The name and work of Anders Ragnarsson precede him in the wood processing and recycling sectors, as his legacy and impact spans decades, companies, and a constantly innovative approach to equipment design that has set the standard for leading players in the tree care, construction, and demolition sectors.
Now under the RagnarTech, Inc. banner, Ragnarsson and his core team of professionals are forging yet another path forward, breaking new ground with that familiar commitment to continuous improvement and innovation that originated with Ragnarsson and now shapes this company’s DNA.
RagnarTech engineers and manufactures practical equipment that improves safety, optimizes performance, and reduces operating costs, making the work easier on site, on the environment, and on the bottom line. RagnarTech also serves as the exclusive North American distributor for JAK-Metalli Oy tree shears and UFKES Greentec chippers.
The RagnarTech 9700 is an extremely productive grinder that supports land clearing, stumps, yard waste, wood debris, and regrind of a variety of materials, while the RagnarTech 9400 serves as an HZ shredder, grinder, and chipper that can support medium contaminated material, high volumes of wood, and other debris.
Designed for application, the equipment comes in a variety of configurations to precisely meet the user’s needs with the promise of elevated performance, quality, and unmatched factory-direct service, a value proposition that has confirmed RagnarTech as the kind of market pace-setter that continually pushes the bar higher for itself, the competition, and the industry.
Rooted in innovation
Born and raised on a farm in Sweden, Anders Ragnarsson’s upbringing helped shape his genius for innovation, using his own insight and expertise to design equipment that intimately addresses the user’s needs in unique ways. After arriving in the U.S. in the 1980s, Ragnarsson established a tree service company and was quickly confronted with the limitations of existing wood waste processing equipment, which laid the groundwork for the next 40 years.
Credited as “a great mind,” it was Ragnarsson’s innovative approach, the unmatched performance of his machines, and the integrity with which he conducted business that won the respect of the industry. “He thought he could make a better version,” says Vice President Nate Eskeland, and so he did, time and again throughout his career with different companies and different iterations of his innovation.
In 1995, Ragnarsson moved away from tree service and established CBI with the launch of a mobile wood grinder that addressed a performance gap in the market. It also happened to steal the attention of the many operators who desired that level of quality and throughput.
In 2016, the decision was made to sell the company that he had built from the ground up. “After 25 years of starting and growing CBI and having the reputation of building the best grinder on the market, they eventually sold it to a large public company called Terex back in 2016 and Ragnarsson had a non-compete there for many years,” explains Eskeland, who knew that Ragnarsson’s plan was always to get back into the market when the non-compete expired.
After years of corporate ownership, Eskeland noticed the market was ready for his return. “Over the years, all of our legacy customers that we sold these really high-quality machines to have been knocking on our door, saying, ‘When are you guys going to get back into the grinder market? We want something better than what they’re making now.’”
Naturally, Ragnarsson had been working on something, but rather than launching this equipment for himself, it was purchased by Tiger Cat, a world-class Canadian manufacturer of large forestry equipment. “So, he designed the CBI grinder and now Tiger Cat’s,” says Eskeland, which meant that Ragnarsson’s designs had a corner on the market. Of course, he didn’t stop there.
In 2019, the time had come for Ragnarsson to relaunch his own venture, which is how RagnarTech, Inc. came to be. Built upon that same quality, service, and innovation that the market came to expect, and supported by the industry’s best, he was going to pull it off on a smaller scale both in terms of the equipment and the operation.
Outperforming in every way
From its 25,000-square-foot facility in New Hampshire, RagnarTech supports operators around the globe who prioritize quality engineering and high-performance equipment that is built to last, minimizing downtime and optimizing throughput.
Just as Ragnarsson’s return to the market created a buzz among former customers, the same reaction took place among former employees of his, like Eskeland, who joined him at CBI in 2003 right out of high school, as well as the engineering manager and production manager who rejoined him at RagnarTech and re-formed the core of a quality team.
“We’ve all worked together for so many years, and we just know how to do things. You can make an argument that we have here the most experienced personnel in the grinding world, and it shows in our innovation,” says Eskeland, who assures us that when you call RagnarTech, you will speak to someone who knows what they are talking about when it comes to the company’s manufacturer-direct support.
Together, they “went back to building quality grinders again,” reengineering the designs using only the highest quality inputs like high-pressure plate from Scandinavia and the John Deere JD18, which Eskeland refers to as a “game changer.” For the better part of the previous two decades, Caterpillar’s diesel engine had been the standard, and while it is still available, RagnarTech and its customers have demonstrated the reason for the departure.
“We were building machines from 700 to 1200 horsepower, and there were basically three engine models that covered that horsepower range, and it was only ever Cat. However, with our new machines, the 9700 and 9400, John Deere came out with a new 18-liter 908-horsepower engine that has no DEF, EGR, or DPF while still meeting Tier 4 standards,” says Eskeland.
The ability of John Deere’s inline six, an 18-liter, 908-horsepower engine, to compete with Caterpillar’s C27, a 1050-horsepower V12, is a surprise to many, but what is most significant is the price tag, which is significantly less costly.
Eye-opening quality
A client who took delivery of a RagnarTech grinder early this summer quickly identified the performance advantages and cost savings associated with its operation compared to the legacy equipment they were running.
“They’ve got about 1000 hours on it, but in the first one or two months of running it, they got numbers that blew us away,” Eskeland shares. Not only was the new John Deere engine outperforming their other grinders with 1050 horsepower; the client was achieving eight-to-ten-minute trailer loads, saving two minutes on average.
Beyond performance, the equipment burns less fuel, using only 28 gallons of fuel compared to the previous 52-gallon amounts, for impressive cost savings and tangible environmental benefits. Additionally, not needing DEF, DPF, and EGRs results in lower overall maintenance costs.
“The numbers have blown them away… I won’t get into the design much, but it’s not just the engine—with our improved feeding system, it feeds more aggressively, which we attribute to better production than higher horsepower machines,” Eskeland says.
According to customer-reported data, even the components of the equipment are holding up better than the competition. The tips, which are used to grind down the material, performed for 350 hours before needing replacement, compared to 80 hours from competitors’ tip sets in comparable material.
One of the biggest industry challenges that Eskeland has experienced over his time in the sector is persistent quality issues due to premature part wear. Certainly, price is important, but when cost savings of this magnitude are being achieved, the upfront costs of quality are negligible. “It’s a little bit more expensive, but you know what? When you’re in the woods on a pipeline where you’re grinding for a billion or multi-billion dollar energy company that needs right-away work, when that machine goes down, saving a few bucks because you wanted to buy something where the steel wasn’t quite as good, that cost difference doesn’t matter at that point.”
The philosophy at RagnarTech is to “engineer in the quality,” and not apologize for being a little bit more expensive because the value of the equipment’s performance speaks for itself.
Only the beginning
With experience, expertise, and a culture of innovation that starts at the top and permeates the ranks, RagnarTech has only just begun making its impact on the market.
As it grows slowly and steadily, in both size and capacity, through the addition of strategically located parts and service hubs and a vetted distribution network, the company will continue to take on as much work as it can, though demand is likely to outpace supply for a while, especially as word has it that Ragnarsson once again has a springboard for his creativity and innovation.
“Not only does he know the equipment, but he is intimately involved in the industry and what people are doing and how they’re doing it and why they’re doing it—and that’s what really drives the innovation,” says Eskeland. “He’s made quite an impact on not only the wood processing industry but the recycling world. There aren’t a lot of people who’ve been owners or know anything about wood grinding that don’t know the name Anders Ragnarsson.”
