Member Profile: Peter Webb, Canyon Equipment

1. Tell us a bit about yourself and how you became involved in the geohazards industry.

I was born and raised in Vancouver, BC, where I grew up in our family’s equipment business. I am a graduate of BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology) with a major in Finance. After being employed by Finning International (CAT) in various levels of sales and management for years, I decided it was time to get back to what I knew best – running my own equipment business.

I started Canyon Equipment in 2003 as a Manufacturer’s equipment dealership for the PHQ line of pneumatic mining equipment, percussive rock drills, diamond coring drills, drill feed assemblies, control panels, and lubricators. After a successful start, Canyon was then awarded the RDH line of underground mobile mining and tunneling equipment. In 2013, one of our drill and blast customers’ suggested we consider contacting an Italian drill manufacturer regarding a unique drilling system they came across at a recent project. So we flew to Italy and were able to secure the line for BC; that was 5 years ago. We now represent Marini’s complete civil engineering line of drills for slope reinforcement, anchoring, and installation of rock & avalanche barriers for all of North America.

Last year Canyon was awarded the Furukawa crawler drill line out of Japan for Western Canada, Yukon, and the NWT. Furukawa manufactures out of Japan with its North American headquarters based in Cleveland, Ohio. The company celebrated their 150th anniversary this year including 35 years with Dealership coverage from coast to coast in North America. Canyon just sold our first drill and are taking orders for several others to be delivered in the New Year.

I was introduced to Ahren Bichler (Trumer Schutzbauten) through a colleague four years ago, and Ahren spoke very highly about your organization. Because of that, we exhibited at the Highway Geology Symposium in Colorado City that year, and found it very helpful for our business.

2. What are some of the unique services/products that Canyon Equipment has which could benefit other members of our association?

Canyon’s customers like the difficult-access drilling equipment we offer from DTH or top hammer drills to tie-back, casing, pinning, and scaling equipment. We supply spyder and excavator drill attachments as well as self-propelled track drills. Remote, pneumatic, or fully hydraulic drills are also available, as well as benchers and drifters for lightweight, deep drilling.

3. What markets/regions do you service?

Canyon supplies rock drilling, mining, and tunneling equipment throughout North America

4. What was one of the more interesting or challenging projects you have been involved with that required specialty solutions?

Canyon supplied multiple difficult-access drilling systems that helped drill the largest avalanche barrier system installed in the Western hemisphere in Golden, BC. We supplied four DTH heli-portable drilling systems that allowed the crew to drill over 2,000 holes in 3 months. We’re very proud of the support we were able to offer and the “uptime” our customer experienced.

5. In your eyes, what are two benefits of the AGHP?

We enjoy the networking opportunities among the Membership as well as the on-going and extremely important benefit of sharing technology.

6. What are your thoughts on how the AGHP can help the geohazards industry grow in the future?

Plan towards organizing larger trade show venues that are able to accommodate more exhibitors and attendees…spread the word.