Joseph Rosenblatt pioneered the manufacture of mechanized loading for use in hardrock underground mines, beginning in 1934. With the EIMCO RockerArm loader as a foundation, Joe guided Salt Lake City-based EIMCO Corp. to a position of world leadership in the supply of mining and mineral processing equipment. By the late 1950s, 20,000 EIMCO loaders were mucking an estimated two-thirds of all rock blasted and loaded in underground mines and tunnels throughout the world.
EIMCO manufacturing subsidiaries in France, England, Italy, South Africa, Canada, and Mexico, and affiliated companies elsewhere in the world, supplied loading and processing equipment to every important mining district. In the mid-1930s, EIMCO was a family firm making castings and machinery for mines in the western United States and buying and refurbishing equipment from worked-out mines and processing plants.
At Anaconda’s North Lily Mine near Eureka, Utah, Burton Royle, a hoist operator, and Mine Superintendent John Finley were tinkering with a compact, rail-mounted loading machine that had the potential to replace the back-breaking human labor of loading blasted rock. A heavy bucket attached to a rail car by two rocker arms would dig into blasted rock and then, with a snap, toss the load up and over into the car. The machine would also reduce the size of the cross section required in underground drifts, a key consideration in mine economics. EIMCO bought the rights to the loader on a royalty basis.
Because of depressed base metal prices, gold mines in Canada and South Africa were among the first buyers of the new machines. With Joe Rosenblatt's leadership, EIMCO set out to conquer international markets, an effort that was crowned with unqualified success. Later models of the EIMCO loaders were mounted on crawler tracks and then rubber tires. This EIMCO-led evolution established the basis for the trackless, rubber-tired load/haul/dump equipment that dominates rock handling in modern underground mines throughout the world.
In the late 1930s, Joe Rosenblatt added drum and disk filters to the EIMCO equipment line, and EIMCO went on to become a world leader in the manufacture of mineral processing equipment. In 1957, EIMCO was purchased by Allen and Company, with the agreement that Joe would continue as president for five years, which he did. Even before his retirement, Joe Rosenblatt was an active public servant, most notably as a Director of the Salt Lake City Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, beginning in 1953. In 1959, Joe became a Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and served in that capacity until 1975, the longest term of office ever served by a Federal Reserve Director. From 1964 through 1966, Joe was chairman of Utah’s “Little Hoover Commission,” which studied and recommended changes in the executive branch of Utah state government. Joe Rosenblatt’s career exemplified the entrepreneurial spirit of innovative and service that is the bedrock of the mine and processing equipment industry.
