Stan Heinrich
Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame at ReUnion 2014.
Stanley Clarence Heinrich (Stan), born in 1931 at Robertstown, South Australia, began his lifelong affiliation with transport in the early fifties as a young lad helping his parents with their milk run and driving their 1928 Chrysler Buckboard. Stan later carted bagged wheat, sheep and sand with a local carrier and purchased a Dodge Kew 7-8 tonne tray top off him in 1954. This purchase was the beginning of the sixty year old business that still exists today and in which Stan remained for 56 years.
Stan was no stranger to manual labour and in the early days could be found picking grapes whilst waiting for loads, hoisting wheat bags and loading and unloading sand by shovel. He also spent time carting cattle from Queensland often travelling with his well known uncle-in-law, the legendary outback mail man, Tom Kruse. In 1956 the Marree / Coopers Creek floods caused difficulties for Stan who was regularly bogged whilst carting through the outback. A solution to this was to partly unload the truck, pull everything over the Coopers Creek on a punt where the load would then be transferred to Tom's truck. Stan was then left to pull his truck out of the creek with his D6 dozer.
As time passed and machinery evolved Stan moved with the times. His first truck was replaced after just twelve months with an R6 Perkins, which was in turn quickly replaced with a Commer Knocker. Stan then diversified, purchasing both his first sandpit and first hydraulic loader, a CAT D4D. As demand for his services grew so did his fleet. At the time of his unfortunate passing on 30 March 2010 the business had 18 permanent employees, nine trucks and 50 pieces of earthmoving equipment.
Stanley Heinrich was a pillar of the community, devoting many personal and machinery hours to community projects whilst also being an actively involved board member of many committees, including various South Australian road transport associations. His devotion to his community culminated into being awarded the local Council's 2000 Australia Day Citizen of the Year.
