Hercules Machinery Celebrates 50 Years Doc and John Jinnings When you mix the right people and personalities with the right ideas, companies are founded, products are invented and lives are changed. That’s what happened 50 years ago when Doc Jinnings was working for a construction company, building bridges. He observed that every time the company needed a pile hammer, they’d have to buy one—no one rented them at the time. From that observation grew the idea for a company that has helped transform the pile driving and construction industries for the last half century. In 1964, Jinnings founded Hercules Machinery, one of the first companies in the U.S. to rent pile driving equipment. He rigged a toolbox in the back of his 1960 Pontiac Catalina and visited jobsites across the Midwest, helping customers set up equipment and repairing it when needed. As the business grew and it became less practical to drive to job sites, he earned his pilot’s license and flew wherever he was needed. But as with most successful entrepreneurs, life was not without its challenges. Jinnings became seriously ill in 1973 and wasn’t able to run the company for several months. His son John, then a senior in college, left school to help his father. Along with his mother, Pat, he took over the reins of the company during Doc’s recovery. While he’d been helping his father at the family business since he was a teenager, John Jinnings was unsure exactly what to do when he first started out. “I’d go meet with the contractors, our customers, and several of them took me in hand showed me how they did things. So a lot of it was on-the-job training,” he recalls. He’s been president of Hercules for 30 years and now owns the company along with Justin Reed, who joined Hercules in 2000 as the company’s chief financial officer. Today, Hercules not only rents pile driving equipment, but manufactures some of the industry’s most innovative attachments for excavators. The Hercules team has worked with manufacturers all over the world to design equipment that increases the versatility of contractors’ equipment, which in turn enhances jobsite efficiency. Hercules is now the exclusive dealer of HPM foundation drills in North America, Central America and the Caribbean. HPM, DEEP FOUNDATIONS • JAN/FEB 2014 • 91 owned by world-renowned drill design engineer Giuseppe Cartechini, manufactures drill mast assemblies that are mounted exclusively on Caterpillar® chassis. Hercules has also broadened its reach to customers with the opening of a west coast location in Rocklin, Calif. After 50 years, Hercules continues to provide customers with an outstanding level of service. Doc Jinning grew up watching his father, a medical doctor, tend to his patients day and night, whenever they needed him. That became the foundation on which he built his company’s superior customer service. His son John Jinnings continues that tradition. “Our policy is when you have a piece of our equipment, wherever you are, whether you purchased or rented from us, we’ll do everything in our power to have you up and running as quickly as possible,” says the younger Jinning. The service team at Hercules has always been larger than the sales team. When it comes to driving piles, John says, “Without the foundation, the structure on top is worthless.” The same could be said for a company. The foundation upon which Hercules was established is as strong as its namesake. As for the next 50 years, the company will continue doing what has worked so well for them: innovate new equipment that increases efficiency and versatility, and serve its customers.
