Eureka » Robert Redford once said problems can become opportunities -- if the right people can get together.

For this Juab County city, the problem was big: It didn't have enough money to finish restoring two baseball fields.

Greg Evans, a city resident and restoration project manager, was one of the right people to turn it into an opportunity.

Evans works with global-positioning satellite and earth-moving equipment for Wheeler Machinery. So, he asked one of his clients, contractor W.W. Clyde Co., if it could help the city by doing some of the earth-moving work.

"[Clyde] was looking for a training-type environment, and they were looking for a chance to help us out," Evans said.

On Thursday and Friday, crews from Springville-based Clyde and one of its subsidiaries, Geneva Rock, sculpted the fields into smooth baseball diamonds using satellite-guided graders and bulldozers.

Lance Greer, Clyde's surveying and machine-guidance manager, said the project provided both community service and a meaningful training exercise for his workers.

"Lots of our people know how to run the equipment, but they may not be familiar with the technology," Greer said.

Normally, the company trains its employees at Geneva Rock's gravel pit at Point of the Mountain on the southern edge of Salt Lake County. But this training is more meaningful in that the crews are creating something the community can use for years to come, Greer said.

"At the end of the day, this is going to be a nice baseball facility," he said, watching the crews move dirt on a bitterly cold morning.

City Councilman David Waite said Clyde's contribution is priceless, and would help the city make its goal of having the fields ready for play in 2010.

He said the old diamonds were not in the best shape or position for baseball. A steep 11-foot drop separated one field from the other, posing not only an obstacle for batters but a danger for fielders chasing fly balls.

"It was a tough field to play on," Waite said.

But he said a volunteer committee started raising money more than a year ago.

Traci Snell, one of the organizers, said the committee conducted bake sales and sold vinyl signs to businesses to be displayed at the park.

Then the city got a $192,000 grant from Juab County, but it was not enough to realign the fields, install a snack shack, bleachers, sprinklers and sod, and level the ground, Waite said.

The city was faced with the prospect of having to pare back the project to make it work.

But Snell and Waite said Clyde's contribution means city baseball players and fans will get all their amenities.

"It felt really neat," Snell said after watching the crews at work in their satellite-guided machines.

The project involved more than just pushing dirt around.

Greer said Clyde took the city's plans for the ballparks and digitized them. Then it combined the plans with global-positioning satellite data, coming up with a computerized plan for how to grade the soil.

Each machine has two GPS antennas on its front, and a computer display in the cab that allows the operator to see where the rig is in the plan area, and how much material needs to be trimmed off.

And, as blade operator Jared Jaques demonstrated, all the operator needs to do is put his rig in the right place, press a button and sit back while computers operate the machine, adjusting the blade as needed.

dmeyers@sltrib.com