As the man in charge of the world's biggest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, Doug Oberhelman refuses to let anybody get in the way of his own and his company's success. That includes his own workers, who have recently been forced to take pay cuts, have been let go due to strikes, and have watched benefits get less and less beneficial.
Why does a name brand that made a company record $66 billion in sales, equalling $5.7 billion in profits feel the need to deprive its workers like this? Because, like Oberhelman, who purchased a backhoe for his wife Diane for the couple's third anniversary, says, you can never have enough money.
That's his philosphy.
Whatever it takes to stay competitive, and whatever it takes to keep Caterpillar relevant in the game, Oberhelman is going to do, it seems. Like the sourced Bloomberg article states, "'Competitive' is one of Oberhelman’s favorite words; over the course of a 90-minute interview he used it or a variation of it 52 times."
Fifty-two times! That's almost as bad as when Tim Tebow said that he's "excited" more than 40 times in his Jets introduction press conference. We're sure Oberhelman will be excited the next time his salary, which is more than $20 million, goes up again.
[via Bloomberg Businessweek]
