RECALLED TO LIFE! Bit By Bit

“I was with God and I was with the Devil, they fought me but God won. He took me by my best hand, the hand of God and I held on to him. I never thought for one minute that God wouldn’t get me out of there”….Mario Sepulveda..2nd miner to emerge from the San Jose mine.

On October 9th, at 8:30 in the morning history was made. A rescue shaft reached 33 trapped miners in Chile who had been entombed over one half mile underground for nearly two months. No miner, in the history of the world,  has ever survived for two months underground.

Those miners would have remained trapped until Christmas if it had not been for a small American drilling company, Center Rock Inc., in Berlin, Pennsylvania.   They make drill bits….very special drill bits………..the Center Rock drill-bit.


This is the miracle bit that drilled down to the trapped miners. Center Rock Inc. is a private company.  It has 74 employees.

When owner and President, Brandon Fisher, first heard it would take until Christmas to save the trapped miners he knew he had the equipment and technology to save them. So… he contacted the Chilean government.

 Brandon began coordinating an international effort to get his equipment to the site and in use.


With the help of UPS (another private American company), who shipped it for free, and his international contacts, the equipment arrived and saved 2 1/2 months of the drilling time needed to reach the men.

 Their freedom this night of October 13th 2010 is directly due to the efforts of small business innovators like Brandon Fisher’s team working in coordination with the Chilean government….which did a masterful job of responding to this disaster.

It was not our government or our politicians who accomplished this. It was the pride, skill, innovation and organization of American business people that helped save the miners.

 Center Rock Inc. demonstrated, spectacularly, the power, importance,  and value of American small business and invention.


Someone creates something useful, makes money from it, and re-creates it in different ways.  It  creates jobs, wealth and prosperity.   And, sometimes, it contributes to miracles.

Take away this system,  running in the background.... the continuing progress of innovations produced by capitalism,  and the San Jose Mine would truly have been a tomb for 33 dead men.




So…HOORAY!  Hooray for those 33 men who found the strength, skills, and faith to survive …who waited and endured,  trusting that they would not be forgotten.

HOORAY!  Hooray for President Sebastian Pinera of Chile who led and committed to the salvation of these men.

And..HOORAY!  Hooray! Hooray!... for CENTER ROCK Inc.,  the 74-person outfit from Berlin, Pennsylvania, whose high-tech drill bit opened the planet to free them.

 We need to take back the American economic model that built this country and allow it to save the rest of us. American ingenuity, fortitude, equipment, and enterprise…..


Mission Accomplished!