MF2170 or Challenger LB34B large square baler—these pressed bales of hay will eventually be sold overseas as feed filler for livestock and other feed demands.

When Mark has harvested all of the year’s grass seed, he cleans the crop and processes and bags it for sale; at this point, Mark’s attention returns to his fields, which must be prepped for the next year. The ground work begins immediately after the harvest. Mark uses a high-horsepower tractor—in this case, a Challenger MT955D—to pull an implement called a disc that aerates the soil and drives the remaining chaff into the earth to form mulch. He then switches implements and pulls a finishing tool called a heavy harrow through the soil to break up clods of dirt and further prep the soil. All told, he’ll go over the field five or six times, and by the time he finishes, it’s once again fall and time for the cycle to begin anew.”

The cyclical nature of the ag business makes it a high-stakes gamble: Mark and his team seed his fields months before they know what kind of money they’ll make from the crop. Commodity prices are uncertain; the weather could do just about anything…Mark’s business is highly dependant on a number of factors outside his control. That’s why farmers in general demand quality from their equipment and reliable service—they don’t need any more variables that could go wrong.

Reducing Energy Costs with Cogeneration

As the technology for small-scale, onsite cogeneration plants continues to improve, many companies are finding that combined heat and power (CHP) solutions are a viable option for offsetting high, unpredictable energy costs. When engineered and implemented correctly, a CHP system not only reduces the prices associated with buying energy from a utility, it provides a level of redundancy that can protect a facility from unnecessary downtime.

Cogeneration is the simultaneous production of heat and power from a single fuel source. A company can use the natural gas it would be using to supply its facility’s thermal load and use that gas instead to power a generator set. Waste heat from the generator’s engine jacket and exhaust stream (which would be allowed to dissipate in a traditional power generation system) can be captured and diverted to supply the facility’s thermal load.

By generating a portion of their electricity onsite and capturing waste heat, some facilities can achieve a significant reduction in their power costs with no substantial increase in natural gas consumption.

To read more about cogeneration, take a look at Martin Hopkins’s white paper at http://goo.gl/uZMxL.

James Bond Trades Aston Martin for Cat Excavator

Both Cat machine fans and action movie aficionados alike might enjoy an exciting new website: www.catskyfall.com. It was created as a collaboration between Caterpillar and the producers of Skyfall—the latest James Bond film—and contains enough near-misses, reportable incidents, and outright disasters to make any safety supervisor picture mile-high piles of forms and the inevitable lawsuits that would accompany the extreme misuse of Caterpillar equipment depicted in the film if it were to somehow occur in real life.

The centerpiece of the mini-site is a clip from Skyfall in which iconic superspy James Bond (played by Daniel Craig) operates a 320D excavator atop a moving flatcar. As the train travels down the tracks, Bond rolls the excavator over several cars and smashes through the roof of the adjoining passenger railcar. Bond’s ally rides alongside the train and watches his next pulse-pounding move: leaving the cab unattended to walk across the extended boom and stick in order to jump into the car he damaged.

In addition to the action-packed clip form the film, the Caterpillar/Skyfall site is packed with photos. All joking aside, safety on the set was considered THE foremost concern, and numerous pictures of the film and safety crews on the set attest to the difficulty of filming these kind of high-energy scenes. But the results are worth it: we can all agree that Skyfall depicts one of the most exciting—and foolhardy—uses of Cat equipment ever committed to film!

Sending Machines to the Moon

Although it sounds like something from a science fiction novel, Cat recently announced a partnership with NASA that could lead eventually to mining operations in a particularly remote location: the moon!

Cat was one of several dozen companies awarded seed funding by the Innovative Partnerships Office (IPO), a division of NASA that encourages the advancement of cutting-edge technology with potential space applications by supporting research and development projects across a variety of sectors.

The IPO is interested in technology that Cat plans to develop for mining in dangerous or toxic environments: specifically, heavy equipment that can be operated remotely, eliminating the need for sending miners into potentially life-threatening situations.

Of course, similar technology could be used in a variety of inhospitable environments, including the lunar surface. For this reason, the IPO has offered Cat funding for two prototype 287C multi terrain loaders that can used to mine, grade, and trench on the moon by operators on Earth.

Currently, one of these prototypes is being designed at Cat headquarters in Peroria, IL, the other at NASA headquarters in Houston, TX.

Peterson Power Systems at the Bottom of the Earth

Peterson Power’s rental and used equipment businesses often send employees across the globe to meet customers and deliver gear, but despite several years in the business, there’s one particularly remote location to which they had never shipped a unit, sent a technician, or installed a part: Antarctica, southernmost continent, home of the world’s largest desert, and the coldest place on Earth! However, a request for engine and genset rebuilds in McMurdo Station, a U.S. Antarctic research center located on the shore of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica, recently brought an opportunity for Peterson to add another feather to our hat of international deliveries… We won a job in Antarctica!

Patrick Higgins, Product Support Sales Manager, explained how Peterson won the job: “We had an employee who left us to work in Antarctica,” Patrick said. “After four or five years there, he came back to the United States and took a job finding contractors to work in Antarctica during the summers. Fairly recently, a big engine overhaul job came up, and he gave us a shot at bidding it. The job is complex—it consists of two complete in-frames, one top-end overall, one generator-end replacement, and one radiator & fan hub repair. We won the bid, and next thing you know, we were planning a trip to McMurdo Station!
McMurdo is operated by the United States through the United States Antarctic Program, a branch of the National Science Foundation. The highest average temperature at the station is a balmy 31º Fahrenheit in January [midsummer, to residents of the Southern hemisphere] and in August, the average low is -25º! Needless to say, for the approximately 1,300 people who call McMurdo their home, keeping the lights and heaters working reliably is top priority!

“Our job will run from October to January,” Patrick said. “Three technicians have agreed to spend four months on the ice, where they will demonstrate Peterson Excellence in the most inhospitable climate on earth.” And they’ll be busy: “The guys will arrive at McMurdo in early October,” Patrick said. “For the first two months, they’ll be in McMurdo during a 3516 overhaul and a generator-end swapout on a 3516. In November, one of the guys will fly to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide field camp to perform a radiator & fan hub repair on a C9 generator. Then, from November to December, all three technicians will fly to the South Pole station [at 10,000’ elevation!] and do a complete, major overall on a 3512.”

Power Vice-President John Krummen explained more about the job: “Visiting Antarctica is exceedingly difficult during the Southern hemisphere’s winter, which takes place during our summer,” John said. “Planes are rarely able to navigate the whiteout conditions near McMurdo and ships approaching the continent must be led by an icebreaker. Our technicians will arrive shortly after the Antarctic airspace becomes navigable—the people who spent that winter at McMurdo will be happy to see new faces after six months and are sure to give them a warm welcome!” John went on to praise the techs for their dedication to our customers: “Going to Antarctica is a big deal for Peterson,” John said. “We have now worked on every continent and condition on Earth—from extreme heat in Algeria to incredible cold in Antarctica. The dedication of our employees makes it possible for us to say truthfully that we will do whatever it takes, no matter how distant or forbidding the job, to put the Customer First!”

To view images of Peterson in Antarctica, visit our facebook page.  Or check us out on Pinterest.

Peterson Trucks to Host Idealease Safety and Compliance Seminar

On April 18, 2013 Peterson Trucks, the Bay Area’s authorized International truck dealership, will be hosting “Safety & Compliance Simplified,” an Idealease seminar for fleet owners and managers on compliance with Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) mandates.

This one-day seminar is designed to help motor carriers understand and meet FMCSA regulations, manage commercial vehicle safety, train employees on fleet safety, reduce violations and accidents, and limit liability exposure. It is open to all fleet owners and mangers.

This year’s discussion will cover FMCSA driver screening tools, driving qualifications, hours of service (drivers’ daily logs), drug and alcohol testing rules, vehicle maintenance and inspection, accident recordkeeping, and CSA.

Attendees must register in advance at http://goo.gl/QEzsr.

For more information visit www.petersoncat.com/2013safetyseminar

Get to Know the NJPA

On Friday, January 18, 2013, the National Joint Power Alliance (NJPA) will be hosting a “get to know us” event in San Mateo. The meeting will be an opportunity for vendors with NJPA contracts to learn about the organization and to network.

The NPJA is a public agency, member-driven service cooperative that acts as a liaison between its member agencies—consisting of schools, government operations, and non-profit organizations—and contracted service and equipment providers. The event on January 18 will be held at the San Mateo Marriott San Francisco Airport from 10am to 11am.

The NJPA asks that participants reserve their space prior to the event by calling 888-894-1930 or by registering on their website: www.njpacoop.org/registration