No Job Too Deep for a Northern Ontario Mining Equipment Manufacturer

RDH equipment operating at the Crazy Horse Memorial and under the Hudson River

When it comes to excavating tunnels or underground mining, no job is too deep for a northern Ontario mining equipment manufacturer that has doubled its sales and workforce in the past two years. RDH Mining Equipment of Alban, Ontario, Canada, a one-hour flight north of Toronto, now sells its underground mining equipment on five continents with hopes of a breakthrough soon in the vast Chinese mining market.

"We have expansion plans in order to keep up with demand," says company president Kevin Fitzsimmons. "Our order book is nearly full with 35 pieces of equipment due to be delivered by April 2012."

RDH's line ranges from Drillmaster underground jumbo drilling rigs to custom-made Boltmasters and concrete-hauling Cretemasters, two pieces that help secure mining tunnel ceilings so they don't collapse during excavation. These highly specialized machines can cost between $250,000 and $1 million each. All are made at the company's plant in Alban.

RDH recently sold four of its roof-support machines, along with three drilling machines to a multi-billion dollar new subway tunnel project linking New Jersey and Manhattan under the Hudson River. RDH is also part of an expansion of the Caldecott tunnel system in the heavily congested highway linking Oakland, California, and the rapidly growing Contra Costa county to the east of Oakland.

The company's most unusual project involvement is with the ongoing massive Crazy Horse Memorial being carved out of a mountain in South Dakota, near the historic Mount Rushmore national monument. The firm's RDH 150 Drillmaster, a single boom jumbo, is being used to sculpt the memorial. Begun in 1948, the even larger Crazy Horse sculpture still has no scheduled completion date.

A Drillmaster rig drilling below the Crazy Horse sculpture.

But the company's specialty is narrow vein mining equipment. RDH offers a fleet of products that handle all aspects from blasting, drilling, mucking, hauling, ground support and material handling. Its equipment is found in remote Siberia and throughout Africa, Europe, North and South America. In France, an RDH Drillmaster is helping excavate an underground nuclear waste disposal research facility. However, its equipment's deepest penetration is closer to home — in northern Quebec's Laronde mine, Canada's largest gold mine, 9,000 feet below the surface.

Currently, the company sells one-half of its products abroad and is content with that 50-50 mix. Total sales have more than doubled in two years to $23 million. At the same time, the work force has also doubled, to 70. "When we expand our facility, we will be able to increase production," says Fitzsimmons. The company hopes to again double both production and its workforce by 2015.

Besides offering the full range of machinery needed for underground mines, RDH also distinguishes itself by standardizing its equipment. This feature makes it easier for a mining company to replace a part should there be a problem. "Thankfully, there rarely is," says Fitzsimmons.

RDH Mining Equipment partners (from left): Gus Portalier, Jeannot Courchesne, Neil Edward and Kevin Fitzsimmons.

In addition, the firm recognized that introducing battery powered, fully electric machinery, would eliminate or greatly reduce the need for costly exhaust and ventilation systems required to protect underground miners from diesel fumes. It would also be cheaper than diesel and eliminate associated environmental impacts.

The four partners who head RDH: Gus Portalier, Jeannot Courchesne, Neil Edward and Kevin Fitzsimmons. are dedicated to distinguishing RDH from the pack through superior customer service. "If we have a problem that we can't solve on the phone, we have someone on site within 24 hours wherever possible," says Fitzsimmons. "Our customers really appreciate that."

He adds: "Customer service is what drives repeat business. If you can't take care of the customer, someone else will."

Mining Equipment and Services in Ontario

Over the past 120 years, Ontario, Canada, has developed one of the world's safest, most productive, technologically advanced and environmentally sound mining industries - which has spurred the growth of our mining equipment and services sector.

Today, more than 1,000 innovative Ontario companies are supplying the latest in mining methods, technologies and products to global markets. Their capabilities include:

• exploration research
• mine planning, design and development
• automation and telerobotics
• underground communication and data transmission networks
• design and development of mining equipment
• environmental studies and mine site reclamation
• deep mining
• risk management and safety.