Born and raised within the city of Sneek, The Netherlands, brothers Ray and Koop Ferwerda took a job aboard the Nice Lakes-bound steam ship Sardinian in 1920 as a method of passage to North America. Whereas steaming throughout Lake Erie, the boiler of the Sardinian exploded, and rescuers took Ray to Ohio, whereas Koop made floor in Ontario. Writing again dwelling to The Netherlands so as to discover one another, each Ray and Koop finally made a house within the Cleveland space, discovering jobs first at a neighborhood dairy, then constructing roads and sidewalks in Cleveland’s japanese suburbs.

In 1925, the brothers had saved up sufficient to open the Ferwerda Brothers Contracting Firm, nonetheless focusing their work within the japanese suburbs. By 1940, they’d offered some tools, and saved sufficient cash, to start out growing an thought they’d: A hydraulic excavator with an extendable growth that might attain down beneath the roadway to grade embankments, a beforehand time and labor-intensive activity. 

In 1946, in working with Warner-Swasey, the Gradall M2400 would change into the primary hydraulic excavator to enter sequence manufacturing within the U.S. Since then, the Gradall excavator idea has been expanded, nonetheless utilizing the triangular, extendable growth design first devised by the Ferwerda brothers.

“We’re honoured by this induction into the AEM Corridor of Fame,” stated Ray Ok. Ferwerda, Jr., grandson of Koop Ferwerda. “We checked out a number of the different award winners through the years, and it is fairly unimaginable, the individuals the Ferwerda Brothers can be alongside.”