Diggers, dozers, crawlers, dumper trucks... and mountains of earth. There’s enough here to light up the eyes of any child with a passion for toy earth movers... only these are the real deal. They’re the giants of Fratelli Geminiani, a company with a long history in the earth-moving sector that’s decidedly above the norm in terms of the wealth of expertise acquired over the decades. But these “toys” are certainly a serious business, not least for the importance of the earth-moving projects that they are called to work on. Roberto, who runs the family business with his brother Battista, reveals the great passion he has for his work in every word. Indeed, it takes a unique passion for such demanding machinery to be able to grow a company boasting such a concentration of technical and mechanical professionalism.

Ours is a very long story, which began back in the 1930s with the transport of gravel using horses. Then after the war, my father expanded the business to the earthmoving sector on an industrial level, taking on ever larger projects. In 1966 the company purchased its first 360° excavator …and since then we’ve been constantly expanding, especially regarding our commitment to ongoing improvements to our fleet of machinery.

Our watchword has always been “versatility”: this has meant diversifying the sectors in which we can work, and as a consequence we’ve constantly upgraded our skills, expertise and equipment. Our unique proposition is the extent and variety of our fleet, which currently totals 25 machines, all Komatsu: without doubt it’s a major commitment, and it’s an unusual choice for a company like ours. But it does mean we always have the right machine whatever the job requires. And having such a large fleet of vehicles means we can respond quickly to customer needs.

Well, this is one of the aspects that make us truly special: we’ve always handled all the ordinary and extraordinary maintenance on our vehicles ourselves, carrying out all kinds of work and repairs on our machinery. The upshot of this is we both have a really intimate knowledge of the issues concerning both potential breakdowns and the wear and tear of each of our vehicles. And this has been possible because first and foremost both I and my brother’s abiding love is mechanics!

It comes from our great shared passion… much of what we know we’ve drawn from our years spent in the world of motorcycle racing in the 500 World Championship class, when we were rubbing shoulders with some truly outstanding personalities from the world of motorcycle racing – people who’ve written its history. We use the mechanical expertise we learnt then every single day, and this allows us to carry out work swiftly every time there’s a mechanical problem and ensure our fleet remains in tip-top condition. I don’t recall a single time when one of our machines broke down on a job!