Calgary based father-and-son company becomes a world leader in technological advancement and manufacturing

Robert Mills founded father-and-son company Kudu Industries 20 years ago with a racked up credit card and a wreck of a truck.

“I bought this old truck from a rancher and it had a distinct odour about it,” said Mills, speaking from the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston. In the bed of the truck held the personally-delivered product that he was the first Canadian to pioneer 12 years earlier from his family garage.

Today Kudu is a world leader in the technological advancement and manufacturing of progressing cavity pumps used to bring heavy oil from wells thick with sand and sediment to the surface.

Led by Mills’ son Ray, the Calgary-based company’s president and CEO, Kudu now has 12 field service centres in Canada. It also has offices in Kazakhstan and Australia, distributors in the U.S., Colombia, Russia, Venezuela, Japan and the Middle East and product in 32 countries.

But in 1977 Robert Mills had the self-professed misfortune of owning wells with high sand content.

Progressing cavity pumps were being used for other purposes in other industries. Mills wondered why their use didn’t translate to bringing heavy oil to the surface.

So he went to work.

“I banged iron in the garage for 10 years before we kicked off Kudu,” said Mills, laughing.

But in the meantime others were on to his idea and a few years later other companies had a head start.

So faced with competitors firmly entrenched, and financing his company start-up with his credit card Mills knew he needed to add value.

He noticed that other companies’ product was not being installed properly and therefore the pumps weren’t working correctly.

So he loaded up his truck and one-by-one personally delivered his product to clients and then supervised its installation.

He then started warehousing and servicing his products close to his customers to serve them better at the field level. Soon competitors needed to change their business model to keep up.

The company now employs more than 200 staff.

While Kudu has developed a reputation as a leader in the industry it is important that they maintain a presence at shows such as OTC, says Hans Gjerdrum, the company’s director of international business development.

Keeping an active presence now will be critical when business really heats up with an increase in oil prices and a rebound in market confidence, something Gjerdrum thinks will be inevitable.

“We feel there is another wave coming and we think we need to be ready to ride that wave instead of sitting on the beach and getting crushed by it,” said Gjerdrum.