The Post Falls company builds the world’s largest fuel & lube and water trucks

GroundForceBOISE, Idaho—Monday, November 19, 2013— In September 2013, Ground Force received a Letter of Award and subsequent contract from the largest mining company in Kazakhstan.  The award was for more than a dozen pieces of equipment – keeping the northern Idaho factories very busy until March.

Ground Force Worldwide (GFWW) is an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for Caterpillar and a dedicated solutions provider to the global CAT dealer network that has been in business for over 28 years.  The company designs, engineers and manufactures mine support equipment for open pit and underground mining applications. GFWW services over 55 countries worldwide, making its product diversity more important than ever.  The company has three factories in the United States, one in Europe, one in Peru and future plans for a location in Australia, with its largest North American factory of 85,000 square feet located in Idaho.

In late 2000, Ron Nilson purchased Aresco, a company in Post Falls, and changed the name to Ground Force Manufacturing.  Nilson’s goal with Ground Force was to increase the product line and take the company global. Today, Ground Force builds the world’s largest fuel & lube trucks, the world’s largest water trucks and the most diverse line of mine support equipment in the industry.  A new product line, UnderGround Force, was launched in late 2012 and with recent growth, Ground Force Worldwide (parent company to Ground Force and UnderGround Force) now employs more than 200 people. The company’s business is now 25 percent domestic and 75 percent international and has become a complete solution for CAT dealers servicing the open pit and underground mining industry all over the world.CAT

Ground Force received a $5,436 State Trade and Export Promotion (STEP) Grant, distributed by the Idaho Department of Commerce and funded in part through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).  The STEP Grant gave Ground Force the funds needed to take four trips oversees to the Russian market – trips that enabled the company to form over a dozen new relationships with end user customers as well as new CAT Dealers.

The new customers span nine time zones and included such regions as Scandinavia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Greenland and Uzbekistan.

Next year, the Ground Force team expects to attend two trade shows in the Russian region and is looking forward to spending more time in Russia, Australia, Africa and Southeast Asia, as well as continuing its development of the South America region.

To learn more about Ground Force Worldwide, visit http://gfworldwide.com/

Posted in Commerce, International