When a 770,000-ton slab of rock trapped 33 Chilean miners for 67 days 2,000 feet below the surface in August of 2010, all eyes turned to American engineering talent and ingenuity to rescue the trapped miners.

Some of those eyes turned to Schramm, Inc., the West Chester-based manufacturer of mobile, land based hydraulic drill rigs to find and then drill a shaft wide enough to hoist the trapped miners to safety.

Using one of Schramm’s T635 drilling rigs to locate the miners and then a T130XD rig to drill a larger shaft through which the miners would be brought to the surface, all 33 miners survived their harrowing ordeal.

Now, four years later, a book called Deep Dark Down, written by novelist and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hector Tobar, has just been published.  As one reviewer put it,

“As real-life extreme adventure tales go, this one is a doozy — the equal, if the geographical inverse — of Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer’s blockbuster about the Mount Everest climbing disaster.”

The publication of the book and an 18 page summation of the plot published by the New Yorker magazine over the summer gave us a chance to ask Ed Breiner, Schramm’s President and CEO, how the historic rescue impacted him and his company.

Chesco Business Today (CBT): What did you think of Tobar’s retelling of the mine disaster and the subsequent rescue effort in which Schramm played a role?

Ed Breiner (EB):  Full disclosure here, I only had time to skim Deep Dark Down since downloading it last week but I did read the New Yorker article in August when it came out.  I found Tobar’s retelling of the story really fascinating.  It was the first time I had read the story from the insiders-out, from the miner’s perspective if you will, how they found religion during the first 17 days of their ordeal and then lost that religion while waiting 50 days to be rescued.

CBT:  Four years later looking back, how has the experience impacted Schramm?

EB:   We’ve been around 114 year and we have always been about product and people; making good product and taking care of our customers and employees has always been our culture. Our ability to deliver in such a stressful situation gave us “who says so” evidence that has served us well as we go around the world and into different markets including the oil and gas business.

I will though, share one bit of colorful insight we gained from the experience. Back in 1965, when Harold Schramm penned the company’s mission statement spelling out his philosophy, his one-page document included this statement:

“Provide a superior product and service at a reasonable cost (fair price) to help man, in this country and elsewhere in the world, to literally pull himself up by the bootstraps.”

I read that statement to our people when we had a small in house celebration the day after the miners were rescued.  It was true back in 1965 and it was never so true as it was the day after seeing each of those 33 miners being pulled to the surface.

CBT: After the first 6 inch shaft broke through and established the 33 miners were alive and in reasonably good health, Chilean mine officials implemented a three-prong plan of attack to rescue the miners.  Option B, the plan using Schramm’s T130XD, broke through faster than either of the other two options.  We’re you surprised?

EB: No, not at all.  We were confident our equipment and people were perfect for the job.  The hard rock, the distance (2,000 ft) and the diameter of the shaft (28 inches) were a perfect fit for Schramm’s flushed-air technology. There’s nothing easy about drilling.  Its hard work and you can lose a hole at any time.  Our technology and people including Jim Stephanick of GeoTech, a Twin Valley graduate by the way, Jeff Hart our driller and Jeff Roten, our technician on site in Chile, made the difference.  We knew the shaft could be drilled a lot faster than the three months Chilean mining officials were estimating.  Given the 33 lives at stake it was a stressful situation but our guys lived this thing for 24/7 for 69 days and succeeded faster than anyone imagined possible.

CBT: While the response to the Chilean mine disaster was international, it was largely American expertise and technology used to rescue the miners.  Do you agree?

EB: Yes, America has some of the finest engineers and equipment in the world.  Our ingenuity and creative powers made the day.

CBT: On another topic, Schramm was acquired in 2012 by GenXn360 a New York City-based private equity firm.  Two years in, how is the acquisition going?

EB: In a word; wonderfully.  GenXn360 wanted us for our culture, talent and entrepreneurial spirit.  As you would expect, they also are looking for a return on their investment and have assisted us in our efforts to become more efficient by implementing professional systems and giving us access to capital that we never would have have implemented on our own had remained independent.  That access to capital allowed us to reach out and acquire two Australian firms last year giving us a global manufacturing capability to match our global brand.  I am astounded by our ability to get our name around the world but, until this acquisition, all our manufacturing happened here in West Chester.  Now, with this acquisition and new locations in Perth and Brisbane, I tell people we have the world surrounded!

Listen to a review of the book on NPR’s Fresh Air here and in New Yorker here.

The book is available at either of Chester County’s Barnes and Noble bookstores or on Amazon.com here.

Previous coverage of Schramm on Chesco Business Today can be read here and here.