Ground Force Worldwide LLC, the Post Falls-based parent company of Ground Force Manufacturing LLC and Underground Force LLC, has launched manufacturing operations on two other continents and is looking to expand to a fourth, says Ron Nilson, the company's president and CEO.

Most recently, Ground Force has begun production in South America at a plant near Lima, Peru, and, in coming months, it plans to begin production in Australia, Nilson says.

Ground Force Worldwide's first foreign expansion was in 2011 in the United Kingdom, where the company is producing water tankers and fuel lube trucks at the Caterpillar plant in the northern England town of Peterlee. Those trucks are then sold in European and Russian markets.

Altogether, Ground Force Worldwide has 50 workers in its foreign facilities, including contract employees, and expects that number to grow to 100 within a year, Nilson says.

The foreign production also creates jobs in nearby North Idaho, Nilson says, where many vital components are still manufactured for all of Ground Force's products, safeguarding the company's patents and trademarks.

The company employs more than 200 workers in North Idaho at its Ground Force and Underground Force facilities in Post Falls and Plummer.

Ground Force is an original equipment manufacturer for Peoria, Ill.-based Caterpillar Inc.'s mining and construction equipment division. The company fabricates and installs specialized equipment for some of the world's largest support vehicles, including fuel and lube trucks, water tankers, explosive-delivery trucks, and mechanic-service trucks.

Its sister company, Underground Force, outfits similar trucks that are scaled smaller to support underground mining operations.

"We're continuing to grow domestically and internationally," Nilson says. The company's annual revenues have soared a lofty 75 percent in each of the last three years, charting sales in more than 45 countries, he asserts.

The South American operation, named Ground Force Peru, is located in a 100,000-square-foot facility outside of Lima. "We have a team there building products that are also going to Chile and Bolivia," Nilson says.

Ground Force Peru has the capability to produce both open pit and underground mining equipment, and some Post Falls-based employees are training workers there.

"We're having to educate workers there to a level of quality they aren't used to," Nilson says.

As those workers become able to contribute to the company's reputation for quality, Ground Force Peru will continue to expand its market in other South American countries with growing mining industries, he asserts.

"There are large volumes of mining in Chile, Brazil, and Bolivia," he says. "We believe it's a huge growth opportunity for us."

Nilson asserts that Ground Force Worldwide, which boasts the tagline "Made in America by Americans," isn't shipping jobs overseas.

"We can win in foreign markets based on quality and pricing, but we can't offset the cost to freight products overseas," he says, adding that some Ground Force products weigh 180,000 pounds.

"The only way to capture that business is to build it near the country of origin to eliminate freight costs," Nilson says.

Every job created at foreign facilities is matched by a job created here, he says. Some critical components, such as high-end electronic controls, will continue to be made here, to be installed overseas, Nilson says.

"When we take American innovation to a foreign country, we still control all intellectual property," he says.

In Australia, the company has registered a subsidiary it named Ground Force Down Under.

"We have a sales and marketing agreement in Australia with a big distributor for the mining business," he says. "We believe we can grow that business substantially."

Domestically, the company's two Post Falls plants, located at 5650 and 6001 E. Seltice Way, occupy a total of 150,000 square feet of floor space in nine buildings.

It also has leased a 55,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Plummer formerly occupied by Echelon LLC.

Nilson founded Ground Force in 2000, when he bought the assets of Aresco Inc., another Post Falls mining equipment manufacturer. Ground Force Worldwide was formed as the parent company in 2011, when Nilson launched Underground Force.