Bay Shore Systems
who we are
1996 → TODAY
THE RATHDRUM YEARS
In 1996, Herb Minatre packed up the entire company — all five employees — and moved it to Rathdrum, Idaho. California didn’t want a manufacturer like Bay Shore and Idaho did. No regrets since.
Idaho was right. Since the move: two Rathdrum shop expansions, and in January 2019, an East Coast shop in London, Kentucky — because our East Coast customers shouldn’t have to pay to freight a finished rig clear across the country. It saves them the freight bill; it saves us the headache. Bay Shore rigs have been working all over the world since the beginning — Australia had been buying them for years, and in 2024 it became official: Bay Shore Systems Australia Pty Ltd, with its own sales and business development manager, a service team, and an office with a shop and yard in Brisbane. And the rig lineup stretched both ways — the TR300, the biggest Bay Shore’s ever built at 300,000 ft-lb of torque, and the TR15, the smallest. In 2021 it stretched sideways, too: the Drill Sergeant, which puts Bay Shore drilling on a compact track loader or skid steer — wireless remote, no modifications to the carrier.
More than X,XXX rigs shipped, 95% of which are still in the field working. Some rigs retire; ours collect hours.
Every one of them was engineered, machined, fabricated, painted, and assembled under one roof in Rathdrum — by people who’d lose sleep if it wasn’t right. Real people answer the phone when you call. And every morning, Herb — 84 — walks the entire property to say hi to just about everyone here.
Herb believes in doing what’s best for the customer, almost to a fault. His rule since day one is no rig down — not a slogan, a standing order. If a customer’s rig is down, the first question is how fast we can get it running — not what it costs, not who’s paying. That part gets sorted out after the rig is back to work, because the job doesn’t wait for paperwork. That goes for every Bay Shore rig out there, not just the new ones. And the man who made the rule still lives by it — some days you’ll find him in the shop, wrench in hand, working on a rig himself.
Going forward, it’s the same as it’s always been. Keep the relationships that built this company — build rigs that hold up, listen to the people who run them, and stand beside them long after delivery.
That’s the last thirty years. The eighteen before it are even better — they’re what got us here – and they start with a guy who offered to work for free.
KEEP DRILLING
THE BAY SHORE BORE LOG
Every driller knows you don’t know what’s down there until you drill.
Total depth: 18 ft below Rathdrum.
Refusal: none encountered.
0 FT — 1991
BEDROCK BREAKTHROUGH
Built the first LōDril. The rig that built the Bay Shore name — the reason half the industry says “LōDril” like it’s a word everybody knows. (It is.)
2 FT — 1989
THE LAYER THAT PAID FOR EVERYTHING
The Loma Prieta earthquake sent California into a freeway-retrofit boom, and Bay Shore rigs went to work under the overpasses — dozens of them, drilling the short-offset holes nobody else’s rigs could reach. This is the layer that put the company on solid financial footing and cemented the reputation contractors still talk about.
4 FT — 1989-90
HIT A VOID
The recession. Everything we’d been building stopped mattering, all at once. So Herb did what drillers do: kept drilling — straight into the foundation drilling business, full time.
6 FT — Mid 80s
VARIABLE FILL
Tie-back anchors, a few a year, both coasts. Little truck-mounted rigs drilling 12-inch holes, 10 feet deep, one a minute — a customer once drilled a mile of holes (5,000 feet) in a single day. A track rig for Malcolm Drilling nicknamed “Blue Death” (their rigs are blue; the mucking was dangerous). And two pieces of advice from old-timer Bob Bangs that Herb never forgot: don’t ignore the kelly winch — it works as hard as the rotary. And don’t build “king of the mountain” rigs; more holes get drilled every day by medium-duty diggers than anything else.
10 FT — Early 80s
STRUCK GOO
The pile-driving years. Two-stroke diesel hammers belched unburned oil until the whole shop — crane, floors, equipment, everything — was black with goo. There was nothing you could do about it. Herb noticed the drilling side was cleaner, smarter, and didn’t require selling a hammer at a loss to survive. Pivot initiated.
14 FT — 1978-79
THE FOUNDING STRATUM
Herb, terrified, with no capital and a $30,000 machinery bill due within year one: turn a profit in twelve months or lose everything. A customer who believed in him — free shop, materials on their dime, his people on their payroll. He engineered his way around a patent to land Raymond International, the largest foundation drilling company in the world, at 8–10 drills a year. (“Based on relationships,” Herb says. Translation: he outworked everyone.) He turned a profit in year one.
18 FT — 1978
TOTAL DEPTH: BEDROCK
WHM Engineering Company, Benicia, California. One borrowed shop, one terrified founder, and a standard that hasn’t moved since: build it right, stand behind it, make the customer say wow.
Refusal: none. The bit’s still turning.