Heavy construction equipment--bulldozers, graders, dump trucks--produce two common conditions, whether preparing roadbeds for a highway or moving a hillside coal seam, these monster machines throw off tremendous volumes of heat and kick up much dust and dirt as they move earth around. 

To address this problem, coolant runs through a metal block to extract heat from the engine and a fan blows air across a radiator to lower coolant temperature. Fine as far as it goes, but dirt still clogs the engine and cuts performance as a highway grows longer or a strip mine opens more seams. 

Herman Huber, so the story goes, mused on this issue while driving a bulldozer in a swirl of hot dust in Clarion County one summer in the 1950s. Huber wanted to reverse the fan to clean the engine. Realizing the fan’s rotation wouldn't reverse, he designed a practical innovation. 

Enter the Huber Reversible Fan, with fan blades that turn on their stems to pull air from the engine.  His system evolved into an industry standard and a manufacturing supply company offering over 700 models of reversible fans to more than 30 manufacturers of heavy equipment. Huber also furnishes fans to an after-market through more than 1,000 equipment dealers.

Today, in collaboration with Edinboro State University's faculty and Metals Testing Laboratory, the company is working on a lighter fan to maintain a competitive edge. It Just Works, the company says. So too, innovation is Huber's best protection against reversals in anything except fans.