News & Blog Testimonial Video July 22, 2025

Stabilcorp has confidence in Caterpillar

From humble beginnings in backyard concrete work to pioneering road stabilisation across NSW, family-owned Stabilcorp has carved out a legacy of innovation, reliability, and growth. With a fleet of over 200 machines and a new depot in Orange marking its next chapter, the company’s journey is as much about family passion as it is about engineering excellence. Discover how Brendan Pinson and his team are transforming regional infrastructure, one road at a time.

If you’re driving around the NSW town of Wauchope or the wider Mid North Coast region, chances are that you’re experiencing the road stabilisation expertise of family-owned business Stabilcorp. Founded over 35 years ago by Craig Pinson, the business has focused on road pavement repair, rehabilitation and upgrading for councils across NSW.

Taking this specialisation as far as even inventing its own stabilisation machine, the ShoulderMaster, Stabilcorp has grown to the point where a new depot in Orange is heralding the next chapter of growth. However, decades previously, it was from humble beginnings that Craig set out to build his own business.

Craig’s son, Brendan, who eventually joined Stabilcorp decades later as general superintendent, says that it was concrete rather than road building that formed the launchpad for the family business.

“My father started his business back in the late ‘80s, working in concrete – doing house pads and small driveways, stuff like that,” he says.

“While working on those jobs, he saw a gap in the market for some small road patching, so he started a business focused on that. From there he started doing all sorts of road work, from heavy patching. He then started an asphalt business that serviced the Mid North Coast and a bit out west. Then that branched off as we had seen an opening in the stabilisation sector in our local area. Basically, no one in the area was doing it. So, we purchased our first spreader and mixer, which was a 2004 Cat RM-250C, and started pavement stabilisation. And from there it just grew.”

Starting the relationship with WesTrac

Brendan says that the family’s involvement with WesTrac goes back even beyond the first Cat RM-250C to a Bitelli profiler that WesTrac assisted with bringing into the country. But as the business grew, Cat machinery was a common site in the family home’s yard.

“When I was a kid, running around the backyard and looking at all the machines, they were all yellow,” Brendan says.

“The business used to be run from the property we lived on, out of the backyard for a number of years, until we grew to a size where we needed to set up a facility. So, just growing up around the machines I knew it was something that I wanted to do. I’m a diesel mechanic by trade and I really love what we do. My son’s the same, he’s nine years old and he’s definitely going to follow in our footsteps – he’s made for machines.”

Top level support

From the days of one Cat mixer, Stabilcorp has vastly grown its fleet to the point where it now sits at around 200 pieces of machinery and plant. At the heart of the fleet are six Cat PM310 cold planers and five Cat RM500B road reclaimers, bought from WesTrac.

The 256kW 20.9-tonne Cat PM310 cold planer can reclaim up to 33m per minute of road surface. Features include Automatic Load Control that monitors demand on the engine and adjusts the milling speed to prevent stalling, while automatic traction control maintains a constant speed.

The planer also has the Cat Grade and Slope system with sensors that control elevation and slope to ensure a smooth surface, while machinery data is accessible remotely via VisionLink® to assist with fleet management.

The milled material is mixed with a cement or lime-based binder to improve the quality of the original material before it’s spread back on the road surface. The 406kW, 29-tonne Cat RM500B road reclaimers are then used to mix the material into the ground, with three rotor speeds to adapt its performance to various materials. Stabilcorp then finishes off by trimming and sealing the new road.

A recent project that Stabilcorp took on was the upgrade of Croppa Creek Road for Gwydir Shire Council.

*Patch of road in Croppa Creek being worked on by Stabilcorp*

“That’s near North Star, just south of Goondiwindi,” Brendan says.

“That’s the most recent large-scale job that we did. That was a 10km upgrade with a granular overlay and full depth pavement reclamation. We had our Cat graders and stabilisers out on that one.”

Brendan says that a feature which stands out for him when working with WesTrac is the FitFleet service, which focuses on preventative maintenance and condition monitoring so he has up-to-date information on the current health of his Cat machines.

“FitFleet has been a benefit for us because, as we’re based out of two locations, we can be working eight hours away from our depot,” he says.

“When it comes to servicing, it’s not economical for us to either bring it back to the yard or send out our in-house fitters. For WesTrac to offer us a fixed rate servicing package with full machine maintenance and record keeping – that’s a massive lifesaver for us.”

“It’s a 24/7 breakdown field service where we don’t even have to think about maintenance. They call us when something is due for a service and ask us where the machine will be. They also come out and train the operators on new machines and overall they’ve been great to deal with.”

“My family’s been buying Caterpillar machinery for over 50 years now and the service just keeps getting better and better. WesTrac are definitely industry leaders.”

How does it compare?

Having had experience with other brands and through working with other subcontractors on projects who use different brands, Brendan says that Caterpillar helps Stabilcorp stand apart through providing reliability.

*Cat Motor Grader working on a road for Stabilcorp*

“When you’re on a project and the main machine that everybody is relying on breaks down, they’ll get told that a fix will take a couple of days, whereas I can call up WesTrac and within an hour or two I’ve got someone there diagnosing the issue.”

“The machines themselves are also workhorses. They’re built tough. The power in these things helps us get through our work a lot quicker.”

“When you’re on a square metre rate, it’s all about time efficiency and Caterpillar is second to none for performance.”

Ongoing growth

The next step for Stabilcorp is to get the new Orange depot up and running and duplicate its Wauchope fleet, which will include its own set of Cat planers and road reclaimers.

“We do a lot of work out there but didn’t have a yard, and none of our competitors are based there either so we saw an opportunity to build our presence,” Brendan says.

He can also rest assured that even though Stabilcorp’s second site might be seven hours away from Wauchope, the fleet will still be in safe hands with WesTrac.

Stabilcorp's Cat Road Reclaimer — *Stabilcorp’s Cat Road Reclaimer*

“Probably the biggest thing that WesTrac and Caterpillar have going for them is that no matter where you are, you’re not more than a couple of hours away from a breakdown service team,” Brendan says.

“If there are major breakdowns, they can get out to us quickly. In our line of work, as soon as you have an issue where a machine goes down, it can be $20,000 or $30,000 a day that it’s costing us.”