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...comes On little cat feet...
Scottish Burr. Concern with foreign markets is a hallmark of Caterpillar's recent management. A decade ago the company did no manufacturing overseas; today it has plants in eleven foreign countries. With foreign sales now accounting for 45% of its business, Cat has become the U.S.'s second biggest exporter after General Motors, last year helped shore up the nation's strained balance of payments with $444 million in foreign-earned revenue. The company now manufactures 250 different pieces of heavy-duty equipment, from pipelayers (cost: $96,000) capable of lifting 100 tons to giant scrapers (cost...
Such muscular diversification is all the more impressive since Caterpillar traces its origins to a single product. The original steam-driven Cat was developed in 1904 by a Californian named Benjamin Holt, who got the novel idea of mounting a tractor on its own treadmill tracks. So successful was Holt's "crawler" concept that it inspired the British invention of the armored tank during World...
...clients, the urbane Blackie found himself spending plenty of time at the company's headquarters. "Peoria," he recalls with a slight Scottish burr, "was something I'd not quite experienced before." He evidently liked the experience, for in 1939 he quit Price Waterhouse to become Cat's controller. He moved to president in 1962, and last year, when Harmon Eberhard stepped down after four years as Cat's chairman and chief executive officer, Blackie took over...
Tapping the Oyster. Having more than tripled its earnings in five years (to $158 million in 1965), Caterpillar slipped slightly last year. As a capital-goods manufacturer susceptible to economic swings, Cat suffered during the recent downturn from lagging construction, tight credit and curtailment of federal road-building projects. By 1970, however, a four-year, $600 million expansion program will be completed to meet an anticipated surge in worldwide construction, and land development. Says Chairman Blackie: "We have adapted our organization in a manner which treats the world as our oyster...