PROVIDING SOLUTIONS TODAY FOR TOMORROW’S EQUIPMENT INDUSTRY
HONORING THE PAST
EMBRACING THE FUTURE
Associated Equipment Distributors Celebrating 100 Years
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AED’s Mission
ssociated Equipment Distributors (AED) is an international trade association representing companies involved in the distribution, rental and support of equipment used in construction, mining, forestry, power generation, agriculture and industrial applications. Our 470-plus distributor member companies account for more than $51 billion of annual sales revenue of construction equipment and related supplies and services in the U.S. and Canada. Our average distributor member achieves more than $111 million per year in revenues, employs 280 people, and has 8 branch locations. AED serves:
•Independent distributors that sell, rent, and provide aftermarket support for construction equipment and related equipment and products •Manufacturers of construction and related equipment and products •Suppliers of business services, including finance, insurance, business systems/ERP and others We enhance the ongoing success and profitability of our member companies by creating and providing high quality products, services and information, including:
•Public policy advocacy – AED is our members’ voice in Washington •Industry education, training and career development •Research, analysis, and information on markets, economic and business trends, and performance benchmarks •Events and opportunities that enhance networking, facilitate business-to-business interaction and cooperation, and cultivate sources of capital and finance •Public relations that promotes knowledge, understanding, and enhancement of the evolving role of distributors in North American markets We believe in and encourage the highest business standards and ethical behavior. We are committed to strengthening the free enterprise system. We encourage synergy and cooperation among individuals and companies when pursuing the industry’s common interests. We value continuous improvement and lifelong learning, and we encourage and support members of the industry in their active participation in the processes of government.
AED Logos Through the Years 1919
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AED: 100 YEARS
AED Looks Back on 100 Years
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ourage and gumption. These are honestly the two best words to describe how AED members have managed to survive and thrive for more than 100 years. The Association deserves similar recognition for doing a phenomenal job of shepherding its members through both good and bad times. This anniversary issue is a marvelous walk through American history. And our tour guides were delightful off the charts – from octogenarian past presidents to current members of AED, all were welcoming and gracious hosts. One notable example was 1970 AED President Dick Schumacher, who was 101 when we interviewed him, and still as sharp as a tack.
The industry that effectively built this country has endured many trials over the years. From the Great Depression to world wars and the economic crisis of the ’80s, AED members have found a way to endure. The Association too has been unwavering since its inception, constantly finding ways to navigate challenges that are thrown its way.
1991
We delved into many sources to write this history. Of course we used the internet, but we also looked at historical materials from AED as well as 70 years’ worth of CED Magazines (unfortunately, a lot of the Association’s collateral was lost during the 1987 flood). In short, this special edition illustrates the stories of ordinary men who organized themselves and fought for what they believed in, and how that led to extraordinary results. There are many time periods described in these pages when the country felt just as it does now, like nothing will ever be as it was before. But AED’s incredible longevity is proof that man can navigate seemingly insurmountable obstacles and overcome. This magazine details those lessons of history. We thank you for your contributions to our great story, and we look forward to working side by side with you for many years to come.
2002
AED A S S O C I A T E D E Q U I P M E N T D I S T R I B U T O R S
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100 YEARS Associated Equipment Distributors CED Editor in Chief Sara Smith ssmith@aednet.org Writers
Tracey Timpanaro with Amatulla Zakir Katie Howell
Acknowledgments This special edition magazine absolutely would not have been possible without the incredibly generous assistance we received from the individuals and companies we list below. We offer them our most heartfelt gratitude for their contributions.
Designers
Kris Jensen-Van Heste Martin Cabral
Project Managers Sara Smith Martin Cabral
Vice President | Advertising Jon Cruthers jcruthers@aednet.org
Since 1920 Official Publication of
650 E. Algonquin Road, Suite 305 Schaumburg, IL 60173 630-574-0650 fax 630-457-0132
Association of Equipment Manufacturers Brandeis Machinery & Supply Co. Carolina Tractor & Equipment Co. The G.W. Van Keppel Co. Historical Construction Equipment Association H.O. Penn Machinery Co. Inc. Mike Paradis R.B. Everett & Co. The Victor L. Phillips Co. Volvo Construction Equipment Whayne Supply Co.
AED Past Presidents Fred F. Berry Jr. (1971) W. Travis Burch (1997) John W. Burress III (1990) Gilbert D. Gaedcke (1984) Earl K. Harbaugh (1991) H.B. Hayden Jr. (1992) Robert Henderson (1999) P.E. MacAllister (1972) Richard F. Mason (1981) Jay Paradis (1994) Norman C. Ribble (1980) Dick Schumacher (1970) John A. Zoubek (2001)
As the official magazine of Associated Equipment Distributors, this publication carries authoritative notices and articles in regard to the activities of the association. In all other respects, the association cannot be responsible for the contents thereof or the opinions of contributors. Copyright © 2019 by Associated Equipment Distributors. Construction Equipment Distribution (ISSN0010-6755) is published monthly as the official journal of Associated Equipment Distributors. Subscription rate – $39 per year for members; $79 per year for nonmembers. Office of publication: 650 E. Algonquin Road, Suite 305, Schaumburg, Ill. 60173 Phone: 630-574-0650. Periodicals postage at Schaumburg, Ill. 60173 and other post offices. Additional entry, Pontiac, Ill. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Construction Equipment Distribution, 650 E. Algonquin Road, Suite 305, Schaumburg, Ill. 60173. 2 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com
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AED: 100 YEARS
The Decades The 1920s: AED Gets Off to A Great Start and Hits the Ground Running
Page 9
The 1930s: Great Depression Takes A Heavy Toll; the New Deal Starts to Turn Country Around
Page 23
The 1970s: Decade Brings OSHA Rules, Gas Shortage, Product Liability Lawsuits
Page 79
The 1980s: State of Economy Makes This Hands Down the Worst Decade Yet
Page 93
The 1940s: AED Contributes to the War Effort, Manages Chaos of Its Aftermath
The 1990s: AED Sees Booming Rental Market, Huge Technician Shortage and the Dawn of the Internet
The 1950s: AED Navigates Another Wartime, Plus Intense Competition After Passage of the Highway Act
The 2000s: The Start of the New Millennium Defined By 9/11, Consolidation and A Wretched Recession
Page 37
Page 51
The 1960s: AED Faces Tough Challenges – Image and Credit Issues, the Advent of Rentals
Page 65
Page 107
Page 121
The 2010s: AED Builds on Successes Established Over A Century: Education, Advocacy, Solid Industry Camaraderie
Page 135
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AED: 100 YEARS
From the President
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t is my honor and pleasure to be AED’s president and CEO as we hit this exciting milestone, our 100-year anniversary. Since its inception in 1919, AED’s mission has been to promote and maintain the distribution of construction equipment, and I am privileged to be just a small part of this organization’s history and to help it and its members reach their goals. The industry has seen many changes since 1919, in technology, globalization and even the equipment itself. In this exclusive issue of CED Magazine, we aim to show you all the ways AED has been involved with the construction industry since 1919. AED has a vast history with ups and downs that many of you have been a part of. We invite you to take a trip down memory lane with us and to learn more about AED’s history. This issue of CED is divided by decade, chronicling the major news events of AED interweaved with what was happening in North America and the rest of the world at the same time. You will see how AED evolved over the years to keep up with the needs of its members, as well as how it changed to keep up with the times. You will find out how and when Summit began, what types of seminars and events we used to host, what our relationship with policymakers was like, and how The AED Foundation began, just to name a few! You will also find photos from past AED events, of our members and the vintage construction equipment. Keep your eyes peeled, you might even spot some familiar faces! Whether you have been with us for 75 years, 25 years or just became a member this year, we appreciate your support. Nothing we do can be done without you. So, as we move forward in the coming years, your input, your views and opinions, are of the utmost importance to us. Please let us know your thoughts so we can assist and benefit you in the best ways possible. We want to continue to be your association of choice. We at AED are excited to continue to celebrate our 100-year anniversary throughout 2019 – we have some fun things in store. We are also pleased to welcome a chairman who has plenty of history with the Association, as his company was a founding member. We are pleased to welcome Mr. Michael Brennan of Bramco as our new leader and chairman. AED is focused on continuing to be the voice of our members on important matters, to create and cultivate ways for you to make relationships, and to help your organization and people grow. I look forward to what the next 100 years has in store, and I hope you all do as well. We will be with you every step of the way.
Brian P. McGuire President and CEO
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AED: 100 YEARS
From the Chairman
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irst and foremost, I would like to congratulate AED on its 100th anniversary. Milestones like this are few and far between, and I am happy to be a part of this organization’s progress. I have seen firsthand how AED has helped its members become better, more successful companies. Sticking to values while also adapting to the changing world and membership needs is hard, but AED has done so with a success that is rarely seen. I am lucky to be part of another organization that has reached its 100-year anniversary: Brandeis Machinery & Supply Company, a part of the Bramco family of companies. Brandeis was founded in 1908 and reached its 110th year in 2018. Brandeis, along with its sister company Power Equipment, has stuck to the mission of selling, renting and servicing construction, mining and related equipment throughout Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee. As rare as it is to see any company reach 100 years in business, it is especially remarkable to find a small, family-run business that has done so, and Brandeis is proud to have that accomplishment and to share it with AED. In fact, as you will discover within the pages of this exclusive issue of CED, Brandeis was one of the founding members of AED in 1919 and has played an active and strong role ever since. Many members of Brandeis have acted as chairmen, committee members and attendees at various AED events. And I am eager to continue our work with AED. It is my pleasure to be your 2019 AED chairman. It seems appropriate that someone from one of AED’s founding companies is able to be its chairperson for its 100th year. I am delighted to start the year off with a bang and a Centennial Celebration. This is an exciting time to be an AED member, and an exciting time for me to be chairman. Companies that have been in existence for this long do not succeed without the help of their employees and the support of their customers or, in AED’s case, their members. I look forward to facilitating AED’s success as well as getting to know more of you, the membership, and watching your companies grow. I will be working with AED to continue to be a voice for its membership, to create tools and programs that help its members grow, and to continue to lead this organization toward success so we can celebrate another anniversary milestone in the future.
Michael Brennan 2019 AED Chairman Bramco
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AED: 100 YEARS
The 1920s
Chain Belt 10E paving mixers were used to mix concrete for road projects or other large slabs. Courtesy of the Historical Construction Equipment Association
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The 1920s: AED Gets Off to A Great Start and Hits the Ground Running
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efore we can begin our story, you must imagine what it all looked like more than 100 years ago. The economy was slowly moving from agrarian to industrial, and people were moving to the cities, which were crowded and dirty. The workplace conditions in the factories were substandard by any means. But even in 1890, 65 percent of the population still lived in rural areas. Outside the cities, the roads were just dirt paths — vegetation was cleared and dirt was smoothed over. After a heavy rainstorm, a horse and cart could sink down into the mud, up to the axles or even deeper.
Morton R. Hunter
Inter-city travel by road was for the intrepid only; no one wanted to travel by stagecoach. Rail was easier — in 1860 the United States already had 30,000 miles of track. In 1893, the Postal Service introduced Rural Free Delivery: home delivery of mail to farms and rural citizens (so folks would no longer have to pick up their mail at the post office). Part of the reason for this was to encourage the development of better roads —mail couldn’t be delivered on an unpassable road. The cause for better roads was also championed by cyclists. Let’s consider the bicycle for a moment. It had been around in many forms for decades, but ultimately its shape changed, it became easier to ride,
AED IN THE 1920s 1922
1920
The first AED meeting is held on January 27.
Ken Noble comes up with the idea for the AED catalog, wherein manufacturers and distributors cooperate in the production of catalogs and promotional literature, saving costs for everyone.
1921
The Federal Highway Act of 1921 increases funds available for forest highways. AED President George Smith begins a rental rate sharing program that grows into AED Average Rates, as well as the Survey on Cost of Doing Business to establish performance benchmarks for distributors.
1924
President William Ziegler enforces economy in operations, making sure AED gets the most out of every dollar.
1923
Morton Hunter at the Hunter Machinery Company designs a curved blade that attaches to a tractor with a special frame, for snowplowing. He patents the design and licenses it to a manufacturer to make both the snowplows and the dozer blades, the first of their kind in the country.
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and it had better brakes. In 1889, 200,000 bicycles were produced, and this number jumped to 1 million by 1899. The new bicycle-riding public was eager to get out on the road, but first it would have to conjure up a road. It’s safe to say that our history has shown that things change when people demand it. It was the cyclists that galvanized others to join the “good roads” lobby. A powerful member of this lobby was the American Road Builders Association, which started out as American Road Makers in 1902. In 1909 the first “road show” was held, a trade show for manufacturers of road-building materials. Things changed faster as the automobile burst onto the scene; Henry Ford started mass production of the Model T in 1913. Now new car owners were really clamoring for better roads, and there was a military need too, as World War I was just around the corner. The federal government finally got on board with the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916. The highway construction industry, to date still the industry with the highest demand for construction equipment, was born.
1926
Al Blaisdell serves as president. After his year as president is up, he takes on a role as part-time secretary (moving to full-time later) and serves in that position almost right up until the time of his death.
1925
AED is officially recognized by manufacturers of construction equipment. Morton Hunter is both president and secretary.
1927
The forerunner of CE News, the AED Triangle, is established.
1928
Construction of Hoover Dam is approved by Congress.
1929
AED Headquarters is relocated to Cincinnati. Morton Hunter has served as secretary for 10 years and hands over the role to Al Blaisdell. AED membership jumps from 68 to 91 this year.
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AED archives
Power shovela like this one were used to excavate dirt for road construction or other land-leveling projects.
It Starts With A Very Eager Young Man … The history of Associated Equipment Distributors (AED) begins quite simply: one nervous young man with a new business voices his worries, and the generous older men around him agree to help. This is his story. Morton Hunter, an engineering graduate from the University of Michigan, started out as an engineer for Northwestern Railway. He then became assistant editor for a publication called the Engineering Record and began traveling across the country writing articles on railroad and highway construction. He understood the application, the design and the functioning of the machinery, and as he traveled it occurred to him that he could make a good business of selling it. He quit his job and plunged into his own business. As a young distributor of construction machinery, he wanted to attend the 1916 Cement Show in Chicago where there was a sizable exhibit of construction machinery. There was a tiny hitch in his plan: The receptionist at the front desk wouldn’t let him in because he wasn’t a manufacturer or a contractor (the end buyers of the machines). Morton was outraged. He had to fight
to get in, explaining that he represented some of the exhibiting manufacturers. He did get in to the show that day, but it became clear to him that distributors did not yet have a voice in the industry. With U.S. entry into World War I the following year, construction slowed drastically. Three more years passed before the war was over. In the winter of 1919, Morton was counting on a spring road boom and an increase in construction work. He went to a sales meeting of the BlawKnox Company in Blawnox, Pennsylvania, and staked almost all his capital on equipment orders for spring delivery. He was elated when he got a bigger discount on the equipment than he had ever gotten before. After the meeting, many of the attending distributors were on the train platform waiting for the train to Pittsburgh. As they chatted, Morton learned that the other companies received better discounts on a regular basis than the discount he had received. They had other perks too. He suddenly felt a lot colder and wondered if he had made a terrible mistake with all the orders he had placed. What if there was no spring road boom? Was this the worst financial mistake of his life? “It’s a shame,” he said at last, “that we don’t have an organization in our field where a young fellow like me can ask
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Courtesy of The Victor L. Phillips Co.
Sterling 3½-ton dump trucks like this one would be used for transporting materials like dirt and large rocks.
the older men for sound advice.” The older men, all having been young entrepreneurs at one point, could empathize. “Well, kid, it’s just possible you’ve got a good idea,” said one veteran. “You send out a letter calling a meeting. We’ll all come.” And so it was that on January 27, 1920, the first-ever meeting of the Associated Equipment Distributors was held. The first order of business was to get the new association organized and sign up distributors across the country. The original mission statement, drafted in that first meeting, remained unchanged for decades: “This organization is founded for the purpose of promoting and maintaining a co-operative spirit between the legitimate distributors of construction equipment and their source of supply; to disseminate information among its members that will assist them in building their
The history of Associated Equipment Distributors begins quite simply: one nervous young man with a new business voices his worries, and the generous older men around him agree to help. The 1920s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 13
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business on a broader scale and to exchange ideas of service for the benefit of the actual users of construction equipment.” The founding members all paid the initiation fee of $100, plus $100 membership dues – nearly $2,500 in today’s dollars - and many even paid double dues to put some money into the treasury. They volunteered their time, and Morton served as secretary for 10 years for free, handling all the correspondence and the annual meetings. Even though this fledgling association required a $200 investment, 12 distributors from around the country joined the first year, of an estimated total of 100 nationwide. It grew slowly at that same pace, adding 5-10 new companies every year all through the 1920s.
Great Dedication from the Start These first men of AED wholeheartedly threw themselves into making the Association a success. Morton may have lacked experience, but his counterparts had plenty. Later in the century, he wrote about the first AED presidents and their contributions, which helped create the AED programs that would last through the century. “Big, shaggy, Walter Louer, with his forelock hanging down, our first treasurer,” Morton wrote, “always insisted that Chicago was the logical headquarters of AED because of its central location, ability to accommodate conventions of all sizes, and the fact that, as we grew, in terms of travel distance, Chicago was the easiest to reach of any city we could pick.”
Then there was AED’s second president in 1921, George Smith, “a tall, slim, dark, handsome and quiet man” who started the concept of sharing information about rental rates. “He was one of the first distributors in America to go into the rental of construction machinery, and he loaned us the little red book that he used for his own business for setting rental rates on the various types of equipment he sold,” Morton said. This grew into AED Average Rates, which distributors used to keep an eye on equipment rental rates throughout the country. Even the government turned to AED Average Rates to set price ceilings during World War II. Smith was also the first to propose industry performance benchmarks; he suggested that AED should research the costs of doing business so every firm could compare itself to the industry average. The men all grew into staunch friends; working on AED meant they spent a lot of time together. They traveled quite a bit, and socialized and brainstormed at the same time. In the early days, the president would have a meeting of his cabinet or the directors in his hometown. In 1923, Ken Noble was president, and the executive committee went to Hartford, Connecticut, as his guests. AED did not have a lot of money, and each one paid his own way. Once they were there, though, Noble took them all to the Hartford Country Club for a round of golf.
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AED Members Share Their Hobbies in 1929 Editor’s note: Looking through ancient issues of CED Magazine provides an endearing look not only at the industry’s history, but also at the culture and dialect of our country in the good old days. Below are excerpts from the January/February 1929 issue of The Equipment Distributor, as it was called at that time. A single issue cost 25 cents, and you could get a whole year for $1. This article was titled “Just Among Ourselves: Distributors and Their Hobbies.”
M
orton Hunter, one of the founding members, the man with the idea that began AED and a past president (1925), says his pet hobby is “to play golf with Nick Floyd, pitch quarters to the crack with Ken Noble (PP 1923), and to hold one-eyed jacks and two-eyed queens against John McDivit.” On the East Coast, W. Bryan May in Buffalo, N.Y., says, “While I also enjoy golf and tennis, I find more real exercise and recreation in the companionship of a good horse than anything else.”
AED archives
More toward the middle of the country, John R. Key, in Carthage, Mo., said that his pet hobby is his log cabin on Elk River with a half mile of riverfront and 90 acres of large trees in the Ozarks. “Elk River is clear, cold and fast, and when you hook a bass you sure lose all the old worries and take on some new ones.” George F. Smith of St. Louis says that in addition to family and friends, “A few of my hobbies are three-cushion billiards, tennis, chess, stamp collecting, fishing, baseball, bonds and stocks, amateur photography, vacation trips, oriental curio collecting, cottages on a river in the Ozarks and gardening.” A.A. Fuchs of Omaha says, “It would be impossible for me to have a snapshot taken of myself riding my pet hobby, because I don’t see how you could ride poker chips, whiskey bottles or golf games, and I am assuming that it would be equally difficult to get in the saddle on a mint or moneymaking machine. Therefore, you will have to do without the snapshot.” Over on the West Coast, H.G. Bley in Los Angeles says that raising oranges and avocadoes on his ranch near Escondido is his pet hobby, as well as carefully nursing along a nice lime tree on the side. T.W. Harron of California loves taking people out on his small motor boat. “My special forte is the handling of can openers and utensils in the galley. In addition, I am an amateur movie fan and I loathe golf.” Alfred E. Mason, also of California, probably has the rest beat. His country home is his hobby, where he enjoys “real hard physical exercise. Here I get into overalls and do most all my own work, electrician, carpenter, roofer, plumber, concrete man, painter, gardener. … It is my delight to point out to friends the improvements I have made. I take pride in my work.”
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Photo credit
Courtesy of the Historical Construction Equipment Association
Above: This Holt 10-ton crawler tractor is pulling dump wagons away from a job site; the wagons were loaded by the Ball Engine Company steam shovel in the background. Left: Three-wheel rollers like this one were used for earth flattening; this model is unusual because of the grooves on the front wheel.
AED archives
“I can still see the big, long, rambling hotel,” Morton said, “facing the Long Island Sound from the Connecticut Shore, owned by Ken Noble’s wife, that was apparently handed down from generation to generation. It was a grand old place, and they served us a shore dinner that was simply delicious.”
printing, they could buy paper in large quantities and make just one set of cuts instead of every distributor doing it individually. Distributors could choose the pages they wanted, but centralizing the printing would save costs for everyone. The program was very popular and carried on for decades.
During this meeting, Noble suggested that AED should take over the printing of manufacturers’ catalogs for every distributor. With centralized
William Ziegler, 1924 president, was one of the most successful distributors in the country. Serious, quiet and friendly, he knew how to monitor costs,
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Courtesy of the Historical Construction Equipment Association
and he taught the new association economy in operation, “putting the few dollars they had to play where they counted the most for the benefit of the membership.”
Morton Continues to Contribute Morton himself was finally AED president in 1925. He was enthusiastic and talkative, and these qualities had helped him bring his colleagues together to form the Association in the first place. In fact, he signed up more than half of the first 150 members himself. He was also a writer, and he began a publication called AED Triangle, the triangle being manufacturers, distributors and contractors. This was the first publication wherein manufacturers and distributors could communicate with each other. AED’s
official publication went through a few evolutions over the years and today is known as CED Magazine. Morton was passionate about communicating the value of distributors to manufacturers and the industry. He wrote that his experience at the 1916 Cement Show rankled him, and he never again wanted to see distributors considered “something the cat dragged in.” In his year as president in 1925, the distributor’s association was officially recognized by manufacturers of construction equipment. The AED annual report that year said, “When you consider that a factory putting a new product on the market, adaptable to our field, can take the Associated Equipment Distributors list and almost overnight establish a sales organization throughout the United States, you can get some idea of what this means to a manufacturer.” AED was determined The 1920s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 17
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Courtesy of the Historical Construction Equipment Association
to have adequate representation in every state; at that time many areas of the country remained underrepresented. Local members were urged to help and get more distributors on board. It was an exciting time in the industry, one of invention and innovation. Construction equipment itself was still in its infancy, and assumptions about road-building techniques were being questioned and tested and improved. Every company was experimenting with equipment and trying to make it better. Huge breakthroughs were made in this decade, like adding gasoline engines to the machines, which was a far cry from the original steam power. The first crawlers were also developed in this decade.
AED archives
Some ideas failed. For example, Harry Fletcher, the 1927 president, wanted to rotate the site of the annual meetings, which had always been held in Chicago. Not a group
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of naysayers, the Association gave it a whirl and met in San Francisco, New York, and New Orleans, but attendance never rivaled Chicago’s numbers. “The reason was obvious,” Morton said. “When we met in New York, we had a fine attendance from the East, but from the rest of the country — only the officers and directors and a few hardy souls. The same was true when we met in San Francisco, the attendance was mostly from the West Coast, and the same story we had on the East Coast.”
Courtesy of the Historical Construction Equipment Association
This Insley Iron Works full-revolving, self-slewing stiffleg derrick would load and unload materials from flat train cars.
On the whole, at the end of the first decade, everyone was still as enthusiastic and optimistic as when they started. The atmosphere of cooperation and informationsharing that they had dreamed of creating was a resounding success. In 1929, membership jumped from 68 to 91. The 20th century, the one that would see more progress than the world had ever known, was barely getting started.
The Lima 101 power shovel loads a crawler dump wagon that will be drawn by a Cat Sixty crawler trailer.
Courtesy of the Historical Construction Equipment Association
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1920 J.S. Beckwith Beckwith Machinery Company Pittsburgh, Pa. 1921 George F. Smith George F. Smith Co. St. Louis, Mo. 1922 E.D. Townsend Beckwith Machinery Co. Pittsburgh, Pa. 1923 K.B. Noble K.B. Noble Co. Hartford, Conn. 1924 William H. Ziegler Wm. H. Ziegler Co. Minneapolis, Minn. 1925 Morton R. Hunter Hunter Machinery Co. Milwaukee, Wis. 1926 A.C. Blaisdell Blaisdell Equipment Co. Cincinnati, Ohio 1927 H.W. Fletcher Fletcher Equip. & Supplies New Orleans, La. 1928 Edward R. Bacon Edward R. Bacon Co. San Francisco, Calif. 1929 C.G. Borchert Borchert-Ingersoll St. Paul, Minn. 20 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1920s
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Congratulations! From One Centurion To Another, Congratulations! Thank You For The Continued Partnership, AED.
Martin Brown | 214.987.8850 www.bokfinancial.com © 2018 Services provided by BOK Financial Equipment Finance, Inc., a subsidiary of BOKF, NA. Member FDIC. BOKF, NA is a subsidiary of BOK Financial Corporation.
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AED: 100 YEARS
The 1930s
International TracTractor had a complicated name, but it was your basic crawler tractor.
AED archives
cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 23
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The 1930s:
The Great Depression Takes A Heavy Toll; the New Deal Starts to Turn the Country Around
H
The Brandeis Era
is shoulders heavy, Joseph A. Paradis, president of Brandeis Machinery and Supply Company, walked into his house and looked for his wife. “How much housekeeping money do you have?” he asked. “A few dollars,” she replied. “And you?” he asked his son, and then his daughter. They didn’t have much either. “That’s all the money we have,” he said. “Everything else is gone.”
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BancoKentucky had gone under, and Paradis was a director. The company owned financial institutions, including the National Bank of Kentucky, and Paradis was liable for a portion of the debts when the bank failed. He sold the family home to pay the obligation, and the family moved into a temporary apartment. It was the honorable thing to do rather than declaring bankruptcy. He still had his construction equipment business. However, he had taken a salary cut like all the other employees to try to keep it afloat, and there were debts to pay. In the downward-spiraling economy, there was no business to be had, and there was simply no money.
AED IN THE 1930s
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1934
1932 1930
The Great Depression begins and the country has high unemployment and poverty. This year marks the first census to include the construction industry.
Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected as U.S. president. The country’s relationship with the government changes as Roosevelt introduces many large government employment programs and safeguards. Many distributor firms close, and AED membership falls to 75.
1931
AED membership has its first dip of the Depression, going down from 93 to 92. The year also saw the first application of diesel power to a crawler tractor.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is established. New Deal construction programs revive the construction industry, and AED membership climbs back to 122. Allied members double to 40. Diesel engines are now available on five models of Caterpillar track-type tractors.
1933
New Deal federal programs, public works projects and financial reforms are launched. Dust storms destroy many Midwest farms. Manufacturers are admitted to AED for the first time (as allied members), and 20 join this year. The first rubber-tire tractors are sold.
24 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1930s
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As banks failed and people lost their savings, consumption slowed down. Businesses took losses and workers were laid off. Unemployment led to less saving and less spending, and things kept getting worse. There were 90 tractor companies in the U.S. in 1920, but by 1933 there were only nine. Manufacturers produced 200,000 tractors in 1930, and only 19,000 in 1932, as nobody was buying anything. The Brandeis Company was taking losses, but it was still alive. Sadly, many other AED distributors had to fold. AED membership was at 93 in 1930, 92 in 1931 and then plunged to just 75 members in 1932. Everyone was hungry. Brandeis was also struggling to survive. It had expanded its product line so it was more competitive, but the construction market was at rock bottom and there was no demand for equipment. Company officers searched for new product lines and began to sell electrical appliances – refrigeration and air conditioning equipment. The refrigeration business was not very successful, but selling air conditioning equipment got the company through the worst of the Depression.
P&H power shovel loads a small dump truck.
Courtesy of R.B. Everett & Co.
AED Members Were Struggling but Focused The Depression was a quiet time for AED. Every company was struggling. In 1933, Wm. H. Ziegler, president of the Ziegler Company, was a Caterpillar dealer, and Caterpillar posted losses of $1.6 million in 1932. The U.S.S.R. was just starting its collective farm program at the time, and those international sales helped keep Caterpillar
1938
The first four-wheel power scraper is produced. It can load itself and speed away at 25 miles per hour. Freeman Sersanous is president of AED. He changes the name of the AED Triangle to The AED Monthly Bulletin, and Morton Hunter is appointed editor.
1936
Publication of the AED Triangle (which had stopped during the Depression) is resumed.
1935
The Works Progress Administration is established. This work relief government program will leave the country with a lasting legacy of schools, post offices, bridges and other public structures. Hoover Dam is dedicated.
1937
The Golden Gate Bridge opens.
1939
The AED Annual Meeting is held in San Francisco, also the location for the World’s Fair that year. Twenty AED distributors travel by train from Chicago in a special Pullman car. In Montana, a second Pullman car is added with more distributors and a dining car. They have a jolly time on the way to the convention. The 1930s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 25
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Courtesy of Carolina Tractor & Equipment Co.
In the days before machinery, livestock was used to compact dirt. That would explain the name of the sheepsfoot compactor that is attached to this CAT bulldozer.
and other manufacturers alive. In his President’s Report to AED that year, Ziegler said, “The past year has been a difficult one. Lack of funds, lack of time, and the low stage of business has made it difficult for us to do much by way of organizing the construction industry.” They were not idle, though. If ever, now was the time for intensive scrutiny of costs and management. “An analysis in Boston recently reveals the startling fact that 58.9 percent of the failures among contractors was due to poor management,” Ziegler said. That year, Americans put President Franklin D. Roosevelt into the White House. The country’s relationship with the government was about to change drastically with Roosevelt’s New Deal. After years of maintaining a low profile, the government would now become the driving force of employment, especially in the construction industry. With so
many new programs, bills and acts, Ziegler told his members that they must become more aware on the legislative front. At the beginning, all that meant was carefully watching the expenditure of public funds to see that they went into capital investment, not just overhead. But soon, AED began a regular bulletin service for members that covered government activities and legislation. It discussed relevant bills and analyzed their effect on the industry. “This is a service never furnished to the industry before, but one sorely needed,” Ziegler said. “Not many of us have any way of knowing what bills are before the legislature or those to be presented that affect us either adversely or favorably.” A natural offshoot of this service was the tradition of members reaching out to their senators and representatives on legislative issues of interest. By paying attention, and making Washington activities accessible and understandable to AED’s membership, Ziegler and others on the executive
26 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1930s
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committee had set AED on the right path. Eventually, they would find themselves with a real voice in determining the legislation that would govern their businesses. Things turned around for distributors after that. As funds from the New Deal agencies began to make their way into the industry, Brandeis began receiving orders for equipment from raw material suppliers, especially rock quarries. Both the Brandeis Machinery Company and the Ziegler Company are still alive today; both have already celebrated centennials. Brandeis Machinery Company is run today by Joseph Paradis’s greatgrandson, Mike Paradis. His father, Jay, had this to say about AED’s role
“The past year has been a difficult one. Lack of funds, lack of time, and the low stage of business has made it difficult for us to do much by way of organizing the construction industry.” 1924 AED President William H. Ziegler
McCormick-Deering diesel power units like this one were designed to run other equipment.
AED archives
The 1930s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 27
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Courtesy of R.B. Everett & Co.
Clamshell cranes were named for the way they opened and closed; the above crane is being used to remove silt and mud from the river.
in the industry’s success: “AED’s mission has always been to make our industry successful through education of its members’ employees, political advocacy and networking. It has succeeded in all three areas, and consequently the construction equipment distribution industry has grown and prospered to an extent that my grandfather could not have imagined a hundred years ago.” Back in 1933, they were still just hoping for the best. In Ziegler’s words, “Construction is the branch of industry that has led our country out of the major panics of 1893, 1907 and 1920 and will do the same thing again at this time if given the proper impulse and is properly understood.” They intended to try to see that through.
Courtesy of The Victor L. Phillips Co.
A power shovel was built onto the chassis and drivetrain of an industrial tractor to make a tractor shovel, and it would be used for lighter work.
28 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1930s
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America’s Infrastructure is Put Together As it turned out, construction would not pull America out of the Depression. It took the massive wartime spending of World War II to do that. But there’s no doubt that the ’30s were an extraordinary decade for construction. When the decade opened, millions of rural Americans still lived as they had in the prior century, meaning they did not have the amenities of the cities like roads, electricity and plumbing. But, beaten back and pummeled by the debt, the poverty, and the despair of the Depression, it was like the country let out a full-throated cry, gathered up all her strength and resources and pushed back, hard. By the end of the decade she had transformed herself, had built dams,
power plants, roads, parks, schools, hospitals, bridges, airports, theaters, museums, stadiums and more. The infrastructure was created for the 20th century American economy to come. Overall, New Deal programs built … • 651,087 miles of highways, roads and streets • 124,031 bridges • 125,100 public buildings • 8,192 parks • 853 airports or landing fields Many of the country’s most iconic buildings and landmarks went up in the ’30s, financed by New Deal programs. The list includes Camp David, LaGuardia Airport in New York, Red Rock Amphitheater in Colorado, the River Walk in San Antonio, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the Empire State Building, the Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge.
In Kentucky, Brandeis Machinery Company announced in 1936 that it was in “excellent condition” and began to pay dividends again to stockholders. Brandeis also took part in building a key landmark in the state: in 1935 the company furnished the equipment needed to build the Keeneland Race Course in Lexington. AED membership numbers tell the story, too: membership climbed back up to 91 in 1933 and then grew to 122 by 1934.
AED has Found its Swing Can you swing dance? Step back, step side, side again – faster! It certainly was popular at the end of the ’30s, and getting into the rhythm, AED was swinging too.
An instructor leads his protégés in a lesson on a component that is likely from the crawler tractor in the background.
Courtesy of Whayne Supply Co.
The 1930s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 29
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As it turned out, construction would not pull America out of the Depression. It took the massive wartime spending of World War II to do that. But there’s no doubt that the ’30s were an extraordinary decade for construction. In 1938, AED’s president was Freeman Sersanous, whom Morton Hunter called “one of the hardest workers AED has had over the years.” Sersanous was chairman of the Membership Committee for many years, and he managed to triple AED’s membership. Since its inception, AED had added about 10 members a year, reaching a total of 100+ by the mid ’30s. Sersanous added 100 members in just one year, and from 1936 to 1941 took membership from 141 to 308. His success may have had to do with more than just charm; distributors around the country were waking up to the value of AED – its role in protecting distributors and
the advantages of having a collective voice for the industry. Sersanous worked hard, but he made it look like fun. For instance, he instituted the Early Bird Breakfast at the Annual Meetings, the idea being “to wake all the fellows up and get them down to a fine breakfast and entertainment so that they would be on hand to start the meeting!” With a reputation for fun, he started additional Annual Meeting traditions that would carry through the decades, such as pulling a stunt on the current president at the luncheon.
A closer look into a Whayne Supply Co. warehouse offers crawler tractors, pull graders and rock crushers.
Courtesy of Whayne Supply Co.
30 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1930s
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This Bucyrus-Erie 10B shovel, shown on a lowboy trailer, would have been used for light excavation work.
Courtesy of The Victor L. Phillips Co.
Who would have dreamed in the anguish of the Depression that at the end of the ’30s, the accomplishments of the decade would make the ’20s look sluggish? It was also the decade that saw far-reaching innovation in earthmoving equipment. Ziegler distributed Caterpillar machines, and in this decade the manufacturer introduced a tractor with a diesel engine, a key evolution in the history of the equipment. Caterpillar dealerships set the bar for distributors for much of the century. The ’30s also saw rubber tires fitted onto tractors, replacing the old steel ones. Both developments were revolutionary. In 1996, the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers declared the development of rubber tires for tractors a Historic Landmark of Agricultural Engineering.
AED archives
R.G. LeTourneau, who has been called the greatest inventor of construction equipment machinery, designed this scraper that runs on steel wheels instead of rubber tires.
The 1930s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 31
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By the end of the decade, Brandeis Machinery was expanding. Scarred by the Depression years, more customers wanted rentals instead of buying new equipment, or they wanted to repair or rebuild broken-down equipment. The company needed more storage and shop space. Paradis explained this to the board and got approval for a proposal to buy and remodel an additional facility. He couldn’t have had better timing. As the European war made its way to American shores, distributors’ repair shops would be the backbone of their contribution to the war effort. The original facility for Brandeis Machine & Supply Company can be seen just to the right of the seed company.
Courtesy of Brandeis Machinery & Supply Co.
The original facility for Brandeis Machine & Supply Company was on Main Street to the right of the seed company.
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Courtesy of Carolina Tractor & Equipment Co.
This job site was near Reidsville, N.C., and the operator called this Auto Patrol machine (a motor grader today) the “best ever.” 32 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1930s
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The Hoover Dam Project Imagine dangling from a rope into a 1,000-foot canyon. But wait – that’s not all. You are carrying water bags and tools, including a 44-pound jackhammer. You have to maneuver the jackhammer by hand so you can drill a powder hole into the cliff wall. You will then place dynamite into the hole. After detonation, you may have to use a crowbar to lever out broken rocks. The danger doesn’t end there, however. Moving around on the cliffs is treacherous because there are live air hoses, electrical lines and bundles of drill steel to look out for. Additionally, you have to be mindful of falling rocks and dropped tools. Welcome to the world of the “high scalers,” who had probably the most dangerous of the many difficult jobs associated with the construction of the Hoover Dam. Weather had eroded the canyon walls for millions of years, which means that water had frozen in the cracks and crevices, thereby splitting the rock. Before construction could begin, the loose rock had to be removed. The high scalers were a hearty bunch. They improvised hard hats by coating cloth hats with coal tar. These so-called “hard-boiled hats” were very effective; men survived accidents that might have killed them otherwise. The construction company took notice and had hard hats commercially made for every man on the project. Incredibly, high scalers also found ways to have fun. When the foremen weren’t looking, they would swing out from the cliffs and perform stunts for the workers below. They had contests to see who could perform the best stunt or who could swing out the farthest. One feat in particular became legend. One day, Burl R. Rutledge, a Bureau of Reclamation engineer, fell from the canyon rim. Amazingly, high scaler Oliver Cowan, who was 25 feet below, heard him slip. Without a second of hesitation, he swung himself out and grabbed Rutledge’s leg. Another high scaler, Arnold Parks, swung over immediately and pinned Rutledge’s body to the canyon wall. The scalers held the engineer in place until a line was dropped and he was pulled to safety. It’s safe to say he spent the rest of his life grateful for their quick thinking and bravery.
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
In this 1932 photo of the dam being built, high scalers drill into a canyon wall 500 feet above the Colorado River in Black Canyon.
The Hoover Dam, which was built between 1931 and 1936, is impressive for about a million reasons. Let’s consider a few: • It was the tallest dam in the world when it was built (during the Great Depression, mind you) at 726 feet by 1,244 feet • It had 5 million barrels of cement, 45 million pounds of reinforcement steel, and a total of 6.6 million tons of concrete • 21,000 workers contributed to its construction • It is capable of irrigating 2 million acres; its 17 turbines generate enough electricity to power 1.3 million homes • The dam receives 7 million visitors annually, and Lake Mead hosts 10 million • It is a National Historic Landmark and one of America’s Seven Modern Civil Engineering Wonders
The 1930s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 33
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1930 A.A. Fuchs Fuchs-Clayton Machinery Omaha, Neb. 1931 O.B. Bjorge Clyde Equipment Co. Portland, Ore. 1932 E.K. Hurst Western Material Co. Sioux Falls, S.D. 1933 C.E. Baker Smith Booth Usher Co. Los Angeles, Calif. 1934 F.W. Mattheis Hedge & Mattheis Co. Boston, Mass. 1935 J.C. Louis John C. Louis Co. Baltimore, Md. 1936 J.C. Gilman Wm. H. Ziegler Co. Minneapolis, Minn. 1937 G.F. Lowe Lowe Machinery Co. Chicago, Ill. 1938 A.F. Sersanous Loggers & Contractors Machinery Portland, Ore. 1939 Victor L. Phillips Victor L. Phillips Co. Kansas City, Mo. 34 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1930s
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AED: 100 YEARS
The 1940s
Aurellio Tassone, MM1/c Navy Seabee (right), received a Silver Star for using this crawler tractor to destroy a key Japanese pill box after all other methods to disable it failed. Standing with him is Lt. Charles E. Turnbull, CEG, USNR. The incident occurred on the Treasury Islands in the Solomons. CED Magazine, August 1944 (Official U.S. Navy photograph)
cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 37
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The 1940s:
AED Contributes to the War Effort, Manages Chaos of Its Aftermath
A
Postwar
t 100 years of age, P.E. MacAllister can still command a room. The sprightly MacAllister is a past president of AED (1972) and is currently chairman of the board of MacAllister Machinery. The company is run today by P.E.’s son, Chris. His grandson Alex is already in training to take over as the fifth generation Expansion & a Changing of theP.E.Guard of MacAllisters. tells the story of CED Magazine, May 1945 America in the 1940s when his father, Lt. Col. John H. Hassinger served as director of the E.W., started the business:“Both my Construction Machinery parents were dairy farmers. Dad also Division of the War had a Model T Ford. It carried more stuff Production Board.
than a sleigh or a wagon would, but you were limited by the nature of the roads. That’s where we started. My dad was involved in building those roads. At 25, he was highway commissioner for his county. He learned some things about machinery there. He was so impressive that a Caterpillar dealer hired him to be a salesman, and that’s how he got his start in the business of selling construction equipment machinery. Eventually he was a manager, and then a general manager, and one day Allis-Chalmers asked, ‘Mac, how would you like to have your own dealership?’ He said, ‘Yes’. ”
AED IN THE 1940s 1944
AED Silver Anniversary Year. Editorial in CE News pushes members to contact local officials about preparing adequate plans for highway reconstruction.
1940
Defense construction ramps up. The equipment market is very active.
1942
AED Past Presidents Club is inaugurated.
1941
Pearl Harbor attack. The United States officially enters World War II.
1943
With all the war protocol and associated restrictions in place, AED doubles down its efforts at helping its members figure out how to get parts to keep their equipment operating. Carol F. Winchester is elected as the first full-time executive secretary of AED.
38 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1940s
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The year was 1941. The war was inching closer to the U.S. every day, but most citizens never thought it would actually hit their shores. With $25,000 of his own and borrowed money, E.W. moved to Indiana, and on December 1, he created MacAllister Tractor Company. MacAllister couldn’t have known that on that very same day, a Japanese fleet was moving across the Pacific Ocean toward Hawaii, and had been en route for six days. Absolute silence and secrecy were crucial to taking the Americans by surprise. It was the one advantage the Japanese had against the much more powerful country with vast resources. It would take 12 days in total for the ships to cross the ocean. They did not know if they would be spotted.
War Hits Our Shores History was made on Dec. 7, 1941, as 180 planes rose from the flight decks of the Japanese ships that had made it across the Pacific unseen.
United States Army Air Forces [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Life changed significantly for the country and the construction equipment industry with the advent of World War II.
1946
1948
Penn passes away at AED’s annual meeting. Frank McBath is the new AED president. AED sends a resolution to President Harry S. Truman asking for an end to government regulation and resumption of pre-war market competition.
1945
H.O. Penn is president of AED. He writes to the White House promising support to the administration for the post-war reconstruction period. The Committee for Employment of Discharged Veterans is established.
A.F. Garlinghouse is the new AED president; he makes a keynote speech at the 1948 Road Show. The AED Historical Committee decides the AED headquarters will be the center of historical data on the industry.
1947
AED sends President Truman a protest letter with recommendations on surplus property disposal. The first Road Show after the war is held. AED headquarters moves from Washington to Chicago.
1949
AED’s 30th year. Membership is at 1,016 members.
The 1940s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 39
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CED Magazine, September 1945
“This equipment which your association repairs and rebuilds is building those roads and airfields. It is the weapon behind the weapons in the combat zones.” Major General Eugene Reybold, Chief of Engineers for the U.S. Army
Roughly another 170 planes followed as the flight decks cleared. The U.S. Navy sustained the worst attack in its history. More than 2,000 Americans were killed (68 of them civilians), and 19 ships were blasted. There was no denying that America was in the war now. The next day, MacAllister wondered what would become of his week-old company. With the U.S. officially in the war, there were cantonments to build, as well as ordnance plants, airfields, and new manufacturing plants, and everything was needed in a hurry. Even minutes were precious, so the Army cut out the distributors and went straight to the manufacturers. What would the distributors do now? A clever group, they quickly found a role for themselves in the industry by maintaining, repairing and rebuilding equipment. Even on equipment that can effortlessly flip boulders and trees, parts wear out and have to be replaced. Private contractors were working their equipment sometimes three shifts a day. The machinery was not coddled.
40 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1940s
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The Many Joys of Sales Meetings
Editor’s note: Tracy Harron, AED president in 1942, added some good humor to his reports on the sales meetings that various manufacturers hosted throughout the year.
CED Magazine, February 1944
Dinner honoring the founders of the AED at the Association’s Silver Anniversary Seminar in January at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago.
AED members had shops and the men to do the repair work. The Army was also training whole battalions of men in repair work. They took over many distributors’ main men as master mechanics and teachers. So AED members trained new men and kept going. The Corps of Engineers developed a central agency to maintain, repair and allocate equipment. AED got on board and helped make the idea a success. The Association put its shops at the disposal of the Army Engineers. In his address to AED on the Association’s 25th anniversary in 1944, Major General Eugene Reybold, Chief of Engineers for the U.S. Army, put it best:“Few people stop to think of a bulldozer or a road scraper as a weapon for winning the war, but that is just what they are. The finest, most powerful airplane is useless without a place to land. There must be roads for the trucks, the tanks, tankbusters and artillery which are the firepower of the combat forces. This equipment which your association repairs and rebuilds is building those roads and airfields. It is the weapon behind the weapons in the combat zones. “American equipment is doing its job for victory because the members of AED have done a good job at home — repairing and rebuilding equipment for the training of troops and for the construction work that had to be done here. Members should be proud of the part they have played in the war effort.”
They are always in a small town where no regular train stops. So you have to get off your nice, warm train and wait an hour for a connection in the cold. You go to the one hotel in the town, which will be pretty shabby. They love starting first thing in the morning, so you have to wake up very early to go to the manufacturing plant. There will be young, eager salesmen there who will ask lots of questions that display their ignorance. The machine being displayed is not really a new machine, but last year’s machine with a different color of paint and a couple of sheet metal streamlined covers over the front wheels. A sales manager (from the manufacturer) will react defensively when asked why a particular improvement was not made. There is one new machine, and it looks swell, but then the Chief Engineer will give a technical talk about it that would flummox any engineering professor. The group has been on the factory floor for hours and is freezing. Then you have to go outside where it’s even colder, for a field demonstration. You see a machine turn over muck splendidly — but it is garden loam that has been turned over so many times it practically rolls over itself. You are told to sell the new machine and that it is ready to work in the lusty granite, limestones and basalts of the country. The young salesmen talk of stocking three apiece. You want a drink but you are fed a limp lunch at the local Greek restaurant and are dragged back to the plant. You now get movies and pep talks and they are fixing the heat — it should be done any minute now. It ends with statistics on how the manufacturer’s share of business is the highest in the industry. The distributor next to you is asleep on your shoulder. You came for inspiration and to discuss actual problems on the firing line, but not this time.
The 1940s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 41
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Peace Brought Challenges of Its Own “I came out of the service in 1945,” MacAllister says. “Dad asked me what I was going to do, and I told him that I was going to get a job. He said, ‘Come work for me.’ I moved to Indiana with a new bride and went to work as a stock chaser in the parts department.” He wasn’t the only one looking. Millions of veterans were coming back and needed employment and assimilation into the economy. AED members hired an estimated 4,344 returning veterans, many in key positions in their companies. Construction was a natural fit for returning vets. With shortages of men and material for years, and deferment of projects, there was much construction work to be done — so much that it was almost overwhelming. “The jobs ahead after the war look only as insurmountable as the stones of the pyramids must have,” AED Founder Morton Hunter says to his fellow distributors, reminding them that the construction industry is a glorious one. But the challenges were acute. Money had been allotted for the highways, but only eight out of 48 states had adequate plans in place. Without plans, funds couldn’t be channeled into areas where men needed to be put to work.
Women were called in to help draft plans, along with engineering students, former employees, retired employees or anyone who could be taught. There was also the problem of surplus equipment owned by the government. With inadequate information coming from the government, nobody knew how much surplus was left and would continue to come into the market, or how many orders for new production they should plan with manufacturers. Scandals plagued the disposal of surplus equipment; profiteers used veterans as a front to get a veteran discount, and then they would resell the equipment. AED stayed busy. The Association appointed a full-time field representative, F. Gerald Moyer, to handle the surplus issue. With requests from members to “do something” pouring into his office, Eldon M. Farnum, chairman of the AED rental committee, wrote to the Office of Price Administration in 1946 asking the government to end its practice of setting rental pricing. “Under the existing rates, it is still not possible to purchase this equipment and put it into the rental service at the rates specified,” he wrote. At no time did AED and its members sit back and just let circumstances hit them. They planned ahead, they made calculations, they collected facts and figures. They presented arguments, wrote letters, arranged meetings and organized action. “Citizens have the right to create the environment in which they live,” MacAllister says.
AED’s dedication to being active politically has been consistently strong throughout the years. The Association unanimously approved this resolution for President Truman. 42 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1940s
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AED members hired an estimated 4,344 returning veterans, many in key positions in their companies.
Courtesy of Whayne Supply Co.
The 1940s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 43
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A Return to Normalcy Being integral to the war effort, AED was allowed to continue having meetings, though all nonessential travel and conventions were canceled during wartime. By 1947, everyone was eager to get back to regular life. And AED members wanted to take back their annual meetings. The meetings were for sharing thoughts, problems and solutions with other distributors, but manufacturers had started using them as default trade shows. Visitors from Washington came to address the industry at the meetings too, and members complained that the “Washington merry-go-round” had been transported to their national meetings. They had had enough. It was time to get back to AED fundamentals — members exchanging advice on how to run their operations more effectively, and also advocacy for the group as a whole. MacAllister Machinery was already an AED member. “My father was sold on AED,” P.E. recalls. Young P.E. was still learning the business, and there was much to be learned from fraternizing with AED members. You could go to the annual conventions or even on vacations — AED members went to Alaska in 1946 and Hawaii in 1948. “The art and organization of selling, how to motivate people, best practices for running your business … I got all that from AED,” P.E. says. “Much of it from the lectures and much from people you’d talk to at the events. There was such a bond there, and some competition of course. AED was a big factor in educating us on every key component we needed for our business.”
CED Magazine, February 1940
AED Founder Morton R. Hunter (seated, second from left) and AED Executive Secretary Carol F. Winchester (seated, fourth from left) are shown attending a meeting of AED dignitaries in 1940.
AED officers and directors from 1945.
CED Magazine, March 1945
CED Magazine, August 1946
From left are three past presidents of AED from Portland: Freeman Sersanous, past president 1938; Frank McBath, 1946; and O.B. Bjorge, 1931. 44 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1940s
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“The art and organization of selling, how to motivate people, best practices for running your business … I got all that from AED. Much of it from the lectures and much from people you’d talk to at the events. There was such a bond there, and some competition of course. AED was a big factor in educating us on every key component we needed for our business.” P.E. MacAllister AED Past President, 1972
CED Magazine, May 1945
Workers constructing a bypass on this railroad project using crawler tractors, rooters, bulldozers and carryall scrapers.
The 1940s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 45
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June meeting of AED’s board of directors, which was held at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago.
CED Magazine, August 1946
The breadth of experience you had access to was remarkable. There was Eddie Painton, a prominent contractor in Cleveland who could explain what contractors were looking for from dealers. John Egan of East Coast-based H.O. Penn Machinery, who had more than one million parts stocked, shared his company’s foolproof method for taking a complete parts inventory in one weekend. The Patten Tractor and Equipment Company representative could explain how Patten was replacing paper with microfilm. R.A. Hughes, from the Standard Machinery Company in San Francisco, talked about using manufacturer-created movies as a sales aid. But if you asked William Hazlett Upson, chairman of the 1949 annual meeting, what members talked about at conventions, he was likely to say everyone wanted a corner suite, or complained about how much ice cost at the hotel, or said they wanted accommodations on a different floor, or had forgotten to register for meal tickets.
46 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1940s
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Courtesy of Carolina Tractor & Equipment Co.
Carolina Tractor & Equipment Co. opened this store in New Bern, N.C., in 1940. It was built to support the construction of Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station in Havelock, N.C., and Camp LeJeune in Jacksonville, N.C.
The Association’s most powerful offering went beyond just business advice. It was AED’s power, as a collective, to forge industry-wide changes and build relationships with government and other organizations that would benefit all of its members. By its 30th year, in 1949, AED was producing Construction Equipment News magazine, as well as publications titled “Your Business,” “Urgent Letters,” and “Local Association Topics,” and it had two other bulletins in the works. The Research Committee put out industry performance benchmarks and economic outlooks. Another committee created guidelines for parts books standardized across manufacturers. In a joint committee with the Associated General Contractors
of America, AED standardized many of the procedures involved in the selling, rental and service of equipment. Legal counsel kept members abreast of new legislation and its effects on the industry. Through publicity, trade shows, public appearances by officials and cooperation with other national associations, AED promoted the industry and the general public’s understanding of the importance of the distributor. In 1949, membership was at 1,016 member companies, up from 308 at the beginning of the decade. The war was over, and there was an enormous explosion of housing and growth. It was a “lively period” and a “joyous time.” But another war and more conflict was just around the corner.
The 1940s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 47
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CAED Is Founded in 1943
T
wenty-eight men representing 20 distributors in Canada met at the Granite Club in Toronto on April 27, 1943, to form the Associated Equipment Distributors of Canada. James F. Crothers was elected as the first president, and there were six other members of the board of directors. The 20 firms present were named as charter members of the fledgling association, and annual dues were set at $25 per year. One of the first motions made and carried was that all new
applicants to the Canadian association would be required to also apply for membership in the Associated Equipment Distributors in the United States. Another motion dictated that the directors would act as a membership committee. Carol Winchester, executive secretary of the U.S. AED, attended the meeting and outlined the full benefits of AED membership. He also emphasized the importance of working in committees. At the time, AED had 14 regions in the United States, so the Canadian association was added as the 15th region. The Canadian association served its members well for 67 years, and then in early 2010, it merged with the U.S. AED. Two Canadian dealers (East and West) hold seats on AED’s board, and one also serves as an officer on the AED Executive Committee. “I see nothing but good things resulting from this agreement for the members of CAED,” said Toby Mack, former president and CEO of AED. “They will benefit fully from the rich array of products and services to which they have always had access, but now without duplicated administrative costs.”
48 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1940s
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1940 R.R. Nixon Nixon Machinery & Supply Chattanooga, Tenn. 1941 W.G. Morgan George F. Smith Co. St. Louis, Mo. 1942 T.W. Harron Harron, Rickard & McCone San Francisco, Calif. 1943 Ed P. Phillips Phillips Machinery Richmond, Va. 1944 G.W. Van Keppel G.W. Van Keppel Kansas City, Mo. 1945 Hamilton O. Penn H.O. Penn Machinery Co. New York, N.Y.
CANADIAN PAST PRESIDENTS 1943 - J.F. Crothers Geo W. Crothers Lt. Toronto, Ont. 1944 - T.F. Just Just Equipment & Supply Co. Ltd. Montreal, P.Q. 1945 - W.J. Kane Kane-Gibb-Marr Co. Winnipeg, Man. 1946-7 - V.J. Sheridan Sheridan Equipment Co. Ltd. Leaside, Ont. 1948 - D.G. MacPherson Wajax House Montreal, P.Q. 1949 - R.J. Fyfe R.J. Fyfe Equipment Co. Regina, Sask.
1946 Frank McBath Columbia Equipment Portland, Ore. 1947 William A. Danner Parker-Danner Co. Hyde Park, Mass. 1948 A.F. Garlinghouse Garlinghouse Fremon & Co. Los Angeles, Calif. 1949 W.W. Bucher R.E. Brooks Co. New York, N.Y. The 1940s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 49
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AED: 100 YEARS
The 1950s
In July of 1950, this Caterpillar diesel D4 tractor equipped with a Trackson Traxcavator was digging basements for new homes in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Courtesy of Carolina Tractor & Equipment Co.
The 1950s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 51
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The 1950s:
AED Navigates Another Wartime, Plus Intense Competition After Passage of the Highway Act
T
he world war had ended, but it wasn’t peace on earth yet. A sour feeling hung in the air between the United States and Russia — a cold mistrust, a suspicious watchfulness that soon came to be called the Cold War. It wasn’t long before it descended into fighting; the first military action of the Cold War began on the Korean Peninsula, kicking off the Korean War in June of 1950. R. L. Arnold 1951 AED Past President
For construction equipment businesses in the United States, this meant the old grinding and clashing as the industrial machine moved again from civilian production into defense production. The Defense Production Act of 1950 allowed for
the government to mandate that national security production was top priority and that industrial resources — products, materials, services — went first to military and civilian agencies that were participating in the war effort. Other “controls” included caps on wages and prices to keep a check on inflation as labor and materials ran short, and The Illinois facility op caps on “excess” profits, among other things.
December, under the
As R.L. Arnold, president of AED in 1951, said the Brandeis Machin to members, “Controlled markets, poor deliveries, Corporation subsidiary, slow unbalanced inventories, rising costs and the old war condition in which ‘you can sell it if you to the firm’s nificantly can get it’ — all are with us once more.”the first 10 months of
bloom soon began to rose. Some of the gro came at the expense of
AED IN THE 1950s 1952 1950
The Korean War begins. CE News cuts its subscription price to $6 with the first copy free, from the earlier $12 per copy, to enable members to buy more copies per firm. Many manufacturers adopt Repair Parts Book standardizations suggested by AED.
Member dues are raised from $125 to $175 in the first increase since 1942. AED moves from rented quarters on Michigan Avenue to a permanent home — a handsome four-story brick building at 30 East Cedar St. on Chicago’s near north side. A lack of sufficient space prompted the move.
1951
“It Takes All Three” booklet is published to acquaint government officials with the contributions of the equipment distributor to the industry. The AED Group Insurance Trust Fund is launched, but the effective date of the insurance plan itself is delayed by federal wage controls on fringe benefit programs. 52 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1950s
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1954
AED’s ’54 Convention is held in New York instead of Chicago. AED is represented on a national advisory committee for the disposal of surplus property by the Dept. of Defense. This gives AED a voice in making national policy and is an indicator of its position of prominence.
1953
The “Planning for Greater Profit” manual is created for guidance on sound costing, budgeting and planning for any distributor, regardless of size. The AED Insurance Plan passes the 100-company mark. AED vice presidents are freed from regional duties to concentrate on overall affairs and help the executive committee.
Courtesy of Brandeis Machinery & Supply Co.
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Everyone had an op
ois facility opened by early 1958, Brandeis suspended operations through the hiring of additional perr, under the ownership of at the Mount Vernon facility and sonnel and raise accounting costs at the deis Machinery & Supply transferred service operations in that Louisville office. After further discusterritory to Paducah and Evansville. on subsidiary, and added sigsion, he urged that the topic be set aside to the firm’s income during for future consideration. It emerged CED Magazine, January 1950 Negotiations with International 0 months of 1956. But the again in December 1956, as did the The 1950 officers and directors of AED included (from left) 1949 CAED President R.J. Fyfe, AED Executive Secretary Frank Knight, Vice President H.J. Harvester forE.J. southern IllinoisVice were still R.L.idea on began to fade from the facility inJ.A. Bowling Hush, President C.F. Halladay, Treasurer Crosby, Executive President Arnoldof andaVice President Benson. Green, underway when company leadership me of the growth in Illinois but again it was tabled for essentially began studying new expansion opporhe expense of the Evansville the same reasons as the year before. A critical factor in the decision to delay creation of a Lexington facility 1956 was a competing proposal to establish The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 a machinery rebuilding shop someis passed, authorizing the interstates. 1958 AED gets more stringent about where outside Louisville or Evansville, The National Affairs granting membership and adds a Indiana. At thatfights time,for Paradis Committee tax explained, 45-day waiting period. During this relief for small businesses; Brandeis was acquiring a good deal of time, the list of applicants is sent to members are asked to contact Much all members to ensure that applicants used equipment through trade-ins. their senators regarding meet the standards/requirements for of itlegislation still had considerable useful life, if in the Senate. becoming an AED member. it could be thoroughly overhauled, and there was a strong market for rebuilt equipment, especially 1955 1957 1959 among small The Used Equipment Committee is The Equipment Finance Management conferences contractors. In addition, Brandeis had formed. It will publish blue sheets Committee sets up adeveloped meeting a market are held around the for used bulldozers with sales prices of used equipment. with the American Bankers country, since profit and other equipment in Latin America, Other new committees are the Parts Association. CONDEX margins are steadily Mexico, Venezuela and Service Committee, the Traffic (Conference, Displayparticularly and decreasing for almostand and Transportation Committee (to Exhibit Center, whereCuba, many of the all sales distributors due to coming through work to simplify complex freight manufacturers showcase growing inventories of used Carl Flock, a broker in Miami, Florida. rates, etc.) and the Committee on Standardization of Sales and Service Manuals.
products) is initiated at the annual meetings.
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ryone had an opportunity to join in the fun at the 1954 Brandeis Open House.
equipment and spiraling costs of doing business.
During the fall of 1956, Paradis and Kervin Bullitt began investigating The 1950s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 53 potential facility sites near Bardstown and Elizabethtown, Kentucky. In addi12/20/18 3:59 PM tion to easy access by road, rail and air,
The Gopher Equipment Co. was a small company with five or six employees, and it didn’t carry any major lines. LeROI air compressors, Schield Bantam truckmounted cable excavators. Army surplus halftracks — mostly smaller equipment. It was founded by Hank Hayden, the father of H.B. “Bud” Hayden, who became AED president in 1992. The Berry Tractor & Equipment Co. was a farm equipment company that dealt with construction equipment on the side. It was founded by Fred Berry Sr., the father of Fred Berry Jr., who became AED president in 1971. Both businesses were members of AED. They were family-owned, as many AED member businesses are to this day. Among their concerns in the 1950s was how to pass the business down to their sons without being crippled by the inheritance tax. Their young men were in the Air Force, as were many young men of the time. Fred Berry flew with the Air Force from 1952 to 1954. Bud Hayden went into military service in 1954, flying in the Taiwan Strait Crisis, keeping communist mainland China at bay. Communism was an active threat at the time, and many Americans feared how Communist domination could potentially change their lives. “Our businesses can only survive permanently, as we know them, under a system of private enterprise,” Arnold said. “We are compelled, then, to devote a part of our time and energy to the maintenance of the ideals of our system.” CED Magazine, February 1950
Above: In the February 1950 issue, Construction Equipment News (CED Magazine’s predecessor) announced that Bud Hermann would be replacing Frank G. Knight as executive secretary. Hermann ended up serving AED for 41 years. Right: E.E. Logan & Sons had the contract for this six-mile stretch of “super highway” near Muskogee, Oklahoma. The $400,000 contract included grading, drainage and the construction of two bridges.
CED Magazine, June 1954
54 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1950s
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AED Member Provides Humorous Insights
Editor’s note: The January/ February issue from 1953 had an article titled “How to Be a Successful Distributor Without Ulcers.” It was authored by a seasoned distributor who chose to remain anonymous. We hope you will enjoy the humor as much as we did. Here are a few excerpts:
Courtesy of Hank “Bud” Hayden Jr.
Hank Hayden Sr. (right) and Chuck Murphy (center) founded Hayden-Murphy in 1957. Hank “Bud” Hayden Jr. (left), 1992 AED president, became partners with Murphy after his father passed away in 1962.
The Association did everything it could to help its members make it through wartime. Various AED committees helped members understand wartime regulation and find opportunities for business. One governmental review bulletin covered various phases of the defense program and helped members gauge, for example, the extent to which draft Reserve and National Guard calls would affect their personnel. AED’s advice also included the following: •Write to the Army Procurement Information Center at the Pentagon to request the booklet “How to Sell to the United States Army.” • Read carefully the AED bulletins “Governmental Review” and “Your Business,” which will summarize pertinent orders and releases. • Don’t count on occupational deferments, they will be sparingly allowed. • Keep in mind veterans’ reemployment rights when hiring
replacements for employees joining the armed forces. In a hugely successful effort, AED managed to amend legislation from the Office of Price Stabilization to conform to the Association’s recommendations. The amended regulation was tailored for construction equipment companies and realistically recognized the trade practices of the industry. It had taken long preparation, “seemingly numberless” trips to Washington, and relentless scrambling for supporting facts and figures. Until the Korean War was over and controls were abolished in 1953, AED was largely occupied with national affairs activity. The aforementioned young men came out of the Air Force and joined their fathers’ businesses. Fred Berry started with his father in 1954. It was his brother Paul and him, and he worried whether the company was big enough for the both of them, especially after he married in 1955. But, for the moment, business was good.
Our basic job in attending the Annual Meeting is to learn how to become successful distributors. We have come to the painful conclusion that the average member goes home with a beautiful hangover and possibly some new contracts at the same old discount. The first two guys you employ are an attorney and a CPA. The attorney handles collections, speeding tickets and divorces. You will need a good-looking secretary who can actually write a letter and can find it in the files. In addition to her efficient help, she will attract the manufacturer’s district men, resulting in better manufacturer relations. Your parts manager is stuck with all the red tape on defective parts and backorders, and he must be able to tell a contractor “no parts” on account of the steel strike — the one from six years ago. His standard expression is “conditions beyond our control.” Shop mechanics are easy. You hire a handyman for steam cleaning and in 30 days the union makes him a Class “A” mechanic. Salesmen are a little difficult (the understatement of the year), and could throw this success idea into reverse. Don’t try to be smart — just shut your eyes and pray. In closing, don’t take yourself so seriously. You are nothing special. The same problems apply to every retail business. Even the morticians have conventions. They’ll get you in the end, brother.
The 1950s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 55
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Courtesy of Carolina Tractor & Equipment Co.
Stanley Thomas uses a motor grader to prepare the ground for streets that will be built in a residential neighborhood in High Point, North Carolina.
Until the Korean War was over and controls were abolished in 1953, AED was largely occupied with national affairs activity.
In 1956, Hank Hayden’s business partner decided to retire and give his half of the company to his son. “If I’m going to teach somebody the business, it’ll be my son, not yours,” the senior Hayden said to his partner. This didn’t go over well, so that company was dissolved; but Hank started Hayden-Murphy with a new partner, Chuck Murphy, and his son, Bud. Bud was leaving the military and was about to enter the industry in its biggest year to date.
Americans Demand Better Roads It’s so easy to take our interstate highway system for granted. Millions of Americans travel our interstate system each year, yet many are unaware of its history. Let’s take a look at how thousands of people came together to make it happen. The need for good roads had been apparent for years. In 1919, a military convoy made the first cross-country trip by road. It took them 62 days, and they frequently crashed through bridges that weren’t strong enough. They also slipped off, or got stuck in, roads that weren’t paved — which was most of them. Fortunately for the country, a young Dwight Eisenhower was on this trip, and he never forgot it. But through the Depression and World War II, the interstate system had to wait.
56 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1950s
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CED Magazine, July 1954
The Mustang Tractor & Equipment Co. in Houston was the largest and most complete service shop in the country. It covered 10½ acres, which included four acres of concrete and 22,000 square feet of space for its service department. There were 12 bays that were 20x40 feet each, and a portable coffee bar served employees coffee and cake every morning during their break.
By the end of the war, the story had changed. A roads lobby, which included the American Road Builders Association, AED and many, many other associations with an interest in the roads, was pressing Congress to pass the Highway Act. At the end of 1951, the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company ran a nationwide ad campaign to raise awareness of the need to reclaim damaged and obsolete highways. The Cold War also played its part — with the danger of an attack looming in everyone’s minds, an adequate highway system would be important in moving troops and supplies across the country quickly in an emergency situation, or even in evacuating cities effectively. Then The 1950s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 57
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there was the traffic, which was terrible on the existing roads, and state highway officials were trying their best to combat it at the state level. Millions of citizens in cars sitting in traffic all over the country made for very vocal public support for a better highway plan. It all came together with the passing of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. One hundred billion dollars was allocated over 13 years to the Interstate System, a piece of road magic that connects the vast corners of our country and carries close to a quarter of all traffic to this day.
Highway Act Brings Fierce Competition CED Magazine, January 1956
In 1957, Fred Berry Sr. received a bit of a shock when his manufacturer announced that it was taking over all the private distributors in the area, which left his business unviable. So he went back to the farm, and his sons Fred and Paul, both with new babies, found themselves unemployed. Frustrated with not finding much in the way of business in their local area of St. Louis, the Berry brothers found a heavy equipment distributor for sale in Wichita, Kansas, which had been the aircraft capital of the war. Fred had been to Wichita to pick up airplanes before, and he liked the city, so he and Paul ended up making the deal; 1957 found the Berry brothers with a new company, a little experience in the business and some very worried employees.
The Manufacturers Convention Subcommittee finalizes session details for the 1956 convention. Leading the group is AED Executive Secretary Bud Hermann (standing, second from left).
Courtesy of Carolina Tractor & Equipment Co.
The Track-O-Matic system was used to build and repair rails for tractors. Welders were trained to operate the machines.
This photo of work being done on the Turner Turnpike in Oklahoma accompanied an article by Milton Rosen on the importance of funding for highway projects. Rosen was the Commissioner of Public Works for St. Paul, Minnesota, and an outspoken proponent of such funding.
CED Magazine, April 1952
58 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1950s
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CED Magazine, July 1954
The Houston-based Mustang Tractor & Equipment Co. featured a 16x30-foot recreation room for employees; it was soundproof and featured air conditioning.
From general contractors to equipment dealers to manufacturers, the industry was attracting many new small entrants, and competition was fierce. Manufacturers and dealers were preparing to meet the demands of the highway program, so they were building new facilities to create, store and service the needed inventory. Therefore, operating costs were high. Profit margins dropped every month, and a brief recession in ’57–58 even forced the closure of some firms. Joseph Halperin of Aeroil Products Co. was one of the AED members who had advice and solutions to offer. As he said then, “It is one thing to read the economic statistics concerning
increasing construction activity, and it is another to translate this into profitable business.” AED wanted to help. The Association took on the issue of freight rates, which were complex and antiquated and so confusing that the average dealer couldn’t check his bills. AED fought hard for tax relief for small businesses. The Association arranged meetings with bankers and educated them on financing opportunities in the equipment industry. But more than anything, the more experienced distributors at AED knew that to keep your business alive you had to pay attention to how it was being run.
In 1959, the Association ran a series of management conferences all over the country urging distributors to move away from the price cutting that had become the “cancer of the industry.” “More bidders are appearing on every job,” Halperin said, “which means tighter bidding and lower margins for the contractor, and tougher buying on every job. It’s become not about quality or service but price alone.” Dealers were giving away their profits to keep making the sales to keep the manufacturers happy, but then they would call on manufacturers for pricing help. Faced with lower volume and higher costs, manufacturers kept
The 1950s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 59
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conceding prices just to stay alive, hoping that things would improve the next quarter. “You cannot continue to render service on equipment that you have not made a profit on to begin with,” Halperin said. Manufacturers could not pour money into research unless money was earned on the existing product. Salesmen had to be trained to sell the benefits of a strong distributor: knowing the right machine for the job, knowing that a realistic delivery date would be promised, that parts and service would be readily available, that the dealer would remain in business to provide service! “Sell the machine, not the price!” The end of the decade saw distributors determined to fight for survival and to change the worrying trend of manufacturers selling directly to contractors. Membership in AED was close to 1,400. AED’s 1959 president, F.J. Fitzpatrick, told members in an act of tough love, “We can’t stop manufacturers from selling direct. What we need to do is strengthen our own operations to ensure that it will always be economically unsound for manufacturers to sell direct. It is our responsibility, yours and mine, to be able to afford to do the selling job that justifies our existence in business. It is purely up to us.”
In 1959, AED ran a series of management conferences all over the country urging distributors to move away from the price cutting that had become the “cancer of the industry.”
Courtesy of Carolina Tractor & Equipment Co.
A mechanic services a cable on a Caterpillar D7 tractor. The D7 was introduced in the 1930s and continued to be produced into the 21st century. 60 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1950s
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CED Magazine, November 1951
CED Magazine, March 1953
Top: AED introduced a marketing seal so that members could proudly display their affiliation with an accredited organization. It was immensely popular, and members used it on office doors, equipment and letterhead. However, this was the first time AED became aware of the seal being used as a shoulder patch for technicians. These men worked for Rosholt Equipment Co. in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Above: After working for Upson-Walton for many years, Basilio Notaro is quite skilled at adjusting wire rope dies. Right: Cy Radcliff of Homedale Tractor & Equipment Co. penned an article for Construction Equipment News wherein he detailed unfair treatment by the National Labor Relations Board. The men in this picture, Howard Wilkin and George Otto, were among many at the company who did not want to be part of a union.
CED Magazine, June 1953
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1950 C.F. Halladay Halladay-Dettmen Co. Sioux Falls, S.D. 1951 R.L. Arnold Arnold Machinery Co. Salt Lake City, Utah 1952 H.J. Hush Griffin Equipment Co. New York, N.Y. 1953 S. John Oechsle M-W Equipment Co. Philadelphia, Pa. 1954 G.W. Gagle Machinery & Supplies Kansas City, Mo. 1955 Ray J. Finn Bodd-Finn Co. Cincinnati, Ohio 1956 S.F. Laskey Northwestern Equip. Fargo, N.D. 1957 L. Miner Doolen Telford & Doolen Lansing, Mich. 1958 H.D. Anderson Rish Equipment Co. Bluefield, W. Va.
CANADIAN PAST PRESIDENTS 1950 - S.A. Stephens, Jr. F. H. Hopkins & Co. Ltd. Montreal, P.Q. 1951 - J.G.G. Morgan Vancouver Equipment Corp., Ltd. Vancouver, B.C. 1952 - J.W. Halls Consolidated Engines & Machinery Co. Ltd. Montreal, P.Q. 1953 - R.S. Hamilton Sheriden Equipment Co. Ltd. Toronto, Ont. 1954 - M.F. Macdonald F. H. Hopkins & Co. Ltd. Montreal, P.Q. 1955 - D.C. Campbell Tractors & Equipment Ltd. Fredericton, N.B. 1956 - H.T. MacDonald Kane Equipment Ltd. Winnipeg, Man. 1957 - J.A. Young R.J. Fyfe Equipment Co. Regina, Sask. 1958 - R. Boyd Somerville Ontario Equipment & Supply Ltd. Toronto, Ont. 1959 - G.E. Bernard Laurion Equipment Ltd. Montreal P.Q.
1959 F.J. Fitzpatrick Parker-Danner Co. Hyde Park, Mass. 62 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1950s
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AED: 100 YEARS
The 1960s
Contractors & Engineers Magazine took the official photo for AED’s 50th anniversary. CED Magazine, February 1969 The 1960s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 65
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The 1960s:
AED Faces Tough Challenges – Image and Credit Issues, the Advent of Rentals
“I
f you do two things right and one thing wrong, you are able to survive,” says John W. Burress III. This is the wry hindsight of the businessman and AED past president (1990) who is recounting the ’60s. He was a young man then, fresh out of college, and had just inherited his father’s construction equipment dealership and had to figure out what he was going to do with it next. Fortunately for him, there was no shortage of work in those years – there was the interstate program, and dams and power plants and industrial plants were being built.
R.F. Newlin 1961 AED Past President
There were plenty of mistakes an equipment distributor could make, but the business environment was healthy. “Nothing was easy,” Burress says, “there were challenges. But in
a healthy business climate, you can cover up a lot of mistakes. We had plenty of mistakes. This growth we had, and others had, it wasn’t much Harvard Business School planning and execution. It was just hard work and personal relationships and two steps forward and one back. Still, it was a good environment to grow a business.” Not a lot of equipment dealers went broke in those years, but competition was still tough, profits were fragile and collections were slow. In 1961, AED President R.F. “Dick” Newlin advised the membership to get tougher about collections so there was more money coming in and “less giving stuff away.” He himself had tightened credit policies in his own business. AED continued to publish and distribute advice
AED IN THE 1960s 1960
AED joins the “Better Highways Information Foundation.” It produces materials to provide information on the benefits of the highway program. Management conferences providing management advice for distributors are held in each of the 14 U.S. regions.
1964 1962
Distributor ethics are a key component of discussion at the 1962 AED meeting. AED hires a firm to manage public relations.
1961
In a legislative victory, AED helps prevent changes to the Surplus Property Act; the changes would have allowed the market to be flooded with overseas surplus equipment. The 1961 Highway Act was signed into law, and it provided funds to complete the 41,000-mile interstate highway program by 1971. 66 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1960s
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AED headquarters moves to a new building because of rezoning in Chicago. AED runs advertisements in regional construction publications that reach an audience of 110,000.
1963
The AED board establishes the “Industry Future Fund” that will allow AED to establish major services and carry out the recommendations of industry committees to contribute to a healthier, more profitable industry. AED President John R. Borchert writes a moving editorial in CE News on the assassination of President Kennedy.
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1966
AED arranges a charter flight to the Paris Expomat, one of the world’s largest construction machinery exhibits. There are 87 U.S. exhibitors out of 475 exhibitors in total from 18 countries. A campaign to reach more industry members adds several hundred new readers for CE News.
1965
The Association releases the Distributor Publicity Manual to help members understand the benefits of good publicity and to help them establish their own PR programs. Aggressive PR programs are conducted at both local and national levels. AED gives out Quarter Century Awards for firms with 25 years of continuous membership.
1967
1968
CE News is renamed “Construction Equipment Distribution” to more clearly define the industry it serves. A career brochure is created for high schools, trade schools and colleges, designed to attract people to the industry. AED has 1,370 members.
A pilot program for trade and vocational schools is developed to train mechanics specifically for distributors. Experts from IBM speak at an Automatic Data Processing Conference held specifically for distributor operations. AED’s Group Insurance Trust Fund approaches the $10 million mark in claims paid in 15 years.
1969
AED’s Golden Anniversary. AED wins first place in the American Society of Association Executives Idea Fair Competition for its Golden Anniversary Meeting literature. Enhancing manufacturer–distributor relations is a top priority. Senator Joseph Montoya thanks AED for its contributions toward correcting proposed regulations on government purchasing.
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CED Magazine, December 1965
AED demonstrated its commitment to sound business ethics in the December 1965 article by the Ethical Practices Committee.
AED encourages its members to order additional copies of CED Magazine for key staff people.
to its membership on how to compete on service, not price, and how to calculate your true costs and truly understand the numbers in your business. To their surprise, “The expected adverse reaction by customers to our tightened credit policies did not happen,” Newlin reported about his company’s move. “In fact, instead of complaints, we heard such remarks as, ‘It’s about time those of us who pay as agreed quit helping you finance the deadbeats,’ and ‘Most of those guys are using you to finance their operations.’”
AED archives
Then as now, AED provided a good stream of new ideas to its members. When Burress needed inspiration, just as Morton Hunter had envisioned, he touched base with AED. “I went to my first AED convention in January of 1959 in Chicago,” Burress said. “It was comprised of several components. One was drinking brown whiskey, but two was
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idea exchange with other distributors. Education and idea exchange are the basis for progress. You would go to these conventions for five days and you always came home with new ideas and new thoughts for different ways to grow your business.” In the bigger picture, though, even while giving out advice to individual distributors, AED was doing the work of shaping the whole industry. Each AED committee raised the industry standards in their niche, while also tackling industry-wide problems. Take the Parts Management Committee, where Steven C. Marks converted parts managers across the country to computerized methods of managing parts. Or the Vocational Training Committee, where Thomas H. Wolfe helped create more training programs at local occupational schools to address the acute shortage of construction equipment technicians. The ’60s has scores of these examples, progress that bit by bit added up to waves of forward movement that kept the industry flourishing. As 1968 AED President Jim W. Waitzman said, “In a very real sense, problem-solving is our heritage and our chief stock-in-trade as an industry. Through the Association, we seek meaningful solutions to those problems which affect our future as an industry.”
Ethics and PR Take Top Priority The ’60s was a decade of soul-searching, when Americans fought to preserve their worldview while at the same time examining their ideals and what they wanted to fight for. The battle against communism raged on, but so did the search for meaning. AED distributors, too, voiced their ideals and fought to preserve the
CED Magazine, August 1964
The road that led to AED’s new headquarters was named in honor of founder Morton R. Hunter Sr. (right). Helping to honor his father is Morton Hunter Jr.
Standards of Conduct Established in 1968
A construction equipment company that is an AED member: •Believes that its integrity and reputation are based on fair dealings with its customers and its manufacturer suppliers. •Conducts its business in a spirit of fairness to all and devotion to high ideals of honesty and courtesy. •Seeks a normal reward of business: a profit commensurate with the risks involved. •Complies with those laws and regulations designed to protect the competitive enterprise system. •Engages in proper and ethical standards of soliciting business and does not approve of false or disparaging statements, either written or oral, or in circulating harmful rumors about a competitor’s product, selling prices, business, or financial or personal standing. •Recognizes its obligation to honestly represent the products it merchandises, and to back every sale with a concept of service to the customer. •Does not condone initiating negotiations for the services of any party employed by any other distributor member. •Conducts its affairs at all times in a manner that is compatible with the public interest and the principles of A.E.D., and will not engage in activities which could bring discredit to A.E.D. or the Industry it represents. •Subscribes to the Trade Practices Rules endorsed by A.E.D. and issued by the Federal Trade Commission for the Construction Equipment Distribution Industry. •Endeavors to comply in every way with those governmental laws, rules and regulations which have application to the operations of trade associations serving our chosen industry.
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CED Magazine, May 1964
First official executive committee meeting held in the conference room of the new headquarters in Oak Brook, Ill.
values they wanted to carry into their future, thanks to one particular catalyst at the beginning of the decade. Early in the ’60s, the industry faced an image crisis when an equipment company paid kickbacks to county officials in a road machinery purchase. During the court proceedings, a defense attorney stated that the practice was widespread through the industry.
CED Magazine, May 1964
Yale & Towne Manufacturing Co. General Sales Manager George Gunther (left) presents a key to 1964 AED President W.C. Garner and Executive Director Bud Hermann to celebrate AED’s new headquarters.
At the 1962 AED convention, the issue was addressed by the vice president of the Associated General Contractors in an empathetic speech. “You and I may be certain that this practice is not a policy throughout the industry. But we can be equally certain that a large part of the general public, if not in fact the great majority, will accept the attorney’s statement that this policy has prevailed throughout the industry.
The executive officer team included (from left) Executive Secretary Bud Hermann, Vice President W.C. Gardner, Vice President W.H. Cornelius, President Braxton Blalock, Senior Vice President J.R. Borchert, Vice President O.H. Bell and Treasurer H.B. Benson.
CED Magazine, March 1964
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CED Magazine, March 1961 credit
In 1961, AED President R.F. “Dick” Newlin strongly advised AED members to be tougher in their collection policies.
You can see what a bad light that reflects on the industry, no matter how false the statement may be. … I can assure you that we in the contracting business resent it when people brand the entire industry corrupt because of the wrongdoings of a few.” The distributors couldn’t stomach the accusations. “As an Association, we will take swift and appropriate action against any firm which demonstrates that it cannot conduct its affairs in a manner compatible with the public interest and with the standards of AED,” declared AED President R.F. Newlin. Past presidents and experienced distributors were asked to share what business ethics meant, and their remarks were widely shared. Business ethics and honesty were a major premise of the free enterprise system, they said. To act otherwise was un-American. Materialism was a mark of communism, and playing outside the rules would let down the whole capitalistic system. AED would fight hard throughout the decade to stand up for what it believed in. In 1965 the Ethical Practices Committee was created, and it hammered out what it really
CED Magazine, February 1963
The National Affairs Committee met in Washington, D.C., to address tax proposal issues. Standing from left are T.C. Southworth, Elwood Hasemann, J.J. Cooligan and Joseph King (Washington counsel). Seated are AED Executive Director Bud Hermann, Committee Chairman P.E. MacAllister and R.K. Kitchen.
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meant to practice every line of AED’s code of conduct. Did salesmen gossip about whether a competitor might be in dire financial straits or make disparaging remarks about their prices? “As owners and managers engaged in this rough competition and responsible for the conduct of our salesmen, we should inform and train our men concerning what represents good ethical selling practices on the firing line,” said AED President Harold M. Doolen. “There is much more to be gained from the practice of good business ethics than you will ever be able to reflect on your profit and loss statement.”
CED Magazine, July 1962
AED’s efforts to improve public relations outreach reap benefits with coverage in construction industry magazines and major daily newspapers.
Another result was that AED grew more active with its public relations work, even hiring a PR firm to help get its message out. They placed editorials in construction publications, talked to contractor groups, sent out press releases on AED activities and put out statements by AED officials. The firm published brochures on the role of the equipment distributor and sent them to both governmental and industry agencies, and also to colleges with civil engineering programs. The Association also gave advice to public works bodies on equipment maintenance and problems, and helped state disaster relief programs. In the words of 1965 AED President Doolen, “AED is spending an increasing amount of time concerning itself with the image of the equipment distributors in the eyes of our customers, as well as in the eyes of our manufacturers, suppliers and the general public.”
AED Addresses Critical Rental Issues
CED Magazine, August 1964
1962 AED President Braxton Blalock Jr. (right) presents a plaque to 1964 AED President W.C. Gardner to honor the selfless contributions of the building committee that had worked so hard on AED’s new headquarters.
It was at this point in the century that the equipment distribution business began to move sharply toward equipment rental instead of equipment sales. John Burress explains the shift. “During the early part of my career, the manufacturer that we represented provided us with our major source of capital by allowing us to owe them a lot of money,” he said. “If we were selling their product, and doing a good job, they would, in effect, lend us working capital. That was the first thing I learned about the industry. The second thing I learned was that the user wanted to do the same thing – use our capital to grow, by using our equipment. We created a rental business in the ’50s and ’60s.” By 1965, one of the objectives that AED articulated for the year was a thorough analysis of the rental market. They studied profitable
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AED archives
Money was a big issue in the 1960s, and 1961 AED President R.F. “Dick” Newlin was happy to report that customers didn’t have an adverse reaction to the industry’s tightened credit policies.
rental practices and ran a seminar on rentals. By the end of the decade, the rental business had grown far beyond small tools and light equipment to encompass tractors, scrapers, shovels and whole fleets of selected machines for specific jobs. More and more distributors were forced into setting up a rental business, distinct from sales. Establishing a separate rental department operation also required better management of the rental business to make it pay off. Realizing that a totally new concept was required, the AED Rental Committee was renamed the Rental Management Committee. It was geared toward developing sharp management techniques to help distributors run profitable rental operations. “It’s not like somebody turned a light on and we started renting, but every year in the ’50s and ’60s there were more and more rentals … it was a bigger portion of your total sales – rental and rental purchase,” Burress said. As every family knows, interpersonal relations are the hardest part of making
groups or partnerships work. One of the most important partnerships that AED had to pull off was distributors’ relationships with their manufacturers. The biggest sticking points during this time period were manufacturers bypassing distributors to sell directly to customers, or canceling their distributor contracts abruptly. If distributors had made long-term investments in storage facilities, repair shops, etc., suddenly losing a contract with just 30 days’ notice was disastrous. Moreover, as the market changed, sometimes the buyers for construction equipment were not just contractors, but equipment rental businesses. By selling to them, distributors were worried they were establishing competitors. Things were getting complicated. In 1965, AED’s Industry Relations Committee created a report called “Responsibilities of Distributors and Manufacturers in the Rental Market,” and AED recirculated it in 1967 as well. The report pointed out that distributors had an obligation to service the whole market
“Through the Association, we seek meaningful solutions to those problems which affect our future as an industry.” — Jim W. Waitzman, AED President, 1968
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Attending a Caterpillar convention in the late 1960s are (from left) distributor J.C. Alban, Jim Alban and L.M. Weisiger. They are standing in front of a DW20, which was one of the first four-wheel, selfpropelled scrapers with rubber tires. Courtesy of Carolina Tractor & Equipment Co.
on behalf of their manufacturers, including companies that rented equipment as a business. At the same time, manufacturers were morally obliged not to cut out distributors and sell to such businesses directly. It would be in both their interests to act ethically, and to build long-term trust instead of choosing expediency. In 1969, AED President James W. Griffith devoted the year to improving manufacturer–distributor relations. “In the 30 years I’ve been in the business, it has never been as important as it is today to open every door to better manufacturer–distributor
communications. Therefore, AED’s chief aim for 1969 is to work for a real close rapport and teamwork at all levels between the distributor and his manufacturers,” he said. It was the year that the Americans finally put a man on the moon. It was also the year that the first manufacturers did away with the 30-day cancellation notice in dealer contracts, opting instead for working out problems and committing to long-term relationships. For AED members, this marked a significant step toward improving relations with one of their most valued partners.
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AED members enjoy relaxing with their wives during evening festivities. AED archives
AED officers and top brass from Associated General Contractors enjoy a few laughs before meeting to discuss current industry events. CED Magazine, February 1967
Attending this CAED meeting are (from left) W.M. Young, C.J. Jackson, 1965 AED President Harold M. Doolen, CAED President William H. Marr, John S. Thorp, Gordon H. Godsall and Thomas F. Callahan.
CED Magazine, May 1965
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1960 J.A. Benson Benson Tractor Co. Houston, Texas 1960 H.J. Mayer Bacon-Western Co. San Francisco, Calif. 1961 R.F. Newlin Newlin Machinery Kansas City, Mo. 1962 Braxton Blalock Jr. Blalock Machinery & Equipment Atlanta, Ga. 1963 J.R. Borchert Borchert-Ingersoll St. Paul, Minn. 1964 W.C. Gardner Gardner Machinery Houston, Texas 1965 Harold M. Doolen Western Const. Equip. Co. Billings, Mont. 1966 Thomas F. Callahan Callahan Equipment Company Kenilworth, N.J. 1967 Robert G. Arnold Arnold Machinery Co. Salt Lake City, Utah 1968 J.W. Waitzman Tractor & Equip. Co. Birmingham, Ala.
1969 J.W. Griffith Minneapolis Equip. Co. Minneapolis, Minn.
CANADIAN PAST PRESIDENTS 1960 - O.H. Bell Pacific Tractor & Equipment Ltd. Vancouver, B.C. 1961 - M.L. Baxter M.L. Baxter Ltd., Toronto, Ont. 1962 - R.F. McAlpine Nova Scotia Tractors & Equipment Ltd. Halifax, N.S. 1963 - K.G. Dale Vulcan Machinery & Equipment Ltd. Winnipeg, Man. 1964 - G.H. Godsall G.H. Godsall Equipment Ltd. St. Timothee, P.Q. 1965 - W.H. Marr W.H. Marr Ltd., Port Arthur, Ont. 1966 - C.J. Jackson Mussens, Ltd., Montreal, P.Q. 1967 - W.M. Young Finning Tractor & Equip. Co. Ltd. Vancouver, B.C. 1968 - M.A. Eisenhauer Industrial Machinery Co. Ltd. Halifax, N.S. 1969 - C.H. Pardee Pardee Equipment Ltd. Edmonton, Alb.
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AED: 100 YEARS
The 1970s
Fred Berry Jr. (center) and his brother Paul purchased their father’s company when they were 29 and 27, respectively. (Fred Berry Sr. is seated in photo.) Berry Jr. told wary employees not to think of the brothers as two 20-year-olds Courtesy of Fred Berry but as one 56-year-old. The 1970s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 79
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The 1970s:
Decade Brings OSHA Rules, Gas Shortage, Product Liability Lawsuits
R
P.E. MacAllister, 1972 AED President
ight at the start of the ’70s, both manufacturers and distributors found themselves facing a new behemoth of legislation that came with seriously onerous requirements. “Whoever said big things come in small packages should have added the obvious comment that big things come in big packages too,” the distributors quipped. The big package that the industry was contending with was the 272-page document titled “Construction Safety and Health Standards” from the Department of Labor’s newly established Occupational Safety and Health Administration. “It is hard to recall any development in
recent years that has kept the Association at such a fever pitch as the OSHA business. I’ve decided that anyone who isn’t a little punchy by now from all the pummeling just doesn’t understand what is happening,” said P.E. MacAllister, AED president in 1972. “OSHA has hit us broadside with something that suddenly makes so many demands on our energies and substance that there ain’t NO WAY to get it all done. We know there is much to do, but we haven’t had time to assimilate the voluminous pages of instructions now regulating our activities and describing the nature of our operations, knowing any minute we could be found guilty of some infraction.”
AED IN THE 1970s 1974
1972
1970
AED launches a campaign to help save the Highway Trust Fund and secure the future of the Highway Program. The Association also announces new insurance programs, including casualty, property and workers’ compensation coverage.
25,000 copies of the Association’s “National Compilation of Rental Rates” are mailed. The 1972 Federal Highway Act is defeated. AED adopts a special resolution condemning Congress’ failure to pass the act and urges members to augment efforts to save the Trust Fund from diversion.
1971
AED introduces the “Training Guide for Employee Development,” a publication to help distributors set up effective in-house training programs. The Association also releases a “Trainer’s Guide for Manager Development” and a Government Relations Handbook. AED’s library now offers 30 management publications on various industry issues.
AED commits to energy audits and conservation internally as well as spreading the message. The U.S. Secretary of Commerce sends a telegram to the AED president expressing appreciation for AED’s support of national energy conservation. A PR firm’s industry image audit produces favorable results.
1973
The Environmental Study Committee is formed. A new program called “Member Days” is instituted, where representatives from the national Association visit with local distributor associations to enhance communication. The AED board passes a resolution condemning President Nixon’s actions involving the impoundment of federal funds without the approval of Congress.
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CED Magazine, January 1970
Yancey service men are able to “phone in” lubricants, which are transported via an underfloor piping system.
1978 1976
AED closes down its Group Property and Casualty Insurance Program because product liability lawsuits were driving up the costs of casualty insurance.
1975
The “Past Presidents Roast” is opened for the first time to all members. The AED board decides to meet twice a year to handle all the recommendations from various AED committees. A new Field Service Program is formed to assist local associations. Courtesy of Carolina Tractor & Equipment Co.
1977
AED’s Casualty Insurance Subcommittee conducts a survey and finds that the cost of product liability insurance increased 770 percent between 1973 and 1977. The board accepts an umbrella liability insurance proposal, which covers firms against large claims that exceed their primary insurance coverage.
AED’s Government Relations Committee meets with Sen. John Culver, who is sponsoring a bill to make product liability insurance more affordable and available for small businesses. A new State Government Liaison Program is launched.
1979
AED develops a comprehensive loss control program to help firms prevent productliability–related or other accidents. Membership reaches 1,161.
Courtesy of Carolina Tractor & Equipment Co.
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CED Magazine, May 1970
This 3514, shown digging a sewer, belonged to H.L. Moore, president of M&H Construction Co. of Flint, Michigan.
New Safety Rules Are Daunting Every plant had to be reconfigured to address ungrounded electrical cords, uncovered dip tanks, hard hats, signage and even the right kinds of caps on jars. That was the easy part. A bigger worry was the fact that billions of dollars of equipment out in the field needed to be reconfigured for safety, with “rollover protection structures” (ROPS) needing to be affixed to tractors. Where would so many ROPS units come from? How would they be fitted on old equipment without compromising its structural integrity? Where would they find enough experienced welders to do the job safely? MacAllister went to Congress to give testimony on behalf of AED at federal hearings on ROPS.
CED Magazine, May 1970
G.Y. McCully of Washington, D.C.-based B. Frank Joy Co. was elated that two loader backhoes had only 16 hours of downtime on a 3,600 hour job.
In the meantime, MacAllister told AED members that they were perfectly capable of handling the challenge at hand. “The consoling fact relative to this inordinate demand, made in an impossible period of time, is the adaptability
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of the species. A lot of us were civilians one day and soldiers the next; we were living in plush quarters one day and a month later sleeping in the desert. We can move when we have to, and the business we are in has been accommodating change for 25 years with perfect equanimity. It is the key to our survival and it is the essential element of a successful operation. “The in-plant bit is easy to get moving, because any place you look there is something to do. I see a new fire extinguisher outside my door this morning raising heck with the aesthetics, no matter how safe I am. ROPS still looms on the horizon. I’m still complaining, but we are making some mighty drastic changes in our approach, and OSHA is the reason. We intend to make the change and then we have to figure out how we can charge for it, so there’s profit in it – partly in dollars, but mostly in honest-togoodness safety.” AED members took a very collaborative approach to the problem: they shared advice about easy-tomiss infractions that would cost them when inspectors turned up for safety inspections. In the end, the industry was able to navigate the arduous issue together.
Still Savvy at 101, Schumacher Shares His Story
Every past president at AED has great history to share, and Dick Schumacher is no exception. Schumacher was AED president in 1970, and he was a very savvy 101-year-old when we interviewed him for this anniversary issue.
Schumacher got his start in the industry by joining his old college roommate, Joe Hornbeck, at Flack Equipment Co., a company that had created the Dayton Car Wrench. It’s safe to say that this product spared hundreds of laborers from losing their arms in the early 20th century. Prior to the invention of the tool, when coal cars would go over a trestle, a man had to manually open up the bottom of the car so the coal could rush out – a very dangerous job. Thankfully, the tool solved this problem. As the years passed, Flack Equipment moved to wheelbarrows and chain for
contractors, and ultimately it entered construction supply, selling air compressors and concrete mixers. Schumacher and Hornbeck decided that the best business plan was to figure out what each of them could do best. Schumacher had a background in finance, so he handled management and inventory, and Hornbeck was a salesman.
Schumacher started attending AED meetings with Hornbeck in the ’50s. They would go from room to room to meet with all the manufacturers, and they also enjoyed listening to the speech by the incoming president. “I can never forget meetings held in Chicago in the third week of January,” he says. “It was usually about 5 degrees, and the wind coming off the lake kind of kept people with their nose to the grindstone.” When Hornbeck passed away in 1953, Schumacher bought the business and continued to run it until he sold it and left the industry for retirement, which for him meant regular golf and tennis outings that he enjoyed very much.
CED Magazine, May 1970
L.B. Taylor of Oakton, Virginia-based RET Excavating Co. said this 3514 hydrostatic did an average of 20 percent more work than his previous loader backhoe. The 1970s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 83
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Energy Crisis Comes Along It wasn’t long, though, before another problem arose. In late 1973, the country was in an energy crisis, and distributors began to see sales canceled as contractors ran out of fuel. The fuel quota that contractors received was decreasing, and they began to simply run out of fuel for running the new machines they had previously ordered. The solution, for the present, was for the country to begin to conserve fuel. Once again, the distributors of AED organized, collaborated and shared information. One hundred and fifty distributors shared their own conservation practices as part of an AED survey. The Association then disseminated the information, thereby organizing the energy saving campaign on a national basis within the industry. No light fixture, electric door, crane, engine, or hot water faucet was left unaddressed. AED’s execution was humming, and the distributors saw great value in working together. Working together had long been standard practice for many AED members in terms of family. Recognizing the intergenerational nature of many AED businesses, in 1973 AED held a “Sons and Successors” seminar. “Is your business his business?” was one of the central questions. At what point should a son be exposed to all policy-making decisions or asked to attend all meetings? When should he be encouraged to voice his
Photo courtesy of Bucyrus-Erie Company
Courtesy of Brandeis Machinery & Supply Co.
This 200 cubic yard walking dragline was built in 1969 by Bucyrus-Erie, and it was the largest earthmoving machine ever built. It was 22 stories high and 459 feet long, and its bucket was as big as Built in 1969 byin Bucyrus-Erie, thisThe 220machine was 12 cars. Here the “Big Muskie” is shown at the Muskingum Mine eastern Ohio. cubic yard walking dragline was the largest scrapped in 2000.
The Big Muskie
opinions? Is the practice of nepotism unfair in light of other managerial resources? How should inter-family differences of opinion be dealt with? Should the successor carry on the policies of his father, or should he initiate changes? Distributors and 124 their successors wrestled with these and other questions surrounding managerial 280203_KYK_TEXT.indd
124
mobile earth-moving machine ever built. inheritance and business continuity. Nearly 22 stories high, with a length of business it was nearlySpeaking 459 feet andofa bucket as bigcontinuity, as 12around cars, the Big at the thisMuskie timeoperated that member companies Muskingum eastern Ohio. decided Mine to in recognize women for their The machine was scrapped in 2000.
contributions to the business. In 1974, the Harnischfeger Corporation ran courses to teach women about construction equipment. “Let’s face it,” said C.R. “Ray” 4/8/08
10:38:42 AM
AED archives
The ladies of AED enjoyed a variety of presentations at the conferences. This one features W. Heartstill Wilson on “The Profile of a Professional.” 84 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1970s
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“Let’s face it - just about every office in our plants – even in the industry itself – has at least one woman who keeps things running and without whom we just couldn’t cut it. Equally often, these same women have been kept on the fringes of the real activity. It seemed to me that it would be worthwhile to somehow bring the women of our organization into the act too.” C.R. “Ray” Morgan, marketing manager at P&H Construction, Morgan, marketing manager at P&H Construction, “just about every office in our plants – even in the industry itself – has at least one woman who keeps things running and without whom we just couldn’t cut it. Equally often, these same women have been kept on the fringes of the real activity. It seemed to me that it would be worthwhile to somehow bring the women of our organization into the act too.”
Product Liability Suits: Another Test for Distributors So things were going well, but then along came 1976, and distributors found themselves staring into the gaping mouth of yet another bureaucratic monster threatening to swallow them. Increasing numbers of product liability suits had sent casualty insurance rates soaring, to the point where some distributors simply could not absorb the costs and would be forced to shut their doors if they couldn’t obtain insurance at affordable rates. AED quickly put into place a special task committee on product liability. The committee gathered evidence on how the issue was affecting the economy and presented its results to Congress.
CED Magazine, January 1970
Electric scooters were used to gather parts orders in Yancey’s 23,000-square- foot parts department and warehouse. The 1970s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 85
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Courtesy of Brandeis Machinery & Supply Co.
Brandeis technicians get Rimpull electric drive mining truck training, 1978.
Brandeis technicians received Rimpull electric drive mining truck training in 1978.
to their facilities and concentrated H. Cannon, a mechanical engineer and Proposed legislation couldtoprovide relief by putting former IHC engine specialist, to manage on job skills related the previous the burden of liability on the party responsible, week’s training topic. Upon complet- engine sales. Responsible for marketinstead of on the seller regardless of fault. In ing the second phase, trainees entered ing IHC engines in both the retail and the meantime, the committee provided many International Manpower original equipment manufacturer suggestions as toHarvester’s how distributors could extricate Development Program, which awarded markets, he developed a successful prothemselves from the quicksand of product liability, by offering advice on everythingfor from contractsgram to to serve the engine replacement, certificates of registration succesemployee statements andof actions. sively higher levels competence. power unit and generator set markets.
36
Martin or Speakman to contact the customer and develop a proposal tailored to his need. “You would never be able to get that kind of specialization in a general line salesman,” Jay Paradis observed. In some cases, specialization remained a long-term proposition; in others, line salesmen gradually developed enough familiarity with a product that specialization was no longer necessary.
But like the fabled Odysseus, the men had In the sales arena, Bramco adopted Later in the decade, Brandeis created their share of victories to keep spirits up. 1977, an early form of “matrix manage- a Process Machinery Division, headed for instance, was a very good year. AED was by engineers Robert Martin and Steve Brandeis also used less formal means ment,” salesthat specialists able to appointing prove in court markingwith territories Speakman, to sell crushers, conveyors to address customers’ needs, includhigh levels of did expertise to antitrust handle laws. all The for distributors not break Association proved that if prices stayed above a screens to quarries and coal mines. ing events that combined business with aspects of sales and marketing in cer- and critical level, distributors could continue to provide tain unique equipment fields, enabling They worked closely with territorial pleasure. During the 1970s, it initiservice facilities,to and this would be, in representatives, so if a salesman ated annual field days that brought line salesmen concentrate oneventually, load- sales the best interest of the customer. The court ruled ers, bulldozers, and other high-demand “who could sell a loader or bulldozer sales personnel, factory representatives to allow exclusive territories for distributors, which items in their In 1973, for in his sleep” got a call from a customer and customers to Louisville, Kentucky, was a major and territories. hard-fought victory for AED. CED Magazine, July 1970 example, Brandeis appointed Albert requesting a coal wash facility, he asked Lexington, Kentucky, and Evansville, Retiring 1969 CAED President C.H. Pardee (left) hands the reins to incoming 1970 President With OSHA, the long lines at the gas pumps, S.J. Van Flymen. product liability lawsuits and antitrust cases, AED 86 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1970s
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tackled many major issues in the ’70s. But this is an Association that seems born to rise to all challenges, and, honestly, the main reason for that is relationships. AED’s leadership has believed strongly through the years that relationships are critical to business success and that people are more important than transactions. “You could almost say that AED provides a type of an extended family gathering at its events,” says Robert “Bob” Henderson, who is currently executive vice president and COO of AED, but is also an AED past president from 1999, when he was president of Cummins Interstate Power in Columbus, Ohio. “Industry professionals attend AED events not only to learn but to share best practices and to enjoy old-fashioned conversations with one another. Everyone knows each other. It’s like a homecoming. You don’t have the typical business pressures when you are amongst your peers, and there is not a distraction of the customer, since they are not present.
AED archives
These attendees of the Annual Meeting in 1970 had no way of knowing what OSHA had in store for them.
“If new members are wary, I just tell them to come, and if they are not comfortable, they don’t have to come back. I always enjoy AED because of the people in this industry. It’s always been about the people for me. Wherever you go, it’s the people that make the difference.” It is this spirit, perhaps, that is the source of the cooperative nature of AED. “I have always introduced myself to my competition,” Henderson says. “We can share ideas about topics like labor, finance and best practices. Mutual problem solving has always been a hallmark of our industry. I would rather have smart competitors that understand the true costs of the business than a competitor who doesn’t have a clue. Good, honest, smart professionals in the business benefit everyone in the supply chain.” This cooperation, in turn, has led to big things. “The whole infrastructure of the nation depends on our industry,” Henderson says. “Highways, water, airports, railroads … someone has to build it. The ‘builders’ are thus aided by the most environmentally sound, efficient, productive, technologically advanced resources and support supplied in our industry. Every piece of the country’s infrastructure sustains wear and tear and then decay. The old, as in most scenarios of our lives, has to be replaced. Someone has to be around to build the future. AED and the industry it serves will be there for that inevitable future.”
CONDEX drew a big crowd in the 1970s, and the same holds true today.
AED archives
AED archives
This photo was taken at the Annual Meeting in 1972, just on the cusp of the energy crisis. The 1970s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 87
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Above: This 1970 executive group included (from left) AED Executive Director and Vice President Bud Hermann, Leonard Nixon, 1972 AED President P.E. MacAllister, 1970 President Dick Schumacher, 1971 President Fred Berry, 1975 President R.K. Kitchen, and 1969 President Jim Griffith.
Courtesy of Fred Berry
Right: AED Executive Director and Vice President Bud Hermann (left) clearly had a great deal of trust in 1971 AED President Fred Berry, who would pilot the two men to various AED meetings.
Courtesy of Fred Berry
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Sue Berry, left, wife of 1971 AED president Fred Berry, right, was instrumental in helping women get involved in events.
Ladies’ Program Expands Horizons In the ’70s, women’s movements were shattering barriers everywhere, and AED was no exception. In 1970, for the first time, women edged their way into all parts of AED’s annual conference – the Early Birds’ Breakfast, the business sessions, areas where previously no women had been allowed. That year, they joined the men to hear former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall talk about the nation’s environment. They also heard author Alvin Toffler discuss his book “Future Shock,” which addressed the dangers that lay ahead for America. In 1972, Sue Berry, wife of outgoing AED President Fred Berry, and Becky MacAllister, wife of incoming AED President P.E. MacAllister, were both hostesses for the ’72 Annual Meeting. Sue was quite adept at holding her own with her husband: Fred was a licensed pilot who flew his own plane, but Sue was a licensed pilot as well. She and Becky fired up the female attendees by offering sessions on the important role of women in their husbands’ business activities. So now the choices for the women were more varied than they had been traditionally. Women could decide how intense they wanted their conference experience to be.
They could come as business partners with their husbands, each attending different sessions to cover more ground. Or the women could make the most of the seminars that were planned exclusively with attending spouses in mind; these sessions featured speakers who presented the latest ideas of the time. For example, in 1974, former Michigan Gov. George Romney’s wife spoke on the role of women in America. In a 1975 session, they were offered the chance to learn about transactional analysis so they could identify their behaviors in social interactions, ostensibly leading to better interactions. Another option was to serve as a hostess for the women attending the conference. In this case, the annual experience could be a mini-vacation that featured shopping, sightseeing, and catching up with friends over coffee. A fashion show with the latest designs was often in the cards, as were entertainment programs, and the ladies’ convention headquarters was the place to find old friends and plan city excursions. “There was so much to do … you didn’t know what to do next,” said the wife of an AED member in 1975, summing up perfectly the options for women in a changing world.
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1970 D.L. Schumacher Flack Equipment Co. Dayton, Ohio 1971 Fred F. Berry Jr. Berry Companies Wichita, Kan. 1972 P.E. MacAllister MacAllister Machinery Indianapolis, Ind. 1973 N.N. Economou Western Road Machinery Minneapolis, Minn. 1974 Elmer H. Jaster Road Machinery & Supplies Minneapolis, Minn.
1975 R.K. Kitchen Kentucky Machinery Louisville, Ky.
1976 H.H. Stith Jr. Stith Equipment Co. Atlanta, Ga. 1977 John E. Cross Elphinstone Baltimore, Md. 1978 Robert J. Wilson Little Rock Road Machinery Little Rock, Ark.
CANADIAN PAST PRESIDENTS 1970 - S.J. Van Flymen Contractors Machinery & Equipment Ltd. Hamilton, Ont. 1971 - Donald E. Kramer Kramer Ltd. Regina, Sask. 1972 - R.W. Chorlton Wajax Industries Ottawa, Ont. 1973 - C.B. Crocker B.C. Equipment Co. Ltd. Vancouver, B.C. 1974 - Lorne R. Harris Vulcan Machinery & Equipment Ltd. Thunder Bay, Ont. 1975 - J.G. Woolsey General Supply Co. Ottawa, Ont. 1976 - G.C. Eaton Newfoundland Tractor & Equipment Co. Ltd. St. John’s, N.L. 1977 - G.D. Robertson Fedquip Inc. Brampton, Ont. 1978 - E.G.H. Robbins R. Angus Alberta Ltd. Calgary, Alb. 1979 - P. Crepault Delta Equipment Ltd. Laval, P.Q.
1979 Ted C. Southworth Southworth Machinery Albany, N.Y.
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AED: 100 YEARS
The 1980s
Even though times were tough, industry members stuck together by attending key events like Summit and CONDEX.
AED archives
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The 1980s:
State of Economy Makes This Hands Down the Worst Decade Yet
I
n 1980, everyone from the president of AED to the president of the United States was thinking about ways to fix the economy.
CED Magazine, May 1987
President Reagan’s economic reform program eventually had the industry on a better financial path.
Trying to combat rising unemployment from the ’70s energy crisis, the central bank had kept credit loose. But inflation was on the rise, and factors out of policymakers’ control, like the Iranian revolution and ballooning oil prices, were pushing inflation higher and higher. It was time to rein in inflation, and the Federal Reserve began to hike interest rates. But the effect on business was calamitous. Norman Ribble was AED president in 1980. “We got to a point where
interest rates began to kill us,” Ribble says. “Business couldn’t survive with those interest rates. I had someone in our company who charted interest rates weekly. We still have the ledger. You had to stay right on top of that. Because of the cost, the inventory levels were down. If you had something, you had to sell it because you couldn’t afford to keep it.” But no one could afford to buy it either. His company had 200 employees, and Ribble was struggling to keep them employed. The economy was treacherous at the time. After oil prices went up, they started to come down – so it was a boom, and then a bust. In places
AED IN THE 1980s 1980
Inflation is in double digits, interest rates are sky-high, and the economic outlook is uncertain. AED creates the Resource Management and Planning Council to develop programs to aid the productivity of member businesses. Frank Skidmore, AED’s Field Director, has logged more than 500,000 miles on behalf of AED in 30 years.
1982
A new computer consulting service is introduced at the AED annual meeting to help distributors make intelligent decisions when determining computer needs and expanding data processing operations. The AED board decides to support growing national efforts to restore the country’s aging bridges, roads, sewer and water systems, and other public works facilities.
1981
P.D. “Bud” Hermann, who has led AED since 1950, is voted Association Executive of the Year in a nationwide poll of association managers. Hermann is also on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. President Reagan sends a letter thanking Hermann for supporting his economic reform program.
1984
This year AED releases its first major marketing handbook: “Strategic Marketing.” It also produces a “Banker Relations” kit to introduce bankers to the construction equipment industry and its financial facts.
1983
Many programs and workshops this year, including those in Canada, focus on financial management. AED releases a brochure on how to get your banker to say “yes” to your financing needs. AED’s first videotape program is shown by local associations around the U.S., the start of a transition to more videotaped training and information programs for members. AED’s Washington Watch newsletter publishes its 100th issue in September of this year.
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“Our cash flow was positive; however, the bank filed for foreclosure on my loans even though I was current and my assets were four times my liabilities. It was four years of holy hell. Every night I came home with tears in my eyes. We were literally living out of our own pockets, but continued paying down our loans. I was totally demoralized. I had never done anything wrong and had always played by the rules.” – 1984 AED President Gilbert Gaedcke
1986
AED forms a Task Committee on Liability Insurance to pursue legislative reforms. The Association joins more than 70 national and state organizations and companies in the 1986 Highway Legislative Coalition to work on congressional reauthorization of federal aid programs for highways.
1985
AED holds its Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., for the first time. The Association’s first “Sounding Board” opinion poll of distributors is conducted this year. It will poll members on a quarterly basis on what they think about important industry issues.
1987
1988
AED’s Research & Services Corp. signs an agreement with John Deere Insurance Co. to promote a property and casualty insurance program for distributors. AED’s new “Financing Solutions for Sales and Rental Customers” is one of the most popular in-house training programs ever offered.
The AED convention goes to New Orleans for the first time. Coincidentally, the NFL schedules the Super Bowl in New Orleans for the same weekend. The AED Oak Brook office floods in a summer downpour. The Association revamps the employee benefits insurance program, providing members with access to an employee benefit consultant.
1989
The CAED summer meeting in Montreal addresses rentals and leasing, continuity planning, business systems, and how free trade between Canada and the U.S. will affect the next decade.
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AED archives
Despite the hard times, AED members will always find a reason to smile.
Gilbert Gaedcke, with a slogan of “Dare to be Different,” became AED president in 1984 and was in the thick of the bank crisis in Houston, Texas.
where energy was a big part of the local economy, this was particularly disastrous. As businesses suffered, banks that wrote those loans suffered too. Combined with other headwinds, between 1980 and 1994 in the United States, 1,617 commercial and savings banks closed or received federal financial assistance. Of these, 599 (over one-third) were in Texas.
could take the loan. We went to many banks in Houston, but all of them had loans that were classified as 'bad' due to the decline of the collateral value of all assets, and they couldn’t make any additional loans. I owned all the real estate personally. Our customers were collapsing all around us.”
Gilbert Gaedcke, with a slogan of “Dare to be Different,” became AED president in 1984 and was in the thick of the bank crisis in Houston, Texas. “When it happened to our company in the ’80s, I had been in business for 35 years and I had never missed a payment and I had never been late. I had 35 years of going strong, but all of a sudden, my bank failed. I continued to pay, but the bank sent the checks back to me. My lawyer advised sending the payments via certified mail, which I did, and the bank accepted them but sent back a certified letter, denying that the loan was still valid.
Gaedcke Equipment’s cash flow remained positive because Gaedcke was selling off his rental fleet. “However, the bank filed for foreclosure on my loans even though I was current and my assets were four times my liabilities. It was four years of holy hell,” he said. “Every night I came home with tears in my eyes. We were literally living out of our own pockets, but continued paying down our loans. I was totally demoralized. I had never done anything wrong and had always played by the rules. I went from 200 employees to 69. I closed two of our six branches and kept four open. My wife went to work to help out our family.”
“This went on for a year and a half before they filed for foreclosure. I was forced to take Chapter 11 just because no banks
Gaedcke received help from his manufacturers, who provided equipment to his company on consignment, until he
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CED Magazine, March 1982
1978 AED President Robert Wilson (left) and 1981 AED President Richard Mason (right) present the 1981 Founders Award to the Ohio Equipment Distributors Association. Accepting the award are OEDA Past President Robert Henderson (second from left) and local group Secretary Larry Trask.
finally managed to get another loan and began building the company back up. “We managed to survive only because of the trust our suppliers put in my word, and the loyalty of our employees.” Even amid all this hardship, Gaedcke was appointed chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (Houston branch). While he was there, the board wrote a white paper that was sent to Washington, D.C., to emphasize the negative results that the bank examiners were adding to the “credit crunch.” Many distributors found new markets outside of construction to survive. One dealer found a buyer for equipment in a company that installed cable TV lines. Another’s savior was oil field work. Those that could hunkered down and tried to ride out the bad years. Not everyone was so lucky.
AED Kicks It Into High Gear Construction and manufacturing, industries that are heavily dependent on
AED archives
1980 AED President Norman Ribble reviews inventory records with Finance Manager Jim Armstrong and Supply Manager Willie Williams at the N.C. Ribble Co. The 1980s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 97
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borrowing, were particularly hard hit. “It was a horrible time in the industry,” says Richard Mason, AED president in 1981. “The thing that got us out of it was the Reagan economic program, but it couldn’t be solved overnight. At AED, we actively supported the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. Bud Hermann, AED executive VP, was on the board of the national Chamber of Commerce. He was very active. He was well thought of and represented us very well in Washington – made trip after trip to support it. “What we had to do within the Association was to look at what we could do,” Mason continues. AED provided its members an assessment of the current climate and practical advice every month. They put out publications and ran programs providing both advice and training. “We had high responses to our programs,” Mason says.
Contributed photo
Hank "Bud" Hayden Jr. and his wife Carol started Metroquip in 1975; he had been in the business nearly two decades by then. Hayden was president of AED in 1992.
Taking into consideration the tough economic times, AED ran updated sales programs to teach sales managers other ways to motivate salesmen besides with salary. “Coping with uncertainty” was a popular cassette program with two hours of advice and ideas for strengthening a company’s cash management and market position. By the mid ’80s, AED was providing videotaped trainings, the first manifestation of learning things on YouTube.
P.D. “Bud” Hermann, who led AED for 41 years, is just two seats to the right of President Reagan in a key meeting about the economy.
AED archives
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The Great Flood of 1987 Trouble kept pouring from the skies in the ’80s, and in the case of the 1987 AED flood, we mean that quite literally. Nine and one-half inches of rain fell in August in a few hours one soggy afternoon, inundating Oak Brook and other Chicago suburbs. AED’s headquarters was completely inaccessible and cordoned off by police as floodwaters rose halfway up the windows. Sixteen thousand homes and businesses in the area were damaged. The Association had the worst flooding it had experienced in 24 years at the site. Some parts of the office, like the communications department and the EDP area, had 2½ feet of water. AED publications from the 1920s–30s were completely damaged. Fast action on the part of staffers saved other precious AED materials. The staffers were able to remove and elevate file drawers and move other equipment and material off floors, including a 300-pound computer unit. Tom Schelewitz coordinated activities and communications among suppliers, utility people and staff in those first crucial days. “Without their efforts, our losses would clearly have been much more extensive and serious than they will eventually prove to be,” said Executive Vice President P.D. Hermann.
The distributors were hungry for profitable advice, and AED officers were determined that AED memberships should be worthwhile. They instituted a Long Range Planning Committee to identify specific member needs and then ensure the capability of providing appropriate programs and services. A course in rentals completely sold out. “We saw it was harder to sell new equipment because people simply didn’t have the money, couldn’t afford the
Headquarters was moved temporarily to a nearby Ramada Inn until staff could move back into the building a month or so later. AED initiated a long-term study about whether it should stay in Oak Brook, and much depended on the progress that state and national authorities made on flood-alleviating projects. Chicago’s underground Deep Tunnel construction that was in progress was designed as a flood control measure; other plans included strategically placed retention ponds and the dredging of waterways. The Association ended up staying put, remodeling and even adding an extra wing, which staffers affectionately referred to as the “west wing.” In addition, the board approved a $250,000 berm that would be installed around the building to prevent future flooding. The berm was effective for 20 years, but the west wing did flood in 2007. It received fresh paint and new carpet, but when it flooded again on July 23, 2010, AED had had enough, and moved to the building next door, on the second floor.
interest rates,” Mason says. “So we had to come up with some way to get the new equipment out there. Consequently, we spent a lot of time on rentals. Rent to rent. Then as time went on, the economy got a little better, and we’d better develop programs for rent to buy. This way, it was easier for people to acquire equipment. But handling rentals required a better understanding of the financial world. That led to a financial officers program.” The Canadian AED was in a similar
fix. The theme for its 1980 meeting was “Accent on Action – Now.” In 1986, it was “Back to the Basics,” i.e., how to conduct a more profitable business despite the changes affecting the industry. At that meeting CAED created the “commandments of a good business”: •A customer is the most important person in any business. • A customer is not dependent on us – we are dependent on him.
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AED archives
Executive Director and Vice President P.D. "Bud" Hermann hands out Founders Awards to deserving recipients.
• A customer is not an interruption of our work – he is the purpose of it. • A customer is not someone to argue with or match wits with. • A customer is a person who brings us his wants – it is our job to fill those wants.
AED archives
AED member Joe Cooligan has a few laughs with colleagues at Summit.
“AED did everything it could to maximize sales and minimize expenses. That’s what our goal was,” Mason says. “We had to take care of our people, staying on top of the bottom line. We have always had faith in our institutions and how we need to be in the people business. If you work with people, you can make things happen. And we were so blessed to be able to do that.”
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Product Liability Rears Its Ugly Head Again This is not the part of the story where things get better. It is the part where we remember that players in the economy are interconnected, and losses in one sector make themselves felt in another sector. Insurance companies were among those thrashing for air in the ’80s. Hit by liability losses they didn’t see coming, many companies folded. The number of lawsuits, by one count, had gone up 500 percent in the last decade. Thirteen million private civil lawsuits were filed in state and federal courts in 1985. Awards of a million dollars or more were given in more than 360 personal injury suits, 13 times the number 10 years prior. By the mid ’80s, premiums for liability insurance had shot through the roof. Many insurers simply got out of the market.
In 1986, 40 percent of AED members responding to a study of U.S. and Canadian distributors reported product liability insurance premium increases of 100-500 percent on their latest renewals.
In 1986, 40 percent of AED members responding to a study of U.S. and Canadian distributors reported product liability insurance premium increases of 100-500 percent on their latest renewals. Forty distributors were operating without liability insurance because they couldn’t obtain any or they couldn’t afford it. They acknowledged that one substantial loss could wipe out their businesses. With that reality facing them, several others were choosing to go out of business and wrap things up in an orderly manner instead of being wiped out by an uninsured loss. Distributors were dropping risky product lines, or reducing, tightening or in some cases abandoning the rental business. Many increased borrowing to cover the cost of increasing premiums, or they terminated employees, cut salaries or fringe benefits, or closed a branch. Millions of dollars in potential sales and rentals were lost because contractors’ customers couldn’t get or afford insurance either. The economic recession was behind them, but in the ’80s it felt like business just couldn’t catch a break. The distributors were angry and frustrated at the relentless obstacles. AED provided lots of helpful resources while searching for a solution to the problem. The “Product Liability Clause Handbook” was reviewed and updated – it gave distributors model liability disclaimer clauses for their sales and rental agreements. The Association also provided advice on ways to limit exposure in every department
CED Magazine, November 1989
Above: When this Caterpillar E120B excavator was introduced in 1989, it was touted for its larger digging envelope and additional lift capacity. Left: With this MT 653 automatic, Detroit Diesel Allison had produced more than 1.5 million commercial transmissions. This one was going to be installed in a dump truck for Indiana’s highway department. CED Magazine, April 1986
Below left: This photo ran in a CED article that stressed the importance of communicating high standards of service to employees.
CED Magazine, November 1989
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AED has a great history of producing invaluable educational material for its members.
of the company in “Guidelines” and a “Scorecard for Controlling Product Liability Exposure.” It also held a seminar called “Fighting Back,” which featured money-saving advice from top consultants. It was impossible to feel alone in a crisis if you were an AED member. The Association even sent out audiocassettes of the seminar for those who were unable to attend. Finally, in 1988, after months of careful study and research, AED’s Research & Services Corporation signed an agreement with John Deere Insurance (JDI) to promote a property and casualty insurance program to AED distributors. “Finding reasonable insurance coverage in the past five years has been a nightmare,” said P.E. MacAllister, chairman of the AED/R&S Corp. “Our concern has been for both the skyrocketing and ricocheting premiums and often what ends up as a lack of any coverage for some members.” The new program had an advantage because JDI people “are specialists in our particular field and understand the risks.” In 1989, JDI loss-control consultants presented programs at local association meetings that explained ways of decreasing
AED archives
product liability exposure. “Keep sufficient documentation on new and used rental equipment. Decals must be on each piece of equipment leaving your yard. Sales, service and parts personnel should inspect equipment for safety features that customers sometimes bypass.” AED believed that the only comprehensive solution to the issue was legislative reforms at the national level, and the Association concentrated its efforts in that direction. In the meantime, individual distributors could fight for reform in their states, in particular a seller’s exclusion. “This piece of legislation is designed to remove people like dealers from product liability lawsuits in the early stages. If you or your local group is interested in obtaining a seller’s exclusion, AED’s Washington office has materials that will help you get started,” advised 1989 AED President Thomas H. Taylor Jr. The AED fighting spirit was alive and roaring. “I’m still upright and I’m still solvent,” said Norman Ribble, quoting his friend Dick Schumacher, 1970 AED president. “That’s all a man can ask for.”
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AED archives
Above: An excellent bird’s-eye view of CONDEX. Left: CONDEX gives distributors a good chance to peruse a wide variety of equipment.
AED archives
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1980 Norman C. Ribble N.C. Ribble Co. Albuquerque, N.M. 1981 Richard F. Mason H.F. Mason Equip. Co. Lakeland, Fla. 1982 James E. Williams Williams Equip. & Supply Memphis, Tenn. 1983 Dennis G. Doolen Telford & Doolen Lansing, Mich. 1984 Gilbert D. Gaedcke Gaedcke Equipment Houston, Texas 1985 Michael R. Sill Road Machinery & Supplies Minneapolis, Minn.
1986 Richard J. Knopke Contractors Supply Co. Kansas City, Mo.
1987 Keith F. Franz Boehck Equipment Co. Milwaukee, Wis. 1988 M. David Giardino Equipco Sales & Rental Somerville, N.J.
CANADIAN PAST PRESIDENTS 1980 - G.J. Redhead Redhead Equipment Ltd. Regina, Sask. 1981 - R.J. Wallace Wallace Equipment Ltd. Fredericton, N.B. 1982 - Robert J. Cullen Cullen Detroit Diesel Allison, Ltd. Burnaby, B.C. 1983 - Solon H. Hummel Capital Equipment, Ltd. Rexdale, Ont. 1984 - H. Graham Donoghue Ferguson Supply Ltd. Calgary, Alb. 1985 - Claude G. Poudrette Piedmont Equipment Ltd. Boucherville, P.Q. 1986 - Bernard J. Faloney Contractors Machinery & Equipment Ltd. Burlington, Ont. 1987 - C.R. Baxter, Jr. Baxter Equipment Ltd. Dartmouth, N.S. 1988 - J.W. Hewitt Hewitt Equipment Ltd. Montreal, P.Q. 1989-1990 - Lucille M. Johnstone Rivtow Straits Ltd. Vancouver, B.C.
1989 Thomas H. Taylor Jr. Ohio Machinery Co. Broadview Heights, Ohio 104 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 1980s
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12/5/2018 Issue 1:25:24 PM The 1980s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative | 105
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YOU CAN CROSS CENTENNIAL OFF YOUR BUCKET LIST. Vermeer Corporation is pleased to celebrate the 100th anniversary of our valued partner, AED. On behalf of the entire Vermeer family, we offer you loads of thanks for steering our industry in the right direction.
PROUD AED MEMBERS:
RDO Equipment Co. Vermeer British Columbia Vermeer Canada Inc. Vermeer Equipment De MĂŠxico Vermeer Great Plains Vermeer Heartland
Vermeer Iowa & N. Missouri Vermeer Mid Atlantic Vermeer MidSouth Vermeer Midwest Vermeer North Atlantic Vermeer Northeast
Vermeer Northwest Vermeer Rocky Mountain Vermeer Southeast Vermeer Southwest Vermeer Texas-Louisiana Vermeer Wisconsin
Vermeer Corporation reserves the right to make changes in engineering, design and specifications; add improvements; or discontinue manufacturing at any time without notice or obligation. Equipment shown is for illustrative purposes only and may display optional accessories or components specific to their global region. Mini skid steer attachments available from Vermeer dealers may be manufactured by Vermeer Corporation or other attachment manufacturers. Please contact your local Vermeer dealer for more information on machine specifications and attachments. Vermeer and the Vermeer logo are trademarks of Vermeer Manufacturing Company in the U.S. and/or other countries. Š 2018 Vermeer Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
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AED: 100 YEARS
The 1990s
Bestrac blazed a new trail when it decided to expand its hours so customers would have access to mechanics 10 hours a day, six days a week. The distributor offered the expanded service at its Charlotte and Greensboro locations in North Carolina. It also increased its parts inventory 30-40 percent. CED Magazine, September 1996
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The 1990s:
AED Sees Booming Rental Market, Huge Technician Shortage and the Dawn of the Internet
I
n the 1990s, there was no doubt about what the customer wanted, and AED members were left scrambling to adjust.
As Earl Harbaugh, president of AED in 1991, explains, equipment rental was growing by leaps and bounds. Renting wasn’t a new sales strategy dreamed up by manufacturers or distributors. If anything, he says, distributors resisted the move away from pure sales, because they were under pressure from manufacturers to sell. But customers were very clear about their needs. Business for customers, i.e., contractors, was changing. As a result, so were their
purchasing decisions. John Clearman ran the Caterpillar dealership N C Machinery in Washington and Alaska. In 1992, he explained the change in his business. “The large, remote location projects we built our business on continue to decline. Today, the growth is more with residential site development, contractors, road pavers and repavers and material handling. These types of activities tend to be shorter-term in nature and are often better suited for equipment rental rather than ownership.” The math that used to favor buying equipment had changed too. Gone were the tax incentives for purchasing equipment. And bonding, a regulatory requirement for
AED IN THE 1990s 1990
AED begins to offer Management Development programs in conjunction with industrial distribution faculty at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, which has one of the oldest, largest and most highly regarded industrial distribution programs in the country.
1994
1992
The AED Foundation’s first education program by satellite transmission is offered at multiple locations across the country. It focuses on equipment rental management. The consolidation of distributors (because of buyouts by foreign dealers) begins to emerge as a trend.
1991
AED begins a new series of videos, seminars and publications on rental management. Plans to form The AED Foundation are revealed this year. The Washington office prepares an “Environmental Compliance Handbook,” and an environmental hotline, to answer compliance responsibility questions, is installed.
Lucille M. Johnstone wins The AED Founders Award for Distinguished Association Service. She is the first woman and first Canadian to receive the award. Johnstone worked for Rivtow Straits Limited in Vancouver, B.C., for 45 years, last serving as president and COO. The company had $250 million in sales and 1,500 employees.
1993
The Canadian distributor Bernard J. Faloney is the first Canadian AED member to be an AED president. He is the 75th AED president. Fifty thousand people watch The AED Foundation’s second national videoconference.
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contractors, had grown more expensive. Bonding was a kind of insurance that covered the contractor’s customers in case the contractor didn’t finish the job. In that case, the bonding company would reimburse the customer. Contractors were responsible for buying this insurance. What they paid for it depended on many things, one of them being how much debt they were carrying. Renting equipment instead of purchasing it lowered the debt they were carrying on their balance sheets. The equipment itself was now larger, more sophisticated, more specialized and also more expensive. Not buying equipment also meant you could get the right machine for every job instead of making do with what you already had. “There’s nothing in this company that isn’t for rent. If you’re not in the rental business, you’re not in the equipment business,” said Richard Merritt Jr. of Cen-Cal Machinery in California. Estimated construction equipment rentals went from $614 million in 1982 to $16.2 billion in 1996. All of this was challenging for distributors. Making rentals a big part of the business meant a whole different approach to managing resources. Then customers were fickle – you could take on debt to add to your rental inventory, but if the business
This 240-ton Dresser Haulpak is hauling ore at an open pit mining site.
1998
1996
AED develops online resources for members, putting its magazines, directories, catalogs and other resources online. The AED Foundation helps strengthen vocational school programs for equipment mechanics. AED restarts its MATRIX data analysis program with significant changes to provide more timely and useful data.
1995
Two AED founding companies are honored for 75 years of continuous membership: Beckwith Machinery Co. and Brandeis Machinery & Supply Co. James S. Beckwith, AED’s first president in 1920, was one of the first Caterpillar dealers in the United States. Brandeis Machinery was founded by Robert E. Brandeis in 1908.
CED Magazine, October 1991
1997
AED’s MachineMart is an online database of used construction equipment and already lists 4,500 pieces of equipment. The list is updated daily. Six hundred companies have become AED Quarter Century members since AED was founded. Two hundred of them have 50-year member status and two are 75-year members.
The AED Foundation education seminars offer training in every operational area of construction equipment distribution, including parts and service, rentals, financial management, business continuity, sales and more. The Association continues to encourage its members to get on the web.
1999
AED partners with Construction Equipment magazine to expand the reach of MachineMart, which will be listed on the magazine’s website. More than 48,000 pages are downloaded monthly, many by users looking to buy used construction machinery. MachineMart has 12,000 pieces of equipment listed.
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CED Magazine, September 1996
From a September 1996 CED Magazine article that emphasized the importance of controlling equipment rental losses by having a well-written contract, training employees well and having a good equipment management program.
cycle changed, renters would fall off but you were still paying for the machinery. It was important to finance the equipment correctly so you could keep up with the payments, but financing wasn’t easy in the early ’90s. The economic climate was as difficult in Canada, where the prime interest rate was 3 percent higher than in the U.S. Obtaining financing for projects and credit lines was just as onerous in Canada as in the U.S. Pricing rentals correctly was important too. Distributors had to have an accurate sense of what their long-term costs were, including maintenance, servicing the machines between rentals, and depreciation. They had to be on top of loss control, including liability costs and preventing damage to the equipment. You could no longer fly by the seat of your pants. The distributors leaned heavily on the research studies that AED was conducting that told them about market trends. They attended the management seminars, workshops and conferences that gave advice on how to run lean, efficient operations in all the different parts of their business, from financial management to running the “shop” – the service center. They needed smart, bright, energetic personnel and, as technology and legislation changed, continuous employee training.
CED Magazine, October 1995
From an October 1995 CED Magazine article that detailed customers’ top priorities: parts availability, repairs done correctly the first time and accurate repair estimates.
The time was right for the birth of The AED Foundation, which Earl Harbaugh put into place during his tenure as AED president in 1991. The Canadian AED did its part to help. According to Harbaugh, “A key vote came
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Women Succeed In Leadership Roles Where do women fit into the construction equipment industry? In 1999, AED ran a profile on four women executives in the industry to answer that question with “anywhere they like.” Their names were Janet Felosky, Martha Bush, Judy Neal and Diann Cook, and they were president, general manager, vice president and president of their respective dealerships, but they were also trailblazers, pioneers and an inspiration for younger female employees. Yes, they suffered the usual indignities of women in a maledominated industry: mail coming addressed to Mr. Diann Cook, eyes rolling when they were introduced as president, and being overlooked, ignored, or asked for the “man in charge.” They learned to shrug or laugh it off, and to earn the respect of their customers and employees by being the best. They worked hard to stay on top, and they loved it. There was always something to learn – the equipment got more sophisticated from the Canadian VP at the time to help me get it through.” The AED Foundation would support all of the activities related to educational training, trend research and encouraging people to take up careers in the construction equipment industry. But would distributors support The AED Foundation with monetary donations? The founders weren’t allowed to raise member dues to support it. The
every year, and they had to know both their equipment and the competition’s. They had to be both practical and imaginative, keep an eye on how much cash they had and what bills were coming up, but also be artistic in marketing, merchandising, and design. All the challenges of the ’90s bore down: the technician shortage in which one was always running ads for help and comparing employee benefits to those offered by the competition, pressure from rental firms with better buying ability, and the new information technology whose only effect seemed to be that someone always wanted a new laptop or printer. But when they got it right, they had the pleasure of watching the whole company do well, of providing opportunities for a lot of people and the pleasure of seeing them happy. It was both intellectually challenging and emotionally fulfilling, and they could say definitively that running an equipment business was the perfect job for a woman of substance.
new foundation set a fundraising goal of $500,000. They needn’t have worried; the donations came pouring in. “Our history has shown that our constituents really do care about the industry and where it goes,” says Steve Johnson, vice president of Foundation Academic Accreditation today. “There are a lot of people who feel grateful for the opportunities this industry has given them and are interested in giving back. I have been humbled by the support
for The AED Foundation. When we went into the industry recession, at one point unemployment was up around 20 percent. Even in those lean years, 2008-2009, we experienced very good support. People participated in the events and they saw the benefits. We are doing a lot of things to help them succeed.” By 1994, The AED Foundation had reached its fundraising goal.
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The AED Foundation Tackles the Technician Shortage In 1996, the industry faced a new kind of crisis. All over the country, at all levels of equipment technology, companies could not find enough service technicians with the right skills. Even if they were willing to train people, they needed entry-level employees with a basic understanding of electronics for the high-tech machines. Patricia A. Jordan, then executive director of The AED Foundation, said in 1996 that the need was so great that a mechanic could choose anywhere in the country where he or she might want to live and find a job with high pay and security. It was estimated that as many as 6,000 additional technicians would be needed by the end of the decade. It was the first big personnel challenge The AED Foundation had to solve, and they took it on head-on. Research into why there was such a gap shed light on the causes. At schools throughout the country, not enough students were coming out with adequate skills. Vocational high schools, the training ground for technicians, found themselves teaching students the math, language and science
Distributors were banding together with educational institutions to address the industry’s acute technician shortage.
CED Magazine, October 1997
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CED Magazine, December 1998
The AED Foundation allows instructors to travel to established technician training programs to gain knowledge they can use at their own schools.
skills they had not learned in lower grades. Consequently, by the end of high school they did not have the skills potential employers needed, and therefore most of their job training happened on the job. As its first step, AED decided to write voluntary educational standards that would provide a baseline for what it wanted its entry-level technicians to know and demonstrate. All AED members were given guidelines on how they could help end the shortage. For starters, they could take the standards to their local trade or vocational schools and community colleges and help local educators assess the curriculum standards to see if they needed to be changed or upgraded. They would also spread the word among teachers and counselors about career tracks in the equipment industry. Many young people were aware of auto technology, but not construction equipment. Distributors were encouraged to send mechanics and service managers to teach in the high school programs, or invite teachers to come work on equipment in their shops or attend service training programs. By the end of 1996, The AED Foundation was sponsoring a “career academy” in a high school in Chicago,
CED Magazine, January 1997
A survey by The AED Foundation estimated that by the year 2000 the technician shortage would reach 5,000 to 6,000. The 1990s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 113
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By 1999, The AED Foundation had started to consider an industry-wide certification for technicians.
CED Magazine, January 1999
From a January 1999 article in CED Magazine that addressed ways distributors could attract, keep and motivate employees.
where students were preparing for work in construction equipment and related industries. By the end of 1997, distributors in groups or single-handedly had programs running in community colleges all across the country – in the Midwest and in Arizona, Utah, New England and Texas. They were actively involved, they sponsored tuition, they donated new equipment for the students to work on, and they recruited students into the programs themselves. The students could see the practical application of the material they were studying in the classroom, and with
CED Magazine, October 1999
High school grad Matt McPherson was delighted to receive a $1,000 scholarship from Darr Equipment in Irving, Texas, to attend the heavy diesel technology program at his local community college.
that focus, and a job waiting for them at graduation, attendance and motivation was high. By 1999, The AED Foundation had started to consider an industry-wide certification for technicians. At the end of the decade, having mastered the logistics of what it took to get a college program going, The AED Foundation turned its attention to the image problems the recruiters faced. The reality of the new equipment was that it was sophisticated electronics and hydraulics, and more often than not, you plugged a laptop into the machines, but students and counselors were still thinking of the
job as grease and wrenches. Employers needed the brightest students, capable of writing fluent reports and moving into management, and instead, counselors thought of it as something for students without academic success. The problem was greater in urban areas than in rural ones; while farm students were used to dirty work on the farm and happy to move into heavy machinery instead, urban students thought they shouldn’t “throw their lives away” on equipment maintenance. The reality was that the jobs could pay as much as those you’d get after a four-year college degree.
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AED Member Assists in Aftermath of OKC Bombing Courtesy of OCT Equipment
On April 19, 1995, a disgruntled individual drove a truck packed with explosives into the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Among the 168 people killed were 19 children. At the time, it was the worst act of homegrown terrorism on U.S. soil.
There are some earthmoving jobs that you wish hadn’t ever come into existence. Dale Vaughn, president and CEO of OCT Equipment, based in Oklahoma City, faced just such a job in 1995 when anti-government terrorists detonated a truck full of explosives downtown. “I’m sitting at my desk,” he recalls. “And I heard this vibratory thud and a loud boom. It jarred me; I was startled. My first thought was – I’m right on I-40 – so I thought it was a tire explosion on an 18-wheeler. No, it was way too loud. Maybe a gas explosion. There is an overpass embankment to the east of my building; I’m to the west of town by six or seven miles. I saw this plume of smoke going up in the air. I went up in the front. We flipped on the TV in the conference room and half the Murrah building was gone.
Courtesy of OCT Equipment
AED member OCT Equipment assisted clean-up efforts that were directed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
It was time to open up the factory floor to visiting children so Charlie Bucket could see the real deal.
The Internet Arrives Earl Harbaugh received the Founders Award in his year as AED president for his contribution to setting up The AED Foundation. The Foundation is still going strong fulfilling its mission, and Harbaugh takes pride in the role he played and The AED Foundation’s impact on the industry. Every AED past president echoes this theme: the race is tough,
but your fellow runners are excellent, and you have a chance to run with them and leave your mark. We turned to another fellow runner, 1997 AED President Travis Burch, to tell us about the latter half of the decade. “There were lots of changes going on in the ’90s,” he says. “Toby Mack, the executive VP then, did a really great job helping to expose the industry to the internet, which was just developing, and what might become of the internet in terms of ways it could disintermediate distributors. Toby was very thoughtful and ahead of his time in bringing that to the industry.”
“My wife had just put my daughter, two months, down for a nap. She thought someone had run through the wall in front of the house. Our house is about 10 miles from downtown, but the percussion was so strong you felt it 70 miles to the north. I had a friend whose friend was pregnant at the time, and she worked right across the street from the Murrah building. She had just turned to pick up a piece of paper, which probably saved her and the baby’s life. Glass hit her in the back. I lost a golf course buddy in the explosion ... everybody knows somebody who was affected. “We sent equipment down and our sales guys operated the equipment, directed by FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] and the fire department. And of course there were bodies. You just don’t forget something like that. The memorial is a very solemn place. There are still a lot of souls in that spot.”
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AED archives
AED celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1994. Among those happy to honor the occasion were (from left to right) staff members Mike McGinty and Tom Schelewitz, 1993 President Bernard J. Faloney, CEO Toby Mack and staffer Marcia Arger.
Therefore, thanks to Toby Mack and others, AED was well ahead of the curve when it came to the adoption of the new digital landscape. They carried the membership with them and built websites for those that were interested, even providing the server space. AED resources, bulletins and publications moved online. By 1998, the Association ran a database of used construction equipment, free for all AED members, where one could search for any piece of equipment by manufacturer, type, age, geographic location, or any other characteristic, and get the contact information of the relevant distributor. AED had been putting together these resources for members for decades, but the internet, of course, revolutionized their accessibility. “It was also the time that the growth of the public rental companies came along,” Burch says. Public money flowed into the industry in the mid-’90s thanks to initial public offerings by large rental companies like Hertz, Prime, US Rental, United Rental and others. Small operations could no longer compete; the game was now capital-intensive with few economies of scale. To add to distributors’ chagrin, manufacturers were selling directly to the big rental companies. Everything seemed to be changing so fast – websites were the way of the future. Already, large numbers of customer inquiries came over the internet. “It was a big change,” Burch says. “Distributors having to load up their balance sheets
with rental inventory was a big change. Many distributors were relatively slow to adopt. Rental is a good market, but it does stay on your balance sheet for a longer period of time.” There was no doubt that every year and every decade brought new obstacles to contend with. But like other AED distributors, Burch loved the industry and his years in it. “I made a lot of really good friendships with people I admire. I learned a lot about business. It was very challenging but very gratifying to grow a business that my dad had started. From time to time I will ride by a job site and see some pieces of equipment that have our old decal on them. There is pride. We had an impact. We helped contractors make money.” These are the stories of many of the men of AED. Beyond the equipment, they are passionate about an industry that, in Harbaugh’s words, is the bedrock of this country. They are committed to free enterprise, entrepreneurship, job creation, and to every person’s livelihood. They are proud of the bricks each one laid in turn on the infrastructure that was built over the last century. It is uplifting to remember that behind every road, building, landmark and utility structure, there was a group of individuals who comprised a hardworking crew that made it all happen.
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CED Magazine, November 1990
CED Magazine, March 1986
Hassle-free computer systems were designed specifically for equipment dealers.
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CED Magazine, May 1986
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1990 John W. Burress III J.W. Burress Inc. Roanoke, Va. 1991 Earl K. Harbaugh Ditch Witch of Illinois/Wisconsin Carol Stream, Ill.
1992 H.B. Hayden Jr. Metroquip Plymouth, Minn.
1993 Bernard J. Faloney Contractors Machinery & Equipment Burlington, Ont. 1994 Jay Paradis Brandeis Machinery & Supply Louisville, Ky. 1995 J. William Pullen Whayne Supply Co. Louisville, Ky. 1996 Robert O. Mullins ROMCO Equipment Co. Dallas, Texas 1997 W. Travis Burch Burch-Lowe Inc. Mableton, Ga. 1998 Alvin Richer Arnold Machinery Co. Salt Lake City, Utah 1999 Robert Henderson Cummins Interstate Power Hilliard, Ohio
CANADIAN PAST PRESIDENTS 1991-1992 - J.A. Crawford Strong Equipment Co. Woodbridge, Ont. 1992-1993 - J. Rumble Transwest Dynequip Port Coquitlam, B.C. 1993-1994 - C. Belanger Equipements Sigma Inc. Chicoutimi, P.Q. 1994-1995 - Ron Willox Toromont Industries Ltd. Concord, Ont. 1995-1996 - Peter Pardee Brandt Tractor Ltd. Edmonton, Alb. 1996-1997 - Richmond Hoyle Cummins Ontario, Inc. Mississauga, Ont. 1997-1998 - Neil Manning Wajax Income Fund Mississauga, Ont. 1998-1999 - Claude Moreau R.P.M. Tech, Inc. Pointe Claire, P.Q. 1999-2001 - Tim Kramer Kramer Ltd. Regina, Sask.
THE AED FOUNDATION PAST PRESIDENTS 1991-1994 - Lester Heath Albany Ladder Company Co., Inc. Albany, N.Y. 1995-1996 - John Corcoran Sutton Diamond Tool Candia, N.H. 1997-1998 - Earl K. Harbaugh Ditch Witch of Illinois/Wisconsin Carol Stream, Ill.
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4Rivers Equipment is proud to be working with the Associated Equipment Distributors to make a dierence in our industry!
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Happy 100 Anniversary AED th
THROUGHOUT OUR 46 YEAR HISTORY, WE’VE WATCHED AED’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO DEALERS GROW. WE’RE PROUD TO BE A PART OF IT.
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AED: 100 YEARS
The 2000s
This great photo of AED dignitaries includes (from left) 2004 AED President Dale Vaughn, Executive Vice President Toby Mack, 2001 AED President John Zoubek, Washington counsel Tony Obadal, 2002 AED President Bob McNutt and 2003 AED President Thomas Wilson.
AED archives
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The 2000s:
The Start of the New Millennium Defined By 9/11, Consolidation and A Wretched Recession
T
he earthmoving equipment rolled slowly toward Lower Manhattan. They had a police escort to make sure they got to their destination without being halted. Two of the tallest buildings in the world lay fallen on the ground, a pile of steel, glass, dirt and rubble, thousands of people crushed in their remains. All one could do now was pick up the pieces and look underneath. And every man and woman in the country was ready to help. It was September 11, 2001, the now-familiar date of the worst terrorist attack on American soil. “I was in the doctor’s office,” says John Zoubek, 2001 AED president. “They had a
television there and I was looking up and I saw the second plane hit.” AED directors knew what to do as they watched the unraveling. Equipment had to reach the World Trade Center site in New York, as well as the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Dealers and manufacturers tore up the phone lines and got excavators, trucks, wheel loaders, backhoe loaders, telescopic handlers and more moving to the disaster zones. Zoubek had four children working in New York City. Cell phone service was spotty. All transport had been shut down; there was no
AED IN THE 2000s 2000
The AED Foundation, CIMA (Construction Industry Manufacturers Association) and AGC (Associated General Contractors) create constructmyfuture.com, a website to attract teenagers to the construction equipment industry. AED initiates many e-learning and e-commerce ventures online. The AED website attracts 36,000 unique visitors every month.
2002
AED accomplishes a key legislative objective: increasing depreciation incentives on new equipment purchases. This is expected to stimulate significant construction equipment spending. The AED Foundation introduces “Self-Study for Management Excellence,” an online program on AED University to address the needs of dealership branch managers.
2001
CAED does its first cost-of-business survey. The AED website undergoes a facelift to ease navigation and make information more accessible. The Road Information Program (TRIP) teams up with AED and other construction industry groups to lay the foundation for additional funding for the nation’s highways. Terrorists attack the World Trade Center towers in New York City.
2004
AED launches AEDemploymentcenter.com — a new online employment center designed to help dealers evaluate prospective job candidates. The Association runs a series of ads designed to advocate the value of independent factory-authorized dealers.
2003
For the first time ever, AED’s annual meeting features four separate programming tracks: sales, rental, parts and service managers. An industry roundtable conference this year says that the future of equipment distribution lies in leveraging capital, intellectual capital and relationships to be proactive instead of reactive.
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way to get out of the city. Somehow they all found each other, and got together at a bar. Thousands of firms were involved in the immediate rescue and recovery. “Our engine people were involved with the New York Police Department right off the bat to supply them with light towers,” said Dennis Romanson, general sales manager at H.O. Penn Machinery in Poughkeepsie, New York. “We had our own command center a few blocks away, servicing equipment around the clock, manning generators to supply power.” “I sent out a call to truckers and 25 independent truckers showed up with lowboys,” said Barry Heffernan, sales manager at Hoffman Equipment, Piscataway, New Jersey. “I got phone calls from contractors wanting to offer their equipment. We had some landscaping customers offering equipment operators. We also responded with our service trucks and dealership staff.” Eventually, four large construction firms were hired by New York City’s Office of Emergency Management based on their ability to mobilize equipment quickly and absorb initial
CED Magazine, January 2000
In its January 2000 issue, CED Magazine offered a sneak preview of exhibitors who would be attending CONDEX in Chicago.
2008
2006
AED creates a position titled “director of membership development.” Membership surpasses 1,000 this year.
2005
AED develops guidance for members about legal issues surrounding contracts. AED President Toby Mack announces the formation of the Construction Equipment Distribution Industry Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund. A highway bill is signed into law authorizing funding for highways and transit.
2007
The AED Foundation launches a new workforce development initiative, Vision 2012, to repopulate the industry’s dwindling technician workforce with 1,200 well-trained techs who graduate each year from accredited and affiliated schools. The AED Foundation/Ritchie Bros. first annual auction raises more than $40,000 for community-based programs that will help build the workforce. Contractors enter the rental business, creating new competition.
A product support roundtable conference discusses the technician shortage and says that inefficiencies within service departments are equally to blame for backups, not just a lack of technicians. The rental market continues to grow, and AED continues to publish research and interviews to help dealers improve rental operations.
2009
The financial recession causes decreased sales and sales margins this year. Many sectors slow down as financing is hard to get. AED’s Government Affairs Conference has a record 50 attendees. The AED board votes to double the Association’s government affairs budget.
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CED Magazine, February 2000
Customers gave distributors high marks on the CIT Group/Equipment Financing’s 2000 Construction Industry Forecast. In fact, many said there was nothing for distributors to improve on or change.
costs without pay. They knew how to do the physical part of the job, that is, move debris and clean up the site. But nobody was prepared for the emotional toll of a million tons of wreckage, of what used to be a buzzing economic center, gutted. “It was horrible and everybody here knew somebody that died,” Zoubek said. “Through the rest of 2001, projects were delayed and put on hold.”
With A Little Help From My Friends
CED Magazine, June 2000
Reviewing AED’s legislative agenda ahead of its annual trip to the hill are (from left) Executive Vice President Toby Mack, Senior Vice President John Zoubek, President Chris MacAllister and Washington counsel Tony Obadal.
People picked themselves up and tried to keep pressing on. It was an ominous beginning to the start of the new millennium. But the pace of change was as frenetic as ever. Consolidation of dealers and manufacturers continued into this decade, and for Robert C. McNutt, 2002 AED president, that was something to contend with in his business. “Our manufacturers were always being acquired, and all of that change was our biggest challenge,” he says. “And selling our loyalty to our customers, since we were constantly changing who we represented. “We used to sell quite a few front-end loaders to the largest asphalt contractor
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A Hearty Salute to
Paul D. ‘Bud’ Hermann
P.D. “Bud” Hermann
AED archives
AED history is full of dedicated men who have served the Association for years and years. The man who takes the cake in this category, however, is one Paul David “Bud” Hermann. Hermann, who passed away in 2005, served AED for an incredible 41 years (1948-1989). Hermann started his career at AED as an editor for Construction Equipment News, and he was hired by the Association founder Mort Hunter. In just two years, by 1950, he was already executive director and vice president, and he continued in that role for the next 39 years. “Bud Hermann was a very astute manager,” said 1972 AED President P.E. MacAllister, an AED stalwart in his own right. “I thought very highly of him and he always worked his buns off. I loved the guy. He certainly made a mark in that era and helped a lot of dealers.” MacAllister recalls his favorite of Hermann’s many strengths. In coordinating tasks among volunteer board members, he could always gauge
how much support the volunteers would need from the professional staff. With this judgment, he funneled rigorous work to those who would get it done, and “harmless chores” to the underachievers. He was not pointed with the assignments; he was gregarious and friendly and well-liked. He just kept an eye on what had to be done and who could do it, ensuring that the AED machine rolled forward smoothly. It’s no wonder that Hermann was president of the American Society of Association Executives and winner of their highest level of recognition, the Key Award. The award is given to the best association executive in the country. He was also AED’s link to the national Chamber of Commerce, as he was on their board of directors as well. It goes without saying that there are many AED members who remember and treasure the lessons they learned from Bud Hermann. In that legacy, Hermann lives on.
in the state. The owner was a longtime friend of mine. Having their trust in us was our biggest challenge because we were changing product lines so often. My friend and customer, Bob Thompson, didn’t know what I was trying to sell him some days. He said, ‘Bob, I never know what the hell it is you’re wanting me to buy.’ We ended up representing just about every manufacturer in this industry other than Cat and John Deere,” McNutt says, “and I came very close with both of them.” But the human element was rock solid in McNutt’s business, and it carried the company through all the flux. There was good communication and camaraderie between employees and with customers. Trust flowed through those relationships. “My dad started the business based on individual recognition of honesty, hard work and good salesmanship,” McNutt says. “We had some wonderful employees and we lost very few. We had many employees who never worked anywhere else, both salesmen and mechanics, for
CED Magazine, February 2000
This CED Magazine article advised readers that consolidation in the rental marketplace was here to stay.
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Efforts by AED and The Road Information Program (TRIP) led to a 40 percent increase in federal funding for surface transportation.
CED Magazine, January 2000
the rest of their lives. Particularly salesmen, many of whom worked for us for almost 43 years. We were a family business, really. Everybody got to know everybody really well. There wasn’t competition between our salesmen; they all worked really well together. As a result, relationships with our customers were good enough to survive all the change.” But by the 2000s, McNutt and his partner, Wayne Simon, could feel that it was coming to an end. “We knew at some point we would have to wrap it up,” McNutt says. “Those last six or seven years were the toughest we had.” Their sons were in the business too, and the elder men told their sons that if they saw an opportunity somewhere else, they should take it. In 2006 they sold the business to Volvo, and the company became a manufacturer-owned dealership. Volvo kept the name of the dealership, but it didn’t last much longer. Around the corner was the 2008 financial recession, and Volvo closed the business. “That hurt,” McNutt says.
Survival of the Fittest CED Magazine, March 2002
2002 AED President Bob McNutt laughs about backing the company truck into a telephone pole when he worked for his dad in high school.
As the recession caused every sector in the economy to pull back, cut plans, and close stores, offices and plants, distributors watched demand shrink and dry up. Some, like
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CED Magazine, November 2001
Diane Benck of West Side Tractor Sales enjoys a laugh with John Anderson of PFW/CDK at the 2001 Executive Forum.
CED Magazine, August 2000
The 2000 Regional Summary from Associated Construction Publications said that construction activity around the nation showed no signs of slowing down.
McNutt, got out. Others didn’t have that choice and had to figure out how to stay alive. Zoubek was one of those. “One of the components of our survival was our diversity,” he says. “We didn’t have all our eggs in one or two baskets.”
CED Magazine, February 2006
Among the record number of first-time exhibitors at CONDEX 2006 were a software developer and a company that specialized in safety products.
Dale Vaughn, 2004 AED president, was another one who made it. He talks about what it was like when the recession hit. “Business dropped off 50 percent in a oneyear period in 2009. We started battening the hatches and getting austere in our operations. We didn’t lay anybody off, but we didn’t replace those who faded into the sunset. It was a miserable couple of years, but we survived. We’ve never gotten back to where we were, because the market has changed. There is more competition.” After the recession, Vaughn says, “a lot of the oldtime contractors went out of business or just cashed out. The people that have taken their place are a new generation. They do business a little bit differently.” The key, he says, is to learn to adapt and move with the times. Throughout the decade, AED stayed committed to helping distributors do just that. For starters,
CED Magazine, February 2005
This 1040 IronWolf crusher was among the impressive equipment exhibited at CONDEX 2005.
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CED Magazine, November 2004
The Gradall material handler has a 7,000-pound capacity at its 45-foot maximum height. The typical replacement cycle for such handlers is 5.1 years.
you had to know and understand your environment. The Association started AEDnews.com, a daily newsletter with the top industry stories. AED Advantage was a subscription website that took the daily newsletter to the next level, with not just industry news but also expert advice and online networking. The AED Foundation knew that dealers wanted to provide training but didn’t want to lose their employees’ valuable time in the office, so it started AED University (AEDU) for online learning. AEDU invested in a learning management system: software that allowed dealerships to coordinate and track their employees’ learning experiences online. The Foundation became an official provider of continuing education units (CEUs) for courses that met the International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET) standards. One hundred companies with over 500 locations in North America signed The AED Foundation’s “Commitment to Knowledge” pledge, which encouraged continuous learning for all employees. E-commerce was picking up, and AED partnered with TradeYard Inc. on tradeyard.com – the first certified
CED Magazine, July 2000
This mini-skid-steer loader, made by Ramrod Equipment, can lift up to 900 pounds. The model here features a rotary angle broom attachment.
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Congress voted on industry issues, and pushed members to help elect progrowth candidates. In an editorial in Construction Equipment Distribution in 2001, Zoubek said, “For the past three years I’ve attended AED’s Governmental Affairs Committee/Capitol Club Conference in Washington D.C. For two days, congressmen and senators shared their positions on the issues that matter to our members. We discussed the federal gas tax, death tax, product liability, highway and airport funding, and water infrastructure funding. What struck me was the personal relationship that many AED members had with their representatives. They had developed the relationships back home that enabled them to deliver AED’s agenda for our industry to receptive ears. “Do not underestimate the power of the phone calls, letters and emails that we distributors and manufacturers send to our local representatives. There is strength in numbers.” To the north, inspection program for the online sale of used construction equipment. But profit margins on equipment sales were shrinking continuously. Profit margins on labor were still far more generous, and there was money to be made in product support. AED began to steer distributors toward the business of supporting construction equipment. But through it all, the Association maintained its firm commitment to doing everything it could to keep the industry growing. AED kept a close eye on infrastructure-funding legislation, maintained aggressive political agendas, and encouraged members to stay active and participate by calling their representatives. The Association provided the research and information to make this easy for its members. For example, AED relayed how every representative in
CED Magazine, February 2003
No one complained about the weather at AED’s 84th Annual Meeting in sunny San Diego. Attendees were able to view many current construction projects during the week. The bottom photo features the father-son team of B.C. (left) and Brian O’Toole of Schuster Construction Services in Oak Park, Michigan.
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CED Magazine, February 2006
Left: Universal Underwriters had been a Zurich company for 25 years, but changed its name to Zurich in 2007. This article in CED Magazine mentioned that the company is known for being a high-quality insurance carrier with outstanding customer service.
CED Magazine, August 2007
Above: Attendees are on the lookout for new products and services, and a few familiar faces, as they navigate the floor at CONDEX 2006.
CAED took inspiration from AED’s presence in Washington, D.C., and in the early 2000s, for the first time, CAED members met with top politicians and bureaucrats in Canada. A quick look at the agenda for AED’s Executive Forum in 2008 tells you that things remained challenging. The Executive Forum was an analysis and strategy meeting for principals, owners, general managers and all C-level management. In 2008, they were going to plan for how to combat the mixture of all the headwinds that had come together – the economy, the credit crunch, uncertainty about the election and taxes, the housing downturn, the global construction market, labor shortages, fuel prices, steel prices, emissions deadlines and more. Of course, the challenges and the economic climate were always changing, but does the scene sound familiar? As Vaughn said, “In reality, you wake up and you go to work and it’s like Groundhog Day and you do it all over again the next day. I guess this is what I do.”
CED Magazine, February 2007
2007 AED Chairman Les Bebchick (left) was sworn in at the Annual Meeting; actor Ben Stein presented the keynote address. 130 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | January 2019 | cedmag.com | The 2000s
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Photo credit
AED President Bob McNutt and Joe Vrablik, vice president of Cummins Rocky Mountain, are pleased to be having lunch with Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) as part of AED’s annual Government Affairs Committee meeting in Washington, D.C.
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AED archives
AED President and CEO Brian P. McGuire on stage at 2018 Summit.
Summit Has Unique History of its Own On February 27, 1939, a group of AED members boarded a train in Chicago and headed to the Annual Meeting – in San Francisco. My, how times have changed. It’s safe to say most AED members fly to Summit these days. But one truth remains unchanged: The Annual Meeting is still the highlight of the year. One could certainly make a case for the fact that the first-ever AED meeting on January 27, 1920, was the first “Summit,” since AED members have been gathering annually ever since. For the record, Summit became the official name at the 2010 event in San Antonio. In the beginning, the Annual Meeting was solely for distributors, with a focus on best practices. Then in the 1940s, manufacturers were invited to attend as well. In the 1950s, a “Meet Your Manufacturer” session was introduced, and distributor/manufacturer sessions have been held ever since. Manufacturers took their involvement to another level in 1957 with the introduction of CONDEX. It was deemed “a big hit” and of course continues to this day. In the earlier days of the Annual Meeting, larger educational sessions were the norm, and there were very few smaller sessions, according to 1971 AED President Fred Berry. “The sessions were initially targeted toward upper management, but eventually they were geared for middle management staff members as well,” Berry said. “Also, with the advent of The AED Foundation, the educational content at Summit has expanded a great deal.” Another interesting program change to note – from the ’50s to the
’80s, the ladies’ program was a pretty big component of the Annual Meeting. But as more women entered the workplace, the program was scaled back. In more recent history, Summit went through a challenging period. Not long after AED President and CEO Brian McGuire came on board, he fielded complaints from exhibitors, distributors and sponsors. True to form, the Association kicked it into a higher gear. It brought in an outside meeting planner who worked with AED staff to bring a heavier educational focus to the event. Jon Cruthers, vice president of sales, had extensive experience as an exhibitor, so he was brought on to ensure that exhibitors’ needs would be met. The Association also invested in breakout sessions, went after top-shelf keynote speakers and added The AED Foundation Fundraising Gala, which raised a record-breaking $100,000 in 2018. So what does Summit look like today? Attendees can choose from a variety of 40+ education sessions covering leadership, management, rental issues, product support, sales and technology, with the possibility of participating in 11 hours of education. More than 150 companies exhibit their products and services, and more than 60 hospitality suites and meeting rooms participate each year. “We listened to our customers and improved the overall experience for attendees, exhibitors and sponsors,” McGuire said. “It has been a true team effort and the team knows we must continue to adapt and improve the Summit experience for our members.”
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2000 Chris MacAllister MacAllister Machinery Indianapolis, Ind. 2001 John A. Zoubek Zoubek Associates Inc., a div. of A.H. Harris & Sons Inc. Parlin, N.J. 2002 Robert C. McNutt Wolverine Tractor & Equipment Co. Southfield, Mich. 2003 Thomas Wilson United Equipment Memphis, Tenn. 2004 R. Dale Vaughn OCT Equipment Inc. Oklahoma City, Okla. 2005 Walter Berry Berry Companies Wichita, Kan. 2006 Dale Leppo LeppoRents/Bobcat of Akron Tallmadge, Ohio 2007 Les L. Bebchick Equipment & Systems for Industry Hopkinton, Mass. 2008 Paul W. Campbell Wheeler Machinery Co. Salt Lake City, Utah 2009 G. Bennett Closner Closner Equipment Co., Inc. Schertz, Texas
CANADIAN PAST PRESIDENTS 2001-2003 - Jim Burns Wajax Industries Raleigh, NC 2003-2004 - Brian Taschuk Rocky Mountain Dealerships Inc. Calgary, Alb. 2004-2006 - Ken Nordstrom Finning Canada Edmonton, Alb. 2006-2008 - Pierre Bernard R.P.M. Tech, Inc. Laval, P.Q. 2008-2010 - Michael Christodoulou Cummins Eastern Canada L.P. Pointe Claire, P.Q. THE AED FOUNDATION PAST PRESIDENTS 1999-2000 - Jay Paradis Brandeis Machinery & Supply Louisville, Ky. 2001 - Fred F. Berry Jr. Berry Companies Wichita, Kan. 2002-2003 - Robert K. Henderson Cummins Interstate Power Hilliard, Ohio 2004 - J. William Pullen Whayne Supply Co. Louisville, Ky. 2005 - Chris MacAllister MacAllister Machinery Indianapolis, Ind. 2006-2007 - Don Shilling General Equipment & Supplies Fargo, N.D. 2008-2009 - R. Dale Vaughn OCT Equipment Inc. Oklahoma City, Okla. The 2000s | cedmag.com | January 2019 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 133
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CONGRATULATIONS AND THANK YOU AED FOR 100 YEARS OF SERVICE TO YOUR MEMBERS.
Your advocacy for the construction industry is crucial to our success.
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AED: 100 YEARS
The 2010s
Mark Romer (center), president of James River Equipment LLC of Ashland, Virginia, and Tim Hollins (left) are delighted to welcome U.S. Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) to their shop. AED archives
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The 2010s:
AED Builds on Successes Established Over A Century: Education, Advocacy, Solid Camaraderie Within The Industry June 2018
CED
Construction Equipment Distribution Published by AED: Business Fuel for a More Profitable Dealership
Advocating for the Workforce
Special AED Foundation Workforce Development Issue
n Funding Woes
Federal and state funding declines and stalls; CTE educators work to bridge skills gap
n Introducing...
The AED Foundation Road Show
CED 0618.indd 1
n A Closer Look Visibility Software’s foresight paves the way to success
5/25/18 1:01 PM
2
015 AED Chairman Don Shilling declares that AED has made it from the horse and buggy to the Star Wars era. “We sell and service equipment that is out of ‘Star Wars’ compared to when we first got in the business,” he said. He’s right about that. From industrialization to the internet, the 20th century saw technology change the world so radically that today’s world would be completely alien to the bicycle-riding public where our story began. Now that we are in the 2010s, all the machines have telematics devices – wireless devices that transmit data – built into them,
and managers are monitoring machine location, usage, maintenance schedules and more on their smartphones. As Wi-Fi becomes available in more and more areas, this is often in real time, and various apps examine data trends and send alerts if something is off. The latest buzz is around 3D printers and what their impact will be on construction equipment. In this environment, the people who work on equipment have to have technical skills that match their mechanical prowess. The fact that there are not enough technicians has been a continuous problem for the industry for several decades now. “It started when technical/vocational
AED IN THE 2010s 2010
AED and CAED integrate their operations under AED management. CAED’s Ottawa office is officially closed. AED launches a Facebook page. Industry-wide losses after the recession are estimated to be $475 million over the last year. AED starts an initiative aimed at getting lawmakers to commit to prioritizing infrastructure investment.
2011
2014 2012
AED’s Dealer 20 Performance Group Program helps distributors find answers to their challenges via peer learning.
Tax issues are the highest priority for Canadian members. Balancing the federal budget is the highest U.S. priority. An AED survey shows that commercial, residential and road construction have the biggest market impact on members. The rental market is expected to drive growth.
Brian P. McGuire joins AED as president and CEO. High-Profit Dealer Groups is created; noncompeting dealers will exchange best practices. Dr. Ben Carson speaks at Summit. The construction industry begins to recover after the recession, and optimism runs high. AED establishes an HR Help Desk and a legal hotline. The AED President’s Manufacturer Advisory Council is created.
2013
AED surveys its U.S. members to discover what their tax reform priorities are. In D.C., AED joins the steering committee of a new coalition called the Coalition for Fair Effective Tax Rates.
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AED archives
Students are eager to learn the trade at the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Agriculture & Technology in Cobleskill, New York.
2016
Former President George W. Bush is comfortable and candid in remarks and a Q&A session at Summit. An AED Foundation study reveals that the skilled worker shortage costs the industry billions each year. Twenty-four construction industry groups sign a letter urging Congress to make career technical education a top policy priority.
2015
Several students from AED-accredited schools win medals in the Diesel Equipment Technology competition at the SkillsUSA Championship event, a national-level competition for students in technical education. AED CFO Jason Blake creates a financial special interest group to convene every quarter. The AED Foundation celebrates its 25th anniversary.
2017
2018
The AED Foundation Fundraising Gala raises a record-breaking $100,000 in donations. Canada’s Defense Minister announces a major equipment recapitalization for Canada’s military. Diane Benck is AED’s first chairwoman. AED hosts a Women in Construction Equipment Roundtable. AED has 770 members. CED Magazine wins a back-to-back APEX Award for Publication Excellence and a 2018 Gold MarCom award for Print Media, Publications and Industry/Trade Magazine.
The Foundation introduces a revamped Dealer Learning Center with web-based self-study courses and on-demand and live webinar events. AED launches a Letter to the Editor program wherein letters are sent to daily newspapers to highlight critical local infrastructure issues. The aim is to encourage elected officials to support infrastructure legislation. CED Magazine wins 2017 APEX Award for Publication Excellence. This is the publication’s first award in 83 years of production.
2019
AED celebrates its 100-year anniversary.
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CAED and AED Join Forces in 2010
Right from the start, CAED and AED hit it off famously. In fact, when CAED was founded in 1943, one of the requirements of CAED membership was that you also had to be a member of AED. AED Executive Secretary Carol Winchester attended CAED’s founding meeting and outlined the benefits of membership in the American Association. The friendship that Winchester extended at that first meeting has continued through the years. “We would send officers to their meetings, and they would send officers to ours,” said 1971 AED President Fred Berry. “We loved the Canadians and they loved us.” Over time, both associations shared experiences across the border. Good times when the economy was booming, thorny times when it wasn’t. Difficulties in working with government regulators and legislators. Challenges with finding enough technicians. And finally, navigating a new industry landscape with the advent of rentals and consolidation. Consolidation was exceptionally challenging in Canada because the country covers four and a half time zones and 10 unique provinces. So ultimately, after 67 years as a standalone association, CAED decided to integrate with AED in 2010. Under the arrangement, administrative functions, member services and management of Canadian-focused events are now handled at AED’s headquarters. “The integration is good for CAED and will provide Canadian members with a value proposition we have not had in the past,” said Mike Christodoulou, chairman of CAED at the time and a member of AED’s executive committee. “AED will increase its focus on the Canada membership whereby Canadian members will see an improvement in support and services.” Toby Mack, who was AED president and CEO at the time, echoed Christodoulou’s positive sentiments. “The AED board embraced this integration as an opportunity to become a stronger and more diverse association, and the AED staff welcomes the opportunity to serve Canadian members’ business needs with a very targeted emphasis.” There are a couple of milestones in the relationship that are worth noting: In 1993, Canadian Bernard Foley, chairman and CEO of Contractors Machinery & Equipment, was the first CAED member to be an AED president. In 1994, Lucille M. Johnstone received an AED Founders Award, becoming the first Canadian and the first woman to do so. She was the first woman to serve as a director and officer of both organizations. She had headed several substantially sized companies in Canada. In 2014, AED hosted its first public policy conference in Canada. The aim of the Ottawa Briefing was to strengthen the network of Canadian dealers and make their voice better heard on Parliament Hill. And this year, Canadian AED members joined AED’s executive team for the most successful briefings in Canada to date. The event’s reception was attended by the largest number of parliamentary members in history. Although the nature of the relationship has changed over the years, the partnership between American and Canadian distributors is as strong as ever. “These distributors are members of one organization that is working for a stronger North American construction equipment industry,” said President and CEO Brian McGuire. “AED plays an important role in public policy in both countries. Our Association is also one of only a handful of organizations that can address issues that affect both countries from a North American perspective, and this is very important when it comes to border and trade issues.” It’s safe to say we can expect good things from this partnership for many years to come.
programs were taken out of high schools,” says current AED President and CEO Brian P. McGuire. “That probably wasn’t a smart move for our economy, putting that into practice. It took 30 years to get into this situation, and we are not going to be able to fix it in three years. It’s a huge challenge, compounded by the fact that our members are fighting for the same workers that our manufacturers and even our customers are fighting for.” AED continues to plug away at the problem in both the U.S. and Canada. (In 2010, the Canadian AED integrated its operations into the AED headquarters in the U.S.) In 2011, the local AED groups from Ontario and British Columbia won the AED Founders Award for their work in recruiting young people into the construction industry. In one year, the Ontario chapter attended seven conferences and 35 trade shows. It also gave 265 presentations, visited 100 schools and directly reached out to 12,813 youth. The AED Foundation, the main umbrella under which AED runs most of its educational programs for workforce development, celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2015. By that time, it had accredited 40 diesel technology programs across the country, and a dozen more were in process. The AED Foundation had also developed national standards for technician programs to ensure that new techs entering the industry had the skills and knowledge that made them valuable to employers. In addition to teaching newcomers, continuous learning for everyone in the industry was always on the agenda, and many AED members attest to its value. “Their educational programs were outstanding. You could learn how to negotiate, how to sell, how to operate a parts department. They avail you of all the information on the proper ways to do business and be successful in the industry. Outside experts would come in and speak,” said Gilbert Gaedcke, 1984 AED president. 2002 AED President Robert McNutt echoes Gaedcke’s sentiments. “I think AED has had a major impact on the
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AED archives
AED President and CEO Brian P. McGuire (right) interviews former Vice President Dick Cheney at Summit 2017.
AED archives
The AED Foundation honors the Berks Career and Technology Center during an official recognition ceremony.
AED archives
Enjoying AED’s 2017 Washington Fly-In are (from left) John Kimball of Kimball Equipment Company, Bryan Campbell of Wheeler Machinery and former Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.).
AED archives
Baton Rouge Community College begins its accreditation process with help from AED members and representatives of The AED Foundation.
industry. AED may not feel that way sometimes. I think they have shown members the importance of – if they want to sell their products – the importance of having the right people and knowing how to do it well. Meetings and speakers AED has developed over the years have given distributors great expertise that is important to them and also to the manufacturers, in that their products are being taken care of properly.”
Public Policy of Paramount Importance As much as they stick around for the education, AED members value the Association’s political work just as much, if not more. “Our members have told us that public policy and advocacy is job No. 1, and they believe it should command half of our focus and resources,” said Toby Mack, who was president and CEO of AED for 24 years (1989-2013). So in 2011, Mack opened a new Washington, D.C., office for AED and split his time between Chicago and D.C. “I think the smartest thing that AED did was to set up an office in Washington,” said John Zoubek, 2001 AED president, “and to have an attorney there that represented our interests. We had a Washington Fly-In every spring and we would set up meetings with our congressmen, senators, whoever we could. We also had some of them come to our meeting there to talk about issues that affected the industry. That was an important
part of what AED did. It afforded all of us the opportunity to go down and make our voices heard.” 2015 was one of the most successful years in the history of AED’s government affairs program. The Association played a leading role in achieving some key legislative victories: a fully funded five-year highway bill, important tax and financial legislation, and lifting the ban on crude oil exports. Hundreds of billions of dollars that were secured in federal highway and transit investment are expected to stimulate more than $13 billion in equipment sales, rental and maintenance activity. This activity will also support more than 4,000 distributor jobs each year. AED was recognized in the D.C. publication “The Hill” as one of the most influential groups involved in passing the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act. There were victories to celebrate in Canada too. In 2018, the Association had one of its most successful briefings in Canada to date. A reception on Parliament Hill was followed by a full day of informative panel discussions on issues affecting the day-today operations of distributors. The reception was attended by the largest number of members of Parliament ever to attend an AED briefing. Marc Miller, the Parliamentary Secretary (Junior Minister) to the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities, spoke on the continued investment the federal government was making in infrastructure spending. The 2010s | cedmag.com | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 139
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McGuire at the Helm Since 2014 Brian P. McGuire has come a long way since his days as a volunteer firefighter and captain of a Chicago-area crew of 12, but those 20 years of his life certainly played a role in building the kind of leader he is today. A man of action who is both service-minded and team-oriented, McGuire began his role as AED’s president and CEO in January 2014. Prior to AED, McGuire served as president of the Tooling and Manufacturing Association, which recently changed its name to the Technology and Manufacturing Association. He has also previously worked as senior regional manager of Illinois and Wisconsin for the National Association of Manufacturers and has a combined total of eight years of experience working for Illinois’ State Senator Steve Rauschenberger, as
AED archives
AED President and CEO Brian P. McGuire (left) interviews former President George W. Bush during Summit 2016.
both a political consultant and chief of state. This experience has led McGuire to drive AED to the success it sees today. McGuire has worked hard to increase membership engagement through the establishment of the Association’s regional manager program and has instituted several new networking and education opportunities like AED’s Leadership Development Institute, Certified Technician
Program, on-demand learning and management seminars. One major achievement under McGuire’s leadership been bringing high-profile thought leaders and speakers to events, increasing attendance, participation and results for AED’s membership. He plans to continue this run of success to lead AED and its members to even higher results and standards.
Also in recent years, AED has continued to expand the outreach of its advocacy, according to McGuire. “One of the Association’s initiatives I’m really pleased about is that we have really ramped up our lobbying efforts outside the Beltway,” he said. “We are hosting legislators at our members’ facilities. One-on-one contact in the local community is very powerful; legislators are able to see firsthand the importance of investment in our industry.” McGuire is also tasked with keeping an eye on anything that may hamper the growth of the industry. One of his current concerns is what he calls the radical environmentalism that holds construction hostage to government permits. “There is a small vocal group in this country that believes you should get a permit to build anything,” he said. “The real issue is that a lot of infrastructure needs face permitting issues, and this ties into another challenge we face. AED archives
Jason Church (left), of Equipment Corporation of America’s Canadian branch, presents a certificate to technician Chris Horne upon achieving AED Foundation Technician Certification.
“The U.S. Congress and the American people need to figure out how they are going to pay for highway infrastructure
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investment in this country. We built the interstates with the gas tax. That hasn’t been adjusted since 1993, and today’s cars use less gas. We need to figure out how we will pay to maintain what we have and how to build it in the future.”
A Cherished Community But perhaps it is the AED community itself that is the most cherished part of the Association and its work. “Members of my family have been involved in the construction equipment distribution industry for over 100 years,” says Jay Paradis of Brandeis Machinery, one of AED’s founding companies. “My grandparents attended the first AED Annual Meeting in New York City. The industry has provided a very good place to work and a good living for my family for four generations now. But, more
AED archives
AED Executive Vice President and COO Bob Henderson (center) enjoys visiting with congressional staffer Kori Walter (left) and U.S. Rep. Ryan Costello (R-Pa.) at Eagle Power & Equipment in Montgomeryville, Pennsylvania.
AED archives
The AED Foundation is proud to partner with Heroes MAKE America to help place transitioning veterans in jobs in the construction equipment industry. The 2010s | cedmag.com | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 141
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importantly, the people involved in the industry have been great to associate with. The co-workers and competitors with whom I worked and competed were and are some of the finest people on the planet. It has been an honor to work with and compete against them.” Mike Paradis, who runs Brandeis today, says, “I think it’s a testament to our industry and our company that we see a lot of family in the business. We have a lot of multigenerational employees as well. We have some people working side by side with their father. It’s a unique industry. People that are drawn to it love it and never leave. It’s a neat fraternity.”
Mike himself, like many AED members, grew up in the industry. “As a kid growing up, my father would bring me up to the office on the weekends and I would roam through the warehouse and climb around on equipment. It was a different time. I’m one of four boys. He would split up the responsibility for the weekend. Get a couple of us out of the house.” Many AED members have fond childhood memories of playing on tractors and other construction equipment. As they got older, the responsibilities grew. In his early teens, Zoubek helped to count inventory at his father’s business. Once they were young
men, they could attend Association events and find the boost they needed. “Young people like me, 26 years old, it was invaluable to meet people in the business,” Gaedcke says. “I got to be friendly with a lot of people there and I learned a great deal. I was just a peanut on the street here.” 1997 AED President Travis Burch agrees that AED has excelled at mentoring youngsters. “AED has done a really good job of creating opportunities for the next generation of family businesses. It has taught younger members of management to grow and learn, and to become more effective and valuable members of the management team,” he said.
Four Staff Members Boast Martin Cabral: 1996
Sandy Brassel: 2000
The employee with the best bragging rights is Production Manager Martin Cabral, who has been with AED for 22 years. Cabral has a hand in almost everything the Association does, but his primary focus is publications, including CED. He has extensive experience in design, printing, desktop publishing, and postal rules and regulations.
Just a few years behind Cabral in terms of AED longevity is Executive Assistant/Meeting Planner Sandy Brassel, who is closing in on 19 years with the Association. Like Cabral, Brassel has been involved in almost every department at AED, including the presidency, accounting, The AED Foundation and CONDEX.
Through Cabral’s education, he knew that he wanted to work in production management. He enjoys working on projects from beginning to end and is fond of having a role that involves various aspects of the Association. “The construction equipment industry is very personal and close-knit. Sure, there are competitors, but when they’re networking, they’re going to be friends first. I enjoy seeing these types of interactions take place during our annual conference, which this February will mark my 23rd Summit. Members and board members thank me for my hard work and ask to see pictures of my son as well.” It’s this type of reassurance that makes Cabral enjoy his job. He also has immense pride in the work AED members do. “It’s a great feeling to be part of this industry because we are rebuilding America,” he says. “I feel proud when I see our equipment working at construction sites. I feel like I’m part of the reason that road is being fixed.”
Brassel is proud of the industry’s long history, and in particular the work done by various AED committees. “This is one of the most important components and why we are still around,” she says. “Our industry is constantly changing, and our committees bring members together to discuss what worked in the past and what will work in the future. “AED provides services that our members wouldn’t be able to do on their own. There is no other trade organization for construction equipment distributors in the industry like us.” Brassel enjoys the travel that comes with the job and working with all the friendly people in the industry. “My job is always different, so I’ve never felt stagnant,” she says. “AED is a great place to work. They always say the grass is greener on the other side, but I’m not trying to find out.”
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“It was a training process for young executives, people like me learning the business, key people in management who were under 50,” said Dale Vaughn, 2004 AED president. “Every summer they had a meeting at a nice venue. That would be my vacation – meetings in the day, beach in the afternoon. Every year it was the same people that would come to these venues. “Walter Berry in Wichita. Dale Leppo or Zoubek. It’s almost fraternal because of some of the friends you make. I went to Zoubek’s daughter’s wedding. I’ve been to another’s farm and fishing cabin. Then our wives became friends too, and
that can be a driving force. It created this bonding effect. We’d see everybody at these conferences, and the girls would go off and do their thing while we would go to meetings.” AED members really valued and respected each other. “I will say I enjoyed my time in AED, but the friends that I made and the knowledge that I gained were exceptional,” says Richard Mason, 1981 AED president. “Here I was going around as president. In truth, I was learning so much and I was very humbled by these people. They were good friends, good mentors and good businesspeople.
“Fred Berry is one of those friends. He used to fly me around in his Cessna. He taught me so much about running a distributorship, and he had the wherewithal to do it. He knew how to manage a customer base. I really did enjoy learning from him. He wouldn’t take a back seat to anybody.” As for Fred Berry himself, he will close out our history by naming the best perk of being an AED past president. “You and I have always known it’s good for business,” he said, “but it’s also good for your health. We’ve all lived to 100.”
Collective 66 Years With AED Steve Johnson: 2004
Robert Henderson: 2008
Steve Johnson, Vice President of Foundation Academic Accreditation, agrees that the industry is full of gracious folks. He has been with The AED Foundation for 14 years. “People in this industry are very interested in giving back,” he says. “I have been humbled by the support for The AED Foundation. Even in those lean years, 2008-2009, we experienced very good support for what we are doing.”
In terms of building relationships within the industry, Executive Vice President and COO Robert Henderson would be considered a veteran. He has been on the AED staff since 2008, and he was AED’s president in 1999 when he was also president of Cummins Interstate Power Inc. All told, he worked on the industry side for 35 years.
Johnson also agrees that member involvement has been key to The AED Foundation’s strength. “Our Foundation board has representation from dealers, manufacturers, suppliers and technical schools, and they give us direction based on their perspectives of the industry. That ‘voice of the industry’ brings credibility to our initiatives, which in turn supports the industry’s success.”
As part of his first job in field service for a manufacturer, Henderson called on distributors. “I saw an opportunity for advancement with the distribution channel,” he said.
He adds that he is impressed by the professionalism of AED members. “I have worked with a number of different industries, and the companies we work with are what I would call substantial,” he said. “They are very adept businesspeople, and very knowledgeable at what they’re doing. They are also grateful for the opportunities this industry has provided them, which is why they give back.” Johnson is also mindful of the industry’s role in our country’s history. “Without construction, you don’t have infrastructure, houses, railroads, buildings, etc. In a lot of ways, we really are one of the basic building blocks for our economy.”
Henderson recalls a time when distributors weren’t as well organized as the manufacturers, and didn’t collaborate as much. “In the end, the distributors understood that it made sense for us to work together,” he said. This business is still about relationships, Henderson said. “How you support your customers is of paramount importance to our industry. It’s a unique business model in America. You want to be able to efficiently take them through the equipment life cycle so they become customers for life.” Henderson feels very positive about the future of the industry. “As long as business is progressing profitably, our members will enjoy a successful future.”
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Mack Looks Back on His 24-Year Tenure at AED Former AED President and CEO Toby Mack has many vivid memories from his 24 years with the Association (1989-2013).
“The best way to thrive when you’re going through any type of transition is to provide products and services that appeal to larger companies,” Mack says. “We did a lot of research and survey work, asking those companies what we could do to meet needs that they couldn’t meet on their own.” Public policy and advocacy was one of two main concerns distributors cited, and it was a top priority for Mack too. “We made AED a power player in Washington, D.C., on a whole range of issues, and we became known for the effectiveness of our advocacy,” he said. Another top issue for distributors was the shortage of skilled workers. “1991 AED President Earl Harbaugh cooked up the idea of The AED Foundation, and he took the bit in his teeth and drove it through the board. The AED Foundation Founding Chairman Lester Heath, a board member at the time, was a huge factor as well. Making it a separate organization gave us the structure we needed to bring in the resources we would need to maximize its reach.” In the 2011-2012 time frame, things were going well for AED, and Mack really took notice of the shale energy revolution, which started to gain scale at that time. Mack saw that it would create tremendous business opportunities for AED members, so with the blessing of the AED board, he spearheaded the formation of the Energy Equipment and Infrastructure Alliance (EEIA). AED is in fact a founding member of the alliance, which was created to provide research-based advocacy in support of the shale oil and gas industry on both federal and local levels. In the fall of 2013, Mack left AED to become the president and CEO of EEIA. “Distributors are a part of this enormous supply chain, and we knew if we wanted to have an impact on the promotion of this technology to increase energy supplies, we would have to pull in all these other parties,” Mack said. “Ever since then, we have just been growing and expanding.” Mack says he sees a bright future for AED. “One of the things that is a core strength of AED is that there is a really strong sense of community among the members,” he said. “Owners feel that they have a shared stake in the welfare of the industry. The industry is going to be around for a long time to come.”
“One of the things that is a core strength of AED is that there is a really strong sense of community among the members.” Toby Mack Former AED president and CEO
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Benck Happy To Make History As First Female Chair 2018 AED Chairwoman Diane Benck has a great energy about her. It has served her well in her history-making turn as the first female chairperson in AED’s 100-year history. Despite that distinction, and also having spent 35 years working in a male-dominated industry, she has never focused on gender as an issue unto itself.
of similarities in what we had experienced over the years,” she said. “What I found very fulfilling was coaching the younger women about pitfalls they may face. … Ultimately, we want to make women feel they can play a valuable role in distributorships. We need to recruit women as well as minorities.”
“I never put any thought into being a woman in this industry,” she says. “For me personally, it was always about trying to blend in and be respected as an equal. Later on I realized that I am a role model and I thought, ‘Wow. I really did break some barriers.’”
Recruitment is one of AED’s biggest challenges going forward, especially with so many baby boomers retiring. And it isn’t just technicians. “The industry as a whole is struggling to attract young people,” Benck said. “We need to get rid of the misperception that we don’t use technology. Also, we need to be mindful that the current generation is really focused on training, so we’ll have to make a bigger commitment to that as well.”
When Benck was first asked to serve on the AED board’s Executive Committee, which leads to the chairmanship, she gave it serious consideration. “I thought, ‘Do I really want to do this? If so, I have to make sure that I will be able to commit to being 100 percent there and fulfill all my responsibilities with enthusiasm so I can make a difference in the industry.’ I also needed to be sure the family business [West Side Tractor Sales of Naperville, Illinois] would be OK without me.” Benck said the industry welcomed her with open arms. “People said they were so proud of me, and it really was a supportive environment,” she says. “I felt a lot of love.” The industry was also very supportive of the first Women in Construction Equipment Distribution Roundtable, which was held in Chicago last May. Benck calls the experience eyeopening, empowering and thought-provoking. “We had a lot
Benck has really enjoyed working with all types of people in the industry over the years. “All of these entrepreneurs come from such different backgrounds,” she says. “Some of them went to Harvard and Yale. But some of the most successful people I know don’t have a degree at all. They know how to grow a business and they were determined to do so.” Determination is probably one of the best words to describe the industry in general. “I am really proud of our organization,” Benck said. “We have been on a great journey, and there’s a lot more that we can do. I am confident the chairpersons of the future will accomplish a great deal from the seeds we are sowing today. I would love to see where we’ll be in five years.”
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2010 Dennis Vander Molen Vermeer MidSouth Inc. Jackson, Miss. 2011 Dennis E. Kruepke McCann Industries Inc. Addison, Ill. 2012 Larry F. Glynn CMW Equipment St. Louis, Mo. 2013 Mike Quirk Wagner Equipment Co. Aurora, Colo. 2014 Timothy Watters Hoffman Equipment Co. Piscataway, N.J.
THE AED FOUNDATION PAST PRESIDENTS 2010-2011 - Walter Berry Berry Companies Wichita, Kan. 2012-2013 - Christopher Pera Eastern HighReach Co. Inc. Horsham, Pa. 2014-2015 - A. Roy Kern Equipment Corporation of America Coraopolis, Pa. 2016-2017 - Dennis Vander Molen Vermeer MidSouth, Inc. Jackson, Miss. 2018-2019 - Whit Perryman Vermeer Texas-Louisiana Irving, Texas
2015 Don Shilling General Equipment & Supplies Fargo, N.D.
2016 Whit Perryman Vermeer Texas-Louisiana Irving, Texas
2017 Wes Stowers Stowers Machinery Corp. Knoxville, Tenn. 2018 Diane Benck West Side Tractor Sales Co. Naperville, Ill. 2019 Michael D. Brennan Bramco Louisville, Ky. 146 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | cedmag.com | The 2010s AED 100.indb 146
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AED’s Leadership Throughout the Years 1919
1920-1929
A.C. Blaisdell
Morton R. Hunter
Executive Secretary
1941-1947
1947-1950
1950-1989
Carol F. Winchester
Frank Knight
P. D. “Bud” Hermann
Executive Secretary
Executive Secretary
Executive Vice President
1989-2013
2014-Present
Jonathan “Toby” Mack
Brian P. McGuire
President
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Executive Secretary
President & CEO
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AED Offices Through the Years For those of you who love historical details, we did our best to piece together the history of the locations of the AED offices from its founding to present. 1920 – The AED board instructed Secretary Morton R. Hunter to get some stationery and to keep the offices of the new Association at his office: 210 Wells Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 1929 – AED headquarters is relocated to Cincinnati. 1930s – Treasurer Walter Louer had always insisted that Chicago should be the logical headquarters of AED because of its central location, ability to accommodate conventions of all sizes, and the fact that, as the Association grew, it would be an easy destination for members from across the country. So it is safe to assume that at some point in this decade, the AED office was in Chicago.
360 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Illinois
1940s – AED moves its headquarters to Washington, D.C. in order to better coordinate the industry’s war efforts. 1947 – AED headquarters moves back to Chicago, again because of its central location. 1952 – AED moves from rented quarters on Michigan Avenue to a permanent home — a handsome four-story brick building at 30 East Cedar St. on Chicago’s near north side. A lack of sufficient space at the old headquarters prompted the move.
30 E. Cedar St., Chicago, Illinois
1964 – AED headquarters moves to a new building in Oak Brook because of rezoning in Chicago. 1987 – AED experiences severe flooding in its Oak Brook offices. A berm is installed to prevent future flooding. 2007 – AED offices are flooded again, including a new wing that was built after the first flood. 2010 – AED experiences a third flood and moves to the building next door, but on the second floor of course. 2016 – AED moves into its current offices in Schaumburg. 148 | AED’s Commemorative Issue | cedmag.com | The 2010s AED 100.indb 148
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615 W. 22nd St., Oak Brook, Illinois
Ave.,
600 Hunter Dr., Ste 220, Oak Brook, Illinois
650 E. Algonquin Rd., Ste 305, Schaumburg Rd., Illinois
AED Addresses 1920 – 210 Wells St., Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1929 – Cincinnati, Ohio 1930s – Chicago, Illinois 1940s – Washington, D.C. 1947 – 360 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago 1952 – 30 E. Cedar St., Chicago 1964 – 615 W. 22nd St., Oak Brook, Illinois 2010 – 600 Hunter Dr., Oak Brook, Illinois 2016 – 650 E. Algonquin Rd., Schaumburg The 2010s | cedmag.com | AED’s Commemorative Issue | 149
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AED LOOKS TO THE FUTURE
The Next 100 Years
A
ED has made great strides over the years to make the industry stronger and to help our members become more successful. We aim to continue to provide our members with the tools they need for ongoing success and profitability by strengthening our advocacy and public policy efforts, education, career and workforce development, as well as industryspecific research. We’ve come a long way to reach these goals, yet we still have a long way to go. Over the last few years, the communications department has created ways for our members to be more involved and up-to-date with the Association than ever before. With the revamp of CED Magazine, www.cedmag.com, and the launch of AED360 and event mobile apps, we are providing our members with more access to the Association in a variety of ways. We know how important it will be to continue to make the Association as accessible as possible. We will continue to push for easy access to the latest information, news and much more. A large part of this accessibility comes from our regional managers. This team works tirelessly to be your Association liaisons to keep you updated, involved and engaged, and has seen much success. This team is, and will continue to be, a great resource for helping AED members get the most out of their membership. The AED Foundation has also worked hard over the past years to bridge the skills gap in the industry through research, creating educational opportunities and career promotion. As we move forward, The AED Foundation has five main goals for the future. These include aggressively accrediting construction equipment technology programs, expanding The AED Foundation’s recognized high school programs, hosting career day events at accredited colleges, expanding educational opportunities to middle school students, and expanding the certified technician program to serve as a leader in delivering industry-specific education programs to members. These goals will help to give our members a pipeline of potential technicians to keep up with demand and create a more stable future. Also helping to create a stable future, the government relations team has continued to expand its efforts, making strides by encouraging legislation that will benefit our members. AED has recently focused on creating unparalleled engagement between its members and policymakers to forge important relationships. Looking to the future, action (or lack thereof ) in Washington, D.C., state capitals and Ottawa will continue to be an integral part of the long-term viability of the construction equipment industry. Threats and opportunities abound during the policymaking process and there’s little indication, despite all the rhetoric, that government is actually reducing in size. Consequently, the impact legislators, regulators and government officials have on equipment dealers’ profitability and cost of doing business will continue, if not increase, moving forward. The stakes of government action and inaction will remain high, and the Association will continue to be the collective voice of the equipment industry to ensure positive policy outcomes for AED members. As we move forward to the next 100 years, AED will continue to do everything it can to support the success of our members. We will grow with them, support them and encourage them to rise to their highest standards, as we also hope to do along the way. Because when our members succeed, so do we.
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