Earthmoving contractors Piacentini & Son are well known throughout the South West as an honest company that gets the job done with a minimum of fuss.

The Bunbury based company started in 1949 with an allocated CAT D6 bulldozer which was used to clear land for soldier settlement areas near Margaret River.

Piacentini & Son has since grown to become a huge earthmoving business that includes the largest CAT scraper fleet in the Southern hemisphere.

As well as its 83 scrapers the Piacentini CAT fleet includes numerous wheel loaders, dozers, graders and excavators and the company has just moved into a massive new workshop and office complex on the eastern outskirts of Bunbury.

After overseeing construction of the new complex, managing director Colin Piacentini thought it was time for a well earned rest – it had been some years since Colin had taken a holiday.

Colin and his wife Anne flew to Singapore where they boarded an ocean liner for a two – week cruise of South – East Asia.

The image of Colin relaxing in luxury on the high seas is in stark contrast to that of his father Albert’s first arrival in Fremantle 64 years ago, a story which begins high in the northern Alps in a small town called Piandelagotti.

Piandelagotti is a mountainous region with a series of small lakes that freeze during the snow season and the name, translated means plain of the little lakes.

Although it was an adventurous place for children to grow up, with plenty of ice skating and skiing, Albert said Piandelagotti wasn’t a good place for a man to earn a decent living.

“Because it froze from November to March, the opportunities for work were nil. For most men it was a case of migrate or starve,” he said.

Consequently, Albert’s father worked in the United States for eight years before returning to Italy with the onset of World War One.

After the war he migrated to Australia because he had heard that it was a new land with plenty of job opportunities and when Albert turned 16, his father called for him to join him in Western Australia where he’d established a sleeper cutting business in the South West.

Albert left Italy in the middle of the winter of 1936 with the temperature hovering at minus 15 degrees.

His first impression of Australia, after weeks at sea sharing a cabin with three adults, wasn’t a good one.

“For three days, even before we saw land, all we could see and smell across the ocean was smoke from bushfires,” he recalled

“When we final arrived in Fremantle it was 104 degrees. I wanted to turn around and go back to Italy straight away.

“But my father said ‘don’t worry son, after the first five years you will get used to it.’

And get used to it he did, on his first job which was chopping down trees and helping his father with his sleeper cutting business near Karridale.

Sleeper cutting, along side with dairy farming, was the region’s main business with much of the work contracted to Bunning Bros.

A director at Bunning Bros, a fellow by the name of Bruce Johnston, stayed with the Piacentini’s one weekend a month while doing his rounds of the South West.

Bruce was trying to get Alberts father to start a timber mill at Dardanup, but wasn’t getting a good response.

One day while fishing together in the Scott River, Bruce asked Albert, “What about you? You are young and enthusiastic. Wouldn’t you like to start your own business?”

By 1944, Albert Piacentini was running his own timber mill on Ferguson Road, 3Km east Dardanup and for the next five years he was kept busy supplying Bunning Bros with sleepers.

But a violent argument between two brothers set a course of events in motion that would eventually change Albert’s life forever.

In 1947, just three years after establishing his own timber mill in Dardanup, Albert Piacentini thought his life was pretty much on track, 11 years after he migrated from Italy to join his father in Western Australia.

Europe was in turmoil and even though Albert hadn’t seen his mother, brother and sister since leaving Italy, there was still good reason to be happy. He’d established his own business and had recently married a beautiful woman, Betty.

Albert and Betty lived in a cottage across the road from the timber mill and one day while walking across the road for lunch Albert noticed a red International bulldozer parked at the gate.

Its owner, A Mr Homes from Cannington asked if he could leave it there for a few days. He’d just had a fierce argument with his brother who tried to run him down with the bulldozer while they were working for the Dardanup Roads Board. Then Mr Homes dropped the clanger, “would you like to buy it for 4000 pounds and it’s yours,” he said.

Albert’s initial response was laughter. He still owed Bunning’s five or six thousand pounds and obviously couldn’t afford to buy a bulldozer. But he didn’t sleep well that night – the thought of owning a bulldozer wouldn’t leave his mind. Albert tossed and turned trying to find out a way to finance the purchase.

Then it dawned on him. He knew a place near Ferguson Valley there was quite a lot of good timber that could not be extracted except by tractor so he phoned Bruce Johnston who agreed. Alberts plan was a good idea. Even better, Bunning’s was prepared to put up the money for Albert to buy the bulldozer.

Albert left Bunbury at 5am that morning for Perth an excited man. He arrived at Cannington and greeted by a surprised Mr Homes. “I’ve arranged the finances and I’m here to buy your bulldozer for 4000 pounds,” explained Albert only to hear the reply: Sorry mate, but I sold it to bell brothers yesterday.

Albert reckons he felt the ground fall from beneath him and said he drove in a daze to see the people at ISAS who he knew well because they were the international agents.

“I had an international engine driving the mill which they serviced.” He said. “I told them what had happened and asked if there was any possibility of getting a new tractor. They explained how all machines were regulated and allocated to essential industries. They were getting only one or two bulldozers a year and all I could do was fill in an order form and hope for the best.”

Albert drove back to Bunbury a disappointed man – but missing out on buying that international bulldozer proved to be a blessing in disguise because a few days after returning to his timber mill near Dardanup, Albert Piacentini related his Perth experience to his fuel supplier, a fellow by the name of Mr Pout.

Albert explained how he’d gone to the city with high hopes of purchasing a bulldozer and how those hopes had been dashed when the owner told him he’d sold the machine the day before. Worse, the people at ISAS had told him earth moving equipment was a rare commodity and Albert could only wait.

Mr Pout put him on to Wigmores, the West Australian Caterpillar dealer. Albert filled out an order form for a D6 bulldozer but was given the same story about tractor allocations, more than a year passed as his thoughts of owning a bulldozer faded.

Then out of the blue, Albert one day received a letter from Wigmores requestion confirmation of his need of a bulldozer. It also explained that anyone allocated a bulldozer would have to be prepared to work the machine in a soldier resettlement area, as directed.

Albert was told three CAT bulldozers were scheduled to arrive in early 1949. A D7 and a D8 had bee allocated to Bunning’s but the other D6 was still in the process of being allocated. Albert agreed to conditions as requested.

That year, 1949 was a special one for Albert with his mother, brother and sister finally arriving from Italy along with another letter from Wigmores. It advised him in January that he’d be allocated the D6 as long as he was prepared to clear land at Bramley, Rosa Brook and Rosa Glen.

Albert couldn’t believe his good fortune. He knew the area well, having lived at Karridale with his father when he first arrived from Italy.

“I couldn’t agree to the sale conditions quick enough. I had the D6 carted to Dardanup where I learnt to operate it before taking it to Rosa Brook,” Albert recalled.

I brought a caravan so Betty and our one year old daughter Helen had somewhere to live at Margaret River and for the nest two years we commuted between Dardanup and Margaret River. “I spent most of the day on the bulldozer and sometimes up to 16 hours in the summer months, but I was young and enthusiastic back then.”