Caterpillar CEO Doug Oberhelman and vice president Kent Adams addressed a standing-room only crowd of mostly Terry College of Business students at the UGA Chapel Friday. They didn't address Caterpillar's labor dispute with employees at an Illinois plant, nor did they take questions from reporters. After a three-month strike, workers at the Joliet, IL, plant last month accepted a six-year contract that freezes wages and pensions for most workers and raises employee health care costs at a time of record profits for the company.

But their talk did give some insight into Caterpillar executives' mindset. In the case of the Joliet plant, executives argued that senior workers wages' weren't globally competitive. Oberhelman said Friday that only one of Caterpillar's competitors is based in the U.S. "They're all off-shore, and they all want our jobs," he said.

While Caterpillar has plants all over the world, the company clearly believes manufacturing has a future in the U.S. The plant under construction in Bogart, which will eventually employ 1,400 people, is replacing one in Japan. "It's really an example of what, one, Caterpillar can do, but again, America can really be competitive," he said.

And Oberhelman said he tries to think generations ahead when making decisions like where to build a plant. The company chose Athens because it will be the right decision 20 years out, he said. "The greatest responsibility I feel on my shoulders is making sure this company is here 100 years from now," he said.

A couple other tibits from Oberhelman: He owns two black Labradors that were trained in Thomasville, and he's apparently a personal friend of Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan. He said he watched Ryan's acceptance speech at the congressman's home in Janesville, WI.

Adams, who runs Caterpillar's lending and borrowing arm, and Oberhelman also said the company was able to weather the 2008-2009 financial crisis, although it was a scary time. "We didn't lose any money," Oberhelman said. "We didn't have any extreme blowups like they had at other banks and companies like GM."

Their talk consisted mostly of advice to future corporate employees: Dress well, exercise, work hard, marry the right person, be a team player and possess communication skills. Good writing "is a differentiator these days," Oberhelman said. "We're losing it to these fingertip things." Luck is also important, they said. "You think you can control every aspect of your career, and you (can't)," Adams said.