Evidence suggests that the industry of mining goes back 40,000 years, changing and adapting with the times to be the $700+ billion global industry it is today. With intense competition and products tied to the whims of the markets, what does it take to be a competitor in this field? It takes an unshakable belief that the only way forward is to focus on one value: Get S*it Done (GSD®).
Craig Harder, ICD.D, founder, CEO and chief listening officer, was born into an entrepreneurial family, with his grandfather, who had a natural ability to buy and sell, inspiring him from a young age. Harder went to the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) and the Harvard Business School to add formal training to his skills, all the while knowing that one day he would start his own business. After a short stint in a steel foundry where he learned the ins and outs of selling products to mining operations, he founded Raptor alongside a business partner, then followed that up a year later by founding Raptor Mining in 2005.
“Initially I was working out of my garage,” Harder says. “I asked my wife to park on the street – in the cold, frozen Edmonton winter – so I could use the garage to bring steel into the city and design products.”
Strong and committed as a couple, his wife Vikki, a clinical heart surgery researcher at the University of Alberta, was supportive. In addition to driving the cold car in the mornings, she was also a driving and instrumental force in the early years of Raptor Mining.
For a year and a half, Harder bootstrapped, working on and selling steel out of his garage, creating designs and showing them to mining companies. In under two years this hard work earned him a small shop in St. Albert. In under 20 years, he and a growing team turned Raptor Mining into what he calls, “A huge business in a huge building.”
“All businesses start somewhere,” Harder chuckles as he reflects on the past from the boardroom of his headquarters in Edmonton. “Now we are in 100,000 square feet on 10 acres.”
Raptor Mining boasts more than 350 employees and has six CISC, CIDC and JURASSIC manufacturing facilities in five countries (Canada, the United States of America, Brazil, China and Peru). Raptor Mining’s continuous improvement service centres feature robotic welding/overlay, engineering staff, laser scanning, welding and fabrication to support their dealers and end-users. They rebuild, repair and build new mining buckets, dippers, clams and doors for electric rope shovels, hydraulic mining shovels and large hydraulic excavators.
Harder has more than 60 USPTO, CIPO and PCT patents to his name including, Advansys™, CapSure™ and eGET®. You would be very hard pressed to find any piece of CAT equipment that doesn’t feature Raptor Mining’s technology or any CAT bucket that doesn’t feature Raptor Mining’s incredibly durable teeth.
CAT is just one of the major equipment companies that rely on Raptor Mining; from the world’s largest companies to those just starting out, Raptor’s products, solutions and technologies have changed the game. Mining, construction, power generation, quarries, mineral processing and dredging operations around the world feature RaptorPlate®, HarderPlate®, Defender®, MagnaWear® and more.
How did all this happen in just 20 short years?
“We simply GSD®,” Harder says of the phrase he fought seven years to trademark. “We cut through the clutter of overthinking, endless meetings and excessive talking and we just get to work.”
An example that details the GSD® value proposition is seen in a signature product: Raptor Mining’s bucket teeth.
“In mining, teeth on buckets and other equipment wear down fast,” Harder explains. “Sometimes it is necessary to change the teeth three times a day. Raptor Mining’s teeth are 100 per cent recyclable. When Murray (business partner) and I developed the product, we spent five years in the mines of the America’s, EAME and Asia Pacific because we needed a product that would work just as well in a humid environment as it would in frozen tundra.”
Harder is incredibly grateful for the support that helped him build the brand, and for the employees who keep it going.
“They are what drives me,” he says. “I love working with my team, many of whom have been here long-term for 15+ years.”
He notes that he started with very little support from the banks, and emotional but not financial support from his police officer parents. The company was built on grit, personal lines of credit, tenacity and the value of GSD®.
“Even now,” he explains, “Raptor Mining thrives by leaning on our leadership and people in the field, by knowing our competition is global and that we have to earn our clients’ business. The buckets we build are 160,000 pounds plus and take a pack of escort trucks to get out of the city and down the highway. Clients don’t just buy them on a whim, they plan for them years in advance. You need to be on their radar early, anticipating their future needs.”
“What we do,” he continues, “is innovation and knowing where we need to be now and in the future; knowing what to focus on and what we need to develop. There are lots of moving parts. We are always talking to our customers, watching the markets and reading trade journals.”
The reason why his title is chief listening officer is because he leads by listening, be it to the questions of a team member who wants to bring a new idea forward or a major global client who needs an industry solution.
“It’s how we know what things will look like a year or two down the road. It’s a very collaborative approach, internally and externally.”
Harder is pleased and humbled to see the results of the vision, value proposition and care for his team of “raptors” come to fruition. Due to investing in the team’s corporate and personal wellness, including eMBA training, and being hands on in sites around the world, he’s caught the eye of Business in Edmonton Leaders as a 2017 winner, EY Entrepreneur Of The Year as a 2018 finalist and the Best Managed Companies awards in 2020 and 2021.
“Paul Weber, Lee Harder, Mark McClure, Niels Roos, Gayle Marinkovich, Sumit Gill, Marcel Eschrich, Sean Smith, Julianna Diaz – those are just some of the people who lead here. They, their teams and our shareholders make Raptor Mining what it is today,” he concludes. “I am very grateful, and we look forward to digging into another 40 million years.”
Phone: +1.866.9RAPTOR
Email: raptor@raptormining.com
