It was the best of times, it was the worst of times--and through it all, managers at two companies behaved very differently.
First, there’s Brandon Fisher’s Center Rock Inc. of Berlin, Pa., a few hours east of Pittsburgh, not far from some of the hilliest terrain on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. His company does offer custom fabrication services, including bending, waterjet cutting, plasma cutting, and rolling. But primarily it manufactures custom air drilling system designed for various industries, including oil and gas, the geothermal sector, and water well drilling industry.
Like all of us, Fisher saw on TV the dramatic story of the Chilean miner entrapment start to unfold in August. And with the rest of us, he learned that those miners might be stuck down there until Christmas. But unlike most of us, he thought he could do something about it. He researched the geology of the area (hard, volcanic rock), contacted his Chilean distributors, picked up the phone and fired off e-mails. He knew his drilling equipment--which his small, Somerset County company fabricated--could help. Its LP model canister drill uses a series of air hammers at the end, designed to cut through extremely hard rock formations, according to the company Web site.
