1.877.CAT.SCALE (1.877.228.7225)
When Carey Howard was hired to help build CAT Scales at truckstops around the country, he was already working in construction. Like Gary LaFollette who hired him, Howard was from southwest Iowa. He was interested in construction and wanted to give this new job a shot.
Once he began construction for CAT Scale, he felt a sense of accomplishment and pride from going to a truckstop and building a scale from the ground up. When he was a construction foreman, he was usually on the road for three weeks at a time. The main focus of his job was to build and install new scales, but they also took care of concrete repair and upgrades to scales that were already built.
Now, as Vice President and General Manager of CAT Scale, he feels CAT is truly fulfilling the original vision of Bill Moon.
“I’m proud of how far we’ve come. The technology has improved along the way, but we’ve stuck to the original vision to help drivers and customers. That’s what it’s all about.”
Just how far has CAT come? Well, the construction load varies from year to year, Howard says. This depends on new agreements, and now CAT has expanded into Canada. The initial number of scales the company wanted to start with, according to Bill Mayhew, was 15. But they far exceeded that number. “Our construction growth over the years had probably averaged around 40 to 50 new scales per year. Last year (2021) we added 75 scales and we will open nearly the same amount this year.” That’s a long haul!
How many folks does it take to make this happen? Initially, Howard says, there were two scale technicians when he started. That was in 1989. There was also no CAT Help Desk in those days, so the technicians spent a lot of time on the road installing and repairing scales. Now there are roughly 9 technicians on a rotation schedule for both the Help Desk and in the field. “In 2000, we started installing scales that were able to send us… e-mails to help us keep our scales open and accurate when the drivers need us,” Howard added. This helped to make the Help Desk a 24/7 operation as of August of 2005. In 2018, we added phone technicians specializing in helping customers set up accounts for the Weigh My Truck app. Customer service: that’s a huge part of what CAT is all about.
