(Part Two of Two)
Big Boss Cement’s logo features a green gorilla. Company president Gilbert Cruz explained that the gorilla is the protector of the forest and the color green of course stands for the environment. But why the name Big Boss and Petra?
I thought Big Boss was a play of words. After all Big Boy (Henry Sy Jr.) is co-owner of Big Boss. But Gilbert explained that Big Boss refers to the real boss, Jesus, while Petra which means rock is also Jesus. “All this, to honor God,” he said.
Even at a young age, Gilbert already loved mathematics and the sciences, particularly physics and chemistry, but wanted to be a teacher. He studied industrial chemistry and industrial engineering because it was his father’s dying wish. “I’m blessed because I honored my father’s wish,” he said.
Gilbert’s “love affair” with cement began many years back. While working with Master Builders, a US company and leader in cement technology, he was responsible for mixing cement and worked on mega projects like the Three Gorges Dam in China and was assigned to work in projects in countries like Islamabad, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Taiwan and in the Philippines for the Casecnan and San Roque dams.
And because of these experiences, he said he got to understand cement more. “Imagine, for the Three Gorges Dam project we were pouring 20,000 cubic meters of concrete per day which in the Philippines would be what was needed for a year.” In fact, one time, he only had to touch the concrete to know that it was 4,000 psi.
He is also known in the industry as the one who pioneered ultra-high strength concrete in the Philippines.
After Master Builders, Gilbert worked with Global Brands which was into buying, consolidating, and right-sizing companies. One of the companies they sold was bought by Total of France and Total offered him a job to set up Bostik in the Philippines.
Bostik bought Rugby and at that time, the contact cement product was making a lot of money. But Cruz said he didn’t feel comfortable producing it because it was destroying a lot of people and producing street addicts.
Rugby then contained toluene which he said was a very good solvent but unfortunately was addictive. Cruz wanted to change the formulation so he presented his idea to the France office. The higher-ups didn’t approve of it initially since they feared that the company might lose sales but Gilbert stood his ground. So the new and reformulated Rugby no longer contained toluene.
Gilbert initially wanted to be a teacher but his father’s dying wish was for him to become an engineer. So he took up industrial chemistry and engineering and was in fact a student activist, being one of the pioneers of the League of Filipino students. “I think I am blessed because I honored my father’s dying wish. After all, the Bible says that if you honor your parents, you will be blessed,” he said.
He is also known to have pioneered ultra-high strength concrete in the country, which is actually concrete with psi (pound force per square inch or a unit of pressure) of 12,000 and more.
“For roads you only need 3,000 psi, for most buildings, 5,000 psi and high-rise ones, 7,000-8000. But some contractors took me in as consultant to produce 10,000 to 12,000 psi. So we have buildings like Twin Towers in BGC, RCBC Tower, Pacific Tower with high psi. In the Philippines, it was unheard of at that time but we were already using it for projects abroad,” he said.
Gilbert’s key process is still patent pending and according to him, it should be patented because they were able to crack the code of hastening the hardening time of Pozzolan but still behaving like Portland cement.
“My cement is technically Pozzolan but nobody wants to use Pozzolan because the hardening time is too long. But it is more durable and can last for thousands of years. Portland on the other hand is best suited for construction where time is of the essence because of its faster setting time. We were able to get the best features of the two,” he said.
With Big Boss’ mission of serving God and using a technology that will help preserve the environment, Gilbert is confident that soon, they will be a significant player in the market, offering a product that is not only superior but also affordable and environmentally-friendly.
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