TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – This year Canadian mining equipment merchant and the world’s largest Caterpillar dealer Finning International celebrates its eightieth anniversary.

On January 4, 1933, Earl B Finning used his experience in selling heavy equipment to become British Columbia’s (BC’s) first Caterpillar dealer. He had raised $50 000 during the height of the Depression to start his dealership in a shed near Vancouver’s Canadian National railway station.

Over the next 80 years, that small operation grew to become Finning International - the world’s largest Caterpillar dealer, which employs about 15 000 people selling and renting equipment and engines, while providing service and parts.

The company operates in seven countries across three geographical locations, including Western Canada, South America and the UK. Revenues in 2011 totalled $5.9-billion. 

Earl Finning had grown up surrounded by equipment used in his father’s logging and sawmill operations near Placerville, California. In 1925, the year the Caterpillar Tractor Company was formed, he went to work for a dealer in Salinas, California, serving the agriculture community.

He became a successful salesman and used that experience to become a partner at Morrison Tractor and Equipment, in Vancouver, and later opened his own Caterpillar dealership exclusive to BC.

To set the course for becoming the world’s largest Caterpillar dealer, Earl Finning invoked a policy that was unique to the times, promising to “service what we sell”. Parts availability and repair services to support sales helped the company grow.

The first branch office opened in Nelson, BC, in 1937, followed by branches throughout the province.

In 1969, Finning became a public company trading shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange. But, in the 1980s Finning went from being a Western Canadian company to an international organisation through the acquisition of other dealerships and Finning International’s aggressive growth in the UK and South American markets.

The company’s stock closed at C$25.80 apiece on the TSX on Wednesday.