R. G. LeTourneau - Move Into Manufacturing

Move Into Manufacturing

This type of work appealed to LeTourneau, and in January 1920 he purchased a used Holt tractor and, with a hired scraper, began business as a regrading contractor. In May 1921, he purchased a plot of land in Stockton and established an engineering workshop, where he designed and built several types of scrapers. Combining contracting and earthmoving equipment manufacturing, his business expanded and in 1929 incorporated in California as "R.G. LeTourneau, Inc."

LeTourneau completed many earthmoving projects during the 1920s and early 1930s, including the Boulder Highway to Hoover Dam, in Nevada, the Marysville Levees, Orange County Dam and the Newhall Cut-off, in California. In 1933, LeTourneau retired from contracting to devote his attention to the manufacturing of earthmoving equipment. In 1935, he built a manufacturing plant in Peoria, Illinois, and the continued expansion of his business saw the establishment of manufacturing plants in Toccoa, Georgia, in 1938, in Rydalmere, New South Wales, Australia, in 1941, in Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1942, and in Longview, Texas in 1945.

The LeTourneau name became synonymous with earthmoving worldwide. LeTourneau was largely responsible for the invention and development of many types of earthmoving machines now widely used. He designed and built machines using technology that was years, sometimes decades, ahead of its time and became recognized worldwide as a leader in the development and manufacture of heavy equipment. The use of rubber tires in earthmoving; numerous improvements relating to scrapers; the development of low-pressure, heavy-duty rubber tires; the two-wheeled tractor unit ("Tournapull"); electric wheel drive, and mobile offshore drilling platforms, are all attributed to LeTourneau’s ingenuity. During his lifetime, he held hundreds of patents on inventions relating to earthmoving equipment, manufacturing processes and machine tools. His factories supplied 70 percent of all heavy earthmoving equipment used by the Allied forces during World War II.

In 1953, LeTourneau sold his entire earthmoving equipment line to the Westinghouse Air Brake Company. He then applied his ingenuity to the development of the electric wheel drive concept. In 1958, at the age of seventy, LeTourneau re-entered the earthmoving equipment manufacturing business, offering contractors a range of high capacity earthmoving, transportation, and material handling machines based on the revolutionary electric wheel drive system he had developed. An electric wheel drive is also called an electric Wheel hub motor.

In 1965, I.C.S. awarded LeTourneau his diploma in engineering, 50 years after he studied the course. LeTourneau was 76 at the time and, in accepting the diploma, jovially remarked to executive assistant, Nels Stjernstrom: "So now I've got a diploma. Now I'm educated."

LeTourneau was active in his company as president and chairman of the board from 1929 until 1966. He also held the position of chief engineer, personally working alongside his engineers and employees throughout his working life. Having spent his entire life around earthmoving equipment, LeTourneau was just as likely to be seen at the controls of one of his machines, as he was to be seen attending to corporate matters. It was well known that he preferred the former.

In 1966, at age 77, LeTourneau handed over presidency of his company to his son, Richard. LeTourneau continued to work each day and could be found at the drawing board in his modest office, designing new ways to move larger loads faster and more economically.

LeTourneau shunned the high-life often associated with successful businessmen, preferring to spend his time at the drawing board with the engineers designing new machinery or spending time on the factory floor overseeing his employees.