When Milton CAT announced it was going to unveil the much talked about D7E to a group of upstate New York customers, the reaction was curiosity, anticipation and excitement — but not surprise.

The unveiling took place not at a showroom or a fancy venue, but at a job site. Tom Kinsella of T.H. Kinsella Inc. allowed Milton CAT to stage the demonstration at its Syracuse quarry, allowing attendees to not just see the D7E in action, but also to climb on it, look closely at all the details, and operate the new dozer themselves, in a real-life environment.

Two half-day sessions were dedicated to the D7E introduction and demonstration, offering flexibility to accommodate the guests’ schedule. Representatives from regional, state and national construction, aggregate, road building and general excavation companies located throughout New York participated. Cat personnel from Peoria, Ill., also traveled to Syracuse to provide additional support to the Milton CAT staff that was on hand for the big event.

The agenda included a welcome from Chris Milton, who expressed his company’s commitment to its New York state customers and emphasized Milton CAT’s core corporate mission — helping to improve its customers’ profitability, reduce their cost of operation and support their uptime. Milton’s talk was followed by an in-depth technical presentation of the D7E’s features and benefits by Caterpillar’s special representative Dave Cusac.

After the demonstration, attendees had an opportunity to visit multiple informational stations focusing on providing information on valuable services provided by Milton CAT, such as the satellite-enabled virtual fleet management systems Product Link and Equipment Manager, GPS Automation Grade Control, which provides earthmoving efficiencies, QuickEvac, an efficient and environmentally clean engine oil change system, as well as hands-on demonstrations of other equipment, including Metso crushing and screening plants.

There was no doubt though that the star of the show was the Cat D7E.

“I need to stay ahead of technology, I need to know what’s out there,” stated Jerre Kemak, from Gorick Construction of Binghamton, N.Y., explaining why he had decided to take time off his busy schedule to attend the event.

The idea of having the demonstration take place at a job site was enthusiastically endorsed.

“I saw the machine at the ConExpo trade show,” said Equipment Manager Paul Milton of Casella Waste, “but this is different, it lets me check things out by myself.”

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