Longyear: one hundred years of business.

• Author: McNamara-Thomas, Jane
• Position: A profile of the Utah mining equipment manufacturer - Company profile

LONGYEAR One Hundred Years of Business

Few entrepreneurs possess the vision and determination to create a company that will flourish for generations. One of Utah's newest corporate citizens was founded by such a visionary.

In the summer of 1890, Edmund J. Longyear sank the first diamond drill hole on Minnesota's Mesabi Iron Range, breaking ground for a drilling empire. Today, 101 years later, the Longyear Co. is a $250-million-per-year corporation with offices worldwide. The multinational company provides exploratory drilling equipment for the mining industry, manufactures its own line of diamond drilling products, and offers contract drilling services. The mining giant has also become a major player in the concrete construction industry and the growing geotechnical field.

According to Longyear vice president and general manager Dick Swayne, the company has branched out into several different businesses, but it has not strayed far from its roots. "If it doesn't involve drilling a hole in the ground, installing something in a hole in the ground, testing what comes out of the ground, or cutting something with diamonds, we don't do it," he said.

Investing in People

The hub of Longyear's worldwide drilling operation is in Utah. Three years ago, the company moved its corporate and United States headquarters from Minneapolis to Salt Lake City. Longyear officials were lured by the city's prime location. According to Swayne, much of Longyear's drilling activity is in Nevada, the northwestern states, and California. "If you have to pick a central location," says Swayne, "This is the place." Longyear's competitors think so too. Salt Lake City has become the U.S. headquarters for the entire diamond-core drilling industry, with three major contractors and two major manufacturers calling it home.

Location may have sold Longyear on the plan to move its main offices to Salt Lake City, but Utah's highly qualified workforce clinched the deal. Longyear management was impressed by the credentials of prospective employees in the state.

"Only 13 of the 153 employees currently working in the Beehive state came with us from Minneapolis," said Swayne.

And, he pointed out, Longyear was willing to pay for Utah's well-trained, well-educated workers. "We didn't come to Utah for cheap labor." The proof is in the company's payroll. According to Swayne, Longyear's total payroll for 1990, not including the corporation's subsidiaries, was $23 million in the United States...