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Balderdash?
The Award of Excellence story is the most misleading article I’ve ever read. I was involved with computer-aided earthmoving software in 1987 with Trimble Navigation’s predecessor. To give Mr. McAninch (savvy as he is) credit for the marriage between Caterpillar and Trimble is just balderdash. I’m disappointed to discover that “human interest” is more important than accuracy.
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Editor’s Note
The following letter resulted from further investigating Mr. Anderson’s claim.
Mr. Anderson’s comments are somewhat curious to me. In 1999 I was hired by Dwayne and Doug McAninch to investigate and implement emerging earthmoving technologies. Other than Caterpillar, they had no knowledge of specific suppliers of GPS equipment.
Our first goal did not involve GPS machine control but rather survey grade mapping. Thus, the first purchase was a GPS base station and backpack along with a total station to check the reliability of the original ground topography obtained from consulting engineers.
It may well be true that Mr. Anderson met Dwayne somewhere prior to 1997. However, I have never met or heard of Mr. Anderson and he certainly was not a procuring cause of the relationship that has developed between McAninch Corp., Trimble Navigation and Caterpillar.
Look at the Taxes
After reading your editorial, “Big Oil May Be a Big Loser Because of Piggish Excess,” I have to ask what part of Business 101 do you not understand (ENR 5/1 p. 84)? All taxes ultimately get passed on to the consumer. Oil company profits average 9¢ per gallon of gasoline. Taxes on gas average 50¢ per gallon, more than five times the profit reaped by oil companies. A windfall profit tax is simply increasing the tax that gets passed on to consumers and hampers the free-market flow of fuel. Do you remember the Carter administration and their failed energy policies? I’m not happy about $400-million retirement packages but please be fair and report how much the state and federal governments take in tax dollars during the same time period.
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