Sale of Dredge to Senegal Expands Market for VMI
Construction News, May 30, 1980
A dredging unit manufactured in the plains of Oklahoma recently went to work in the plains of West Africa as part of an effort to help stem the advance of the Sahara Desert.
For VMI, Inc., and Oklahoma City based company, it meant the first sale to a foreign country of its mini-dredge. Gene Maitlen, VMI president, and Randy Maitlen, secretary-treasurer, recently from Senegal where they helped coordinate the unit's installation. VMI was incorporated in 1976 with Maitlen and Robert Vaughn, vice president, as sale owners.
"We learned that the region gets very little rain, and as the Sahara advances southward," Maitlen said. The Senegal government, through it Society for Earth Development and Exploration, is using VMI to dredge channels of the Senegal River to help increase irrigation along the delta.
Maitlen said the dredge was shipped as one unit aboard a Carrier-King trailer from an associate manufacturer. It is busy working the Senegal channels where it is pumping 4,000 gallons of materials per 30 percent of it silt.
It is dredging up to 15-foot depths. He was told the Society plans to dredge for a 400-mile stretch to form the required irrigation runs.
Prior to the Africa acquisition of the VMI machine, all units were distributed in the U.S., Mainly for municipal dredging projects, including those in Dallas, Colorado Springs, Lake Charles, Long Island, Dayton and most recently, Madison, Wisconsin.
Overseas sales may be more common for the Oklahoma manufacturer int he future, however, Maitlen and Vaughn reported they have just signed up their first foreign distributor - in Bangkok, Thailand.
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