Hernán’s story with Jeeps:
My dad says that here in the capital Santiago de Chile, there was a machinery and vehicle exhibition fair from the United States called “FISA”. My dad also went there during his high school in 1992 as a class trip.
My dad tells me that Hernán Busch first met the Willys Jeeps at that fair. Hernán’s father took him to “FISA” when he was young, and Hernán saw a Jeep that was driven underwater at the bottom of a pool. From that moment on, Hernán began to inquire about what vehicle it was until he found out it was a Willys brand Jeep and decided to look for one to buy.
The time Hernán went to the US with a friend: My dad told me that Hernán went to the US with a friend to the Empire State Building, and once inside the Empire State Building, they got on an elevator and it happened that the elevator was full of people; and Hernán and his friend were squeezed inside the elevator because of the amount of people that were there at that moment, it was a lot of people.
It happened that Hernán’s friend wanted to tell the people that the elevator was full and that they couldn’t get any more people in, and the friend asked Hernán:
How do you say “completo” in English? (since “completo” in Spanish refers to junk food and in English it is said “Hot – Dog”), and Hernán answered: “Hot – Dog”.
Then Hernán’s friend told the people: “We are Hot – Dog”. Hernán, along with the other people, started to laugh a lot because of what his friend said, but if you understood what he meant, what he wanted to say, they laughed a lot. This is a very good, humorous story.
Company History:
From what my father has told me, Hernán Busch was born in Osorno, Chile; to a middle-class family. His parents didn’t have enough resources to say, “You’ll inherit my construction company.” Hernán studied “Civil Engineering related to Hydraulics and Construction.”
After graduating from University, he began working independently in the construction trade. He started from scratch, working in jobs such as building a house, repairing houses, digging the ground with a shovel and pickaxe to make ditches for water pipes, etc. He started without anyone’s support.
Over time, Hernán had a small group of coworkers who helped him with the jobs, such as helping to dig the ground, walking with the wheelbarrow, preparing the cement for the slabs of the houses they built, loading the truck with materials, such as bags of cement, wood, tools, bags of nails, screws, zinc cans for the roofs of the houses, etc.
When they finished their work, they also helped him load the truck with tools such as hammers, electric circular saws, saws, shovels, etc.
My father tells us that over the years, thanks to Hernán’s hard work, he was able to form his company called “INGETAL” and buy 100 Chevrolet Montana trucks for his employees.
He also managed to purchase “GROVE” brand mobile telescopic cranes made in the USA, to be able to lift enormous beams, whether made of steel and/or cement, when building large projects, such as: Schools, Hospitals, Prisons, etc.
He also bought Hopper trucks, backhoes, and ramp trucks for transporting backhoes. We also purchased tower cranes for building construction and trucks for transporting tower cranes, as these cranes can be dismantled for transport. I imagine that he also had forklifts (Yale) and more small trucks for transporting materials and tools.
The best part is that there’s a video on YouTube to justify what I’m saying about the construction your company did. The video is called “Ingetal, Homenaje a un amigo.” Everything he achieved was the result of years of study and hard work. It’s a great story of effort and sacrifice.
Thanks to his perseverance and his boundless effort, he was able to create his construction company. He’s a great example of the results achieved through study and years of hard work without giving up—an example to follow.
Kaiser Willys Jeep Blog Story – Luis Cartes Vera
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