When the largest company HQ in Peoria decides to move

Matt Buedel is a business reporter at the Peoria Journal-Star newspaper in Illinois, a city whose biggest headquarters — Caterpillar Inc. — announced last week it was moving to the Chicago area.

Buedel has been covering the manufacturer since March 2016. He grew up in Springfield and has a journalism degree from Bradley University.

He has written for the newspaper for 17 years, covering transportation, local government, regional issues and police and crime before taking over the business beat. After once writing about the disappearance of a man with Alzheimer’s, Buedel actually joined in the search and found the man’s body before search and rescue. The grateful family, about whom Buedel had written so sensitively, mentioned him in the victim’s obituary.

Buedel spoke with Talking Biz News by email about covering Caterpillar and the announcement. What follows is an edited transcript.

How did you become the Caterpillar reporter for the paper after covering crime and cops?

We had a beat realignment in the newsroom about a year ago, and I was reassigned to cover Caterpillar and industry here in the Peoria area.

What experience did you have in covering business and economy before this beat?

I’ve had limited experience covering business, outside of government-related economic development initiatives. In a former role as a regional general assignment reporter, I covered some actions taken by major corporations, such as Maytag in Galesburg and Mitsubishi in Bloomington/Normal. However, I have never before covered a complex company such as Caterpillar as a beat.

How did you learn what was important to covering Caterpillar?

The learning curve has been steep. I have learned the most about the company through its restructuring efforts, undertaken beginning in the fall of 2015 in response to declining revenue. These actions have resulted in significant job losses in the Peoria area and around the world. Beyond covering the immediate impact of the layoffs, I’ve tried to better understand and convey the forces behind Caterpillar’s decisions.

Much of the news has been unfortunate for Caterpillar employees in the area, but it has provided a lens through which to view the company. Also, I ask a lot of dumb, very basic questions. With a company this complex, I’m not afraid to admit I don’t know what I don’t know.

How did the company work with you to give you a better understanding of its operations?

Early into my short tenure in this beat, Caterpillar made available to me then-vice president of financial services Mike DeWalt, who retired last month after 36 years with the company. He often spoke in conference calls with investors on quarterly earning results and had a vast working knowledge of the company’s operations. Perhaps more importantly, he could communicate it in an easily understood way.

I frequently read investor analysis of the company and try to absorb as much public discussion from Caterpillar executives as possible — such as when group presidents speak at industrial conferences or former CEO Doug Oberhelman would host calls as chairman of the CEO Business Roundtable — but I learned more that day with DeWalt in a big-picture sense than through the accumulation of all that other more focused discussion.

Has the company ever tried to influence your coverage?

Caterpillar has not tried to change my words, but the company has sought to delay publication of a story one time. Based on number of factors, the Journal Star declined.

How did you first hear about the headquarters moving, and what did you do?

I hesitate to say too much on this question because of the sensitive nature of this information prior to the announcement. A chance encounter gave me a high degree of certainty of the basic details of the announcement roughly 36 hours in advance, on a Sunday afternoon. I contacted the people I regularly work with at Caterpillar first thing the next morning, about 24 hours before the announcement.

What is it like to cover a story like this that has a huge impact for Peoria but is also a national story?

It was dizzying. Almost a week later, people here are still processing the news. I had to process quickly, put my head down and work. Stop thinking, start typing.

You did a Q&A the morning of the announcement with the CEO. How did that come about?

To understand how the exclusive came about, I think you have to understand the way Caterpillar structured the announcement. No one outside high-level management inside Caterpillar knew about the decision. No city, state or federal officials had been notified — after scores of elected officials flanked company executives for an announcement in February 2015 that a new global headquarters campus would be built in downtown Peoria. For this 180-degree announcement, the company planned to call in a handful of city leaders on the morning employees would be notified of the decision. The plan required secrecy.

When I started asking questions that indicated I had more than a hunch of what was about to happen, the company offered the exclusive with the CEO and all the details that would be released the next morning if I agreed not to call everyone I know to see if anyone had heard anything.

We ultimately agreed to the arrangement rather than green-lighting a story that had the broad brush strokes of the plan but few specifics. An editorial writer and I met with the CEO the evening before the announcement, with the resulting stories slated to be published online at the same time Caterpillar sent out its public announcement.

How did the paper decide to put out a special edition on the change? What were the logistical issues from your reporting?

My executive editor made the call to publish the first extra edition at the Journal-Star since the Kennedy assassination. But because of our agreement not to discuss this news with anyone, it meant a mountain of work had to be done in a matter of hours by only a few people.

Everything that went online right when the announcement was made about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday also went into the extra edition designed Tuesday morning. Since literally nobody outside a select few at Caterpillar knew what was coming, we didn’t have time get reaction to the news before the edition had to be to press at 9:30 a.m.

Walk me through your day when the announcement was made, from when you arrived at the office until you left.

The work started Monday morning and continued until about midnight. I returned to the newsroom first thing Tuesday morning to coordinate publication of the initial stories online and in the extra edition. Then we had to get running on reaction and forward-looking pieces, with contributions from nearly everyone in the newsroom.