Heavy Machines Inc. 50th Anniversary

Heavy Machines’ Built, Run by

Heavy Machines opened its Shreveport, La., facility in 2012. The company offers its customers a wide range of products for the general construction, forest products, scrap handling, demolition and industrial markets.

It is hard to imagine that any contractors and forestry operations forestry and material/scrap handling products for contractors that in the South or New England states are not familiar with the dexterity demand continuous and reliable equipment in production settings. offered by Heavy Machines Inc. It is an authorized dealer for a lengthy list of new products in each Headquartered in Memphis, Tenn., the full-service dealership of the industries it represents, including Liebherr, Link-Belt, Hitachi, works closely with customers in 14 states through nine branches and Sakai, Diamond Z, TANA, Rubble Master, Rottne, LeTourneau, is well-known for being an industry heavy equipment sales, service Furukawa FRD, ASV and Rotobec, among others. and rental company that has satIn addition, Heavy Machines isfied contractors across the eastalso offers used and rental equipern half of the United States. ment like wheel loaders, bulldoz“The large customers hitching their Now, in 2021, Heavy ers, rough-terrain cranes, soil wagons to us was due to the hard work compactors, shredders, wood Machines celebrates 50 years in business as one of the country’s grinders, harvesters, concrete of the people at Heavy Machines.” most diversified equipment dealcrushers, screens, excavators and Jay Nelson ers, specializing in construction, tons of other heavy equipment.

Heavy Machines Inc.’s Memphis branch.

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Talented Group of Self-Starters

At the Covington, Ga., facility (L-R) are Karen Follmann, service coordinator; Stephen Porter, parts manager; and Wayne Bartlett, customer support manager.

In select markets, the dealership even provides industrial plant welding services and planned downtime maintenance services, as well.

Heavy Machines has sold at various times in its history, ship and rail container handling products and coal mining machinery before deciding that its core business should be centered on the sales and service for construction, material handling and forestry industries.

Distributor’s Roots Were in Forestry Products In the beginning, though, the company was all about forestry and operated over its first 16 years as LeTourneau Sales and Service Inc., before changing its name to Heavy Machines in 1988. Under the old brand, the company sold the LeTourneau line of heavy log-handling machines and railroad and industrial At the Memphis branch, (L-R) are Justin Hamm, parts assistant; Paul lines for several decades.

Jones, customer support manager; Elizabeth Evans, branch coordinator; Indeed, before and after its rebranding, Heavy Machines Curtis Lawson, service manager; and Vic McDaniel, parts manager. continued to prosper by having a sizable segment of the forestry industry among its clientele throughout most of the eastern United States.

“We were a dealer for LeTourneau well into the 1980s before we were a distributor for anyone else,” said Jay Nelson, president of Heavy Machines.

“We did so with branches in Chicago, Boston, Savannah, Montgomery, Memphis and other rail hub cities.

LeTourneau primarily made two products that we were able to service at that time: log-handling equipment and container and trailer-handling machines.”

The dealership’s new name also coincided with Heavy Machines branching At the Shrevepport branch, (L-R) are David Combs, parts manager; Matt Murphy, service out to add Manitowoc’s debarking line of manager; Scott Moody, sales manager; Robin Waxley, branch coordinator; Carrie Snyder, continued on page 8

service coordinator; Cody Cassell, branch rental manager; and Blake Hall, parts specialist.

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RHTC, Inc. would like to congratulate Heavy Machines, Inc. on celebrating 50 years in business! For over two generations, our families have worked together, starting in Pineland, Texas in 1973. We’re so proud to have been a part of this journey with you!!!

Our entire organization looks forward to the next 50 together!!!

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At Heavy Machines’ Skowhegan, Maine, branch, (L-R) are Mel Blaisdell, regional sale representative; Francois Carrier, field service technician; Kristian Carrier, operations manager; Jared Clawson, regional sales manager; Austin Wright, rental technician; Ricky Oberg, field service technician; and Renee Wright, rental coordinator.

machines for its forestry customers, which have expanded to include the four biggest hitters in the industry: International Paper, Georgia-Pacific, Louisiana-Pacific and Weyerhaeuser.

To keep that business, in 1992 Heavy Machines also bought the Debarking Division of Manitowoc Engineering Company, makers of the popular line of heavy lifting cranes. The Memphis distributor currently has those systems working in the Southeast and beyond. “[Manitowoc] made several types of equipment, but the one piece that really works well for us is the debarking drum,” said Nelson. “Think of it as an extremely large tumbler that logs Jay Nelson pass through, knocking the bark off each one before coming out the other end virtually bark-less and then going into a chipper, or flaker, to begin the process of making paper, oriented strand board (OSB) or another related product.”

Nelson characterized that machine acquisition and the development of its business relationships with the big paper manufacturers as being two of the key events that led to the growth and continued success of Heavy Machines.

“The large customers hitching their wagons to us was due to the hard work of the people at Heavy Machines,” he said. “International Paper is one of our largest customers today and has been for a long, long time. That is a company that put its trust in us and has allowed us to grow as a company. Steve Northcross, our senior vice president of sales and marketing, is so important to us as he goes back 40 years with heavy equipment and has led our forest products initiative ever since he arrived. Together with Rich Wilson Jr., (L-R): Cody Ikner, parts and rental coordinator; Anjanette Meyermann, branch coordinathe company’s owner and son of the founder, they tor; David Miano, field service manager; and Paul McCormick, branch manager. covered the Southeast from a sales perspective,

“In my time here, I have worked with several folks who were here in the early days of the company and have since retired. I can name people from then that were my mentors — the men and women who put the sweat equity into Heavy Machines.”

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from page 3

At the Gray, Tenn., Hunter Beaman, service technician; Derrick Hatmaker, service technician; Sam Gilmer, service technician; Mark Roberts, branch operations manager; Adam Breeden, parts manager; Warren Legg, regional sales representative; and Danny Meador, customer support sales manager.

Brian Webber (L), sale representative, and Brandon Norton, parts assistant, at Heavy Machines’ South Portland, Maine, facility. This team reports to the Skowhegan, Maine, branch.

At Birmingham facility (L-R) are Andy Baumheckel, customer support manager; Corey Massey, parts manager; Debra Bedford, branch coordinator; Kailah Curle, accounting administrator; and Chad Hutchinson, service manager.

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At the Theodore, Ala., facility, outside Mobile, Heavy Machines offers an extensive rental fleet to fill customers’ wide range of equipment needs.

Heavy Machines’ Birmingham, Ala., facility is conveniently located in the downtown industrial section, just off Interstate 20 East.

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At Heavy Machines’ Murfreesboro, Tenn., branch, the company offers Link-Belt excavators, Dynapac, FRD, Fecon and ASV.

“Part of our thinking came as a result of LeTourneau deciding that it was not going to continue to make port/railroad container handling equipment, which was a huge population of machines for us and for them,” he said. “We knew that that leg of the industry was going to come out from under us. But about that time, we were being courted

by Liebherr and by 2001 we had become the Liebherr material handling dealer in the Southeast. In later years, 2008 and 2009, we became a full Liebherr dealer, which meant we also sold their dozers, excavators and front-end loaders, in addition to the scrap and log handlers.”

And it was Liebherr that put Heavy Machines on the map, Nelson said, helping to make it a major player in the equipment distributing business.

“When we got Liebherr, it gave us a highly respected international name and a product that had a very solid footprint in the scrap handling industry,” he said. “Liebherr also had a small, respectable presence in the forest products industry, and we were able to take that and build on it for them.”

and both are extremely successful and knowledgeable about forest products.”

Numerous other products were added and dropped from Heavy Machines’ model lines through the late 1980s and early ‘90s as the dealership grew to a staff level of 220 with as many as 12 branches throughout the east and in Arizona, Nevada and Wyoming serving mining, railroad and forest products niches.

As it enters its sixth decade as an influential distributor in three key industries, Heavy Machines now operates branches in Memphis, Murfreesboro and Gray, Tenn.; Shreveport, La.; Mobile and Birmingham, Ala.; Covington, Ga. (southeast of Atlanta); and in the Maine cities of Portland and Skowhegan, with the latter primarily serving the forestry industry in New England.

Brain Trust Explored Potentially Lucrative Ideas From the leadership of the late Richard Wilson to his son and current company owner, Rich Jr., Heavy Machines has been able to anticipate changing market forces and trends to keep the company successful. With a brain trust that includes talented executives like Nelson, Wilson, Steve Northcross, August (Gus) Wilson and Eric Hinshaw, the family-owned equipment distributor has managed to develop an almost sixth sense-like ability to add or subtract a product line at just the right time to stay ahead of the curve.

Nelson noted that it was important for the business to continue to diversify its equipment lines while also identifying the industries and equipment that it felt it could best service. As a result, Heavy Machines dropped its mining equipment lines and services as the coal mining business fell into decline.

The dealership also looked to make a deeper foray into the material handling equipment business, among other ideas. Rich Jr. and Northcross were behind that research and development, which led to one of the best decisions in Heavy Machines’ history, according to Nelson.

Construction Equipment Became Company’s Third Pillar By the middle of the 2000s, Heavy Machine’s managers decided that it was time to explore adding construction equipment as the third pillar to its business. In the years since, the company has developed a large and impressive roster of products ranging from excavators and dump trucks to rock drill and compaction equipment.

Prior to making those moves, though, Heavy Machines, targeted a construction industry expert to hire in 2007.

Eric Hinshaw had been an independent Link-Belt dealer and a former operator of a Volvo rental equipment store before being brought on board to help lead Heavy Machines into the construction industry for the first time. Because of his experience with Link-Belt, the distributor now sells product for the manufacturer in most of the

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At the Murfreesboro,Tenn., facility, (L-R) are Amber Price, branch administration; Matt Jones, parts coordinator; and Kenneth Long, branch operations manager.

At the Showhegan, Maine, facility, the company offers machines for customers in the construction, logging industries and more.

A Link-Belt 490 X4 excavator with a Vacuworx RC12H lifts an 80-ft.-long, 16,000-lb. 42in. diameter Berg Spiral pipe at Alabama State Docks in Mobile.

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Southeast.

Link-Belt’s addition was not complete until early 2013 when Heavy Machines moved its second branch, after Memphis, from Longview, Texas, to Shreveport, La., to obtain the Link-Belt lines that were available for distribution in the region.

To assist those branches that do more construction sales and service than others, Heavy Machines acquired multi-state dealer agreements for Diamond Z grinders, Rubble Master concrete crushers and others. In addition, the distributor also began selling packaging with excavators, material handlers and wheel loaders with mobile processing machines.

“Thanks to Eric, we were able to get these products, like Diamond-Z, for instance,” Nelson said.

“At first, we sold it in Florida because that was the biggest market for grinders in the U.S. It also fit our footprint and worked out well for Diamond Z, too.”

Hinshaw’s influence and connections also brought the company Kawasaki (now Hitachi Construction Machinery America) loaders and compaction equipment made by Sakai and Dynapac, as well as ASV and Yanmar.

Hydrema is another key product line for the dealership that offers smaller and mid-size articulated trucks, known for their being able to work on softer ground and within different niches in the construction market, he added.

Some products, like Furukawa FRD rock drills, do not stay in Heavy Machines’ Tennessee showrooms very long, according to Nelson. He said the state’s eastern half rests upon extremely hard rock where rock drills are an essential tool for contractors building in the region.

“It is hard to keep up with demand for the product, but that is a common theme right now in the equipment industry,” he said.

Branches Remain Active Everywhere Although based in the South, Heavy Machines got started in New England in the 1970s when it opened a branch in the Boston area that offered LeTourneau container handling products for the railroad and industrial sectors.

When the distributor recognized that those product lines were not going to be part of its longterm future, Heavy Machines decided to instead create its first Maine dealership in Bangor because it had LeTourneau and Manitowoc equipment operating in the region’s forestry trade.

“As a company, we felt there was a lot more that we could do in the forest products industry and take care of Boston from the Bangor branch, although it was a three-hour drive between the two,” said Nelson. “Eventually, though, the Boston work went away completely, and we moved our operations from Bangor to Skowhegan because the latter is a hub of the forest industry in Maine.

“We have several guys that run the business for us up there,” he said. “Our anchor, Mel Blaisdell, Link-Belt 250 X4 helps clean up during a demoolition project. got us up and going in Maine for many years and was eventually joined by Jared Clawson, who runs the sales and rental part of the business for us, and Kristian Carrier, who handles parts, service and operations. They rely on us for support, but together they are a great team.”

Talent Positions Distributor for Successful Future Nelson said that the success of Heavy Machines since 1971 has been a result of the efforts of many capable people, like Clawson and Carrier, all with the desire “to make things happen.”

He added, “I want to make sure I give credit where credit is due and that begins with Rich Wilson Jr. for giving us the vision and the platform to do what we do. Then there is Steve Northcross and his efforts with Liebherr and the forest products industry, where everybody in that field knows him. The same is Hydrema is another key product line for the dealership that offers smaller true for Eric Hinshaw on the construction side of the business.” and mid-size articulated trucks.

As Heavy Machines enters its sixth decade, the next layer of management and eventual family ownership is being groomed in the person of Gus Wilson, grandson of the founder and Rich Jr.’s middle son. He has spent the past 13 years as the chief financial officer of Heavy Machines.

Until and after that succession, the dealership can continue to build upon its reputation with the good people it has hired all the way down the line.

“In my time here, I have worked with several folks who were here in the early days of the company and have since retired,” Nelson said. “I can name people from then that were my mentors — the men and women who put the sweat equity into Heavy Machines, many of whom worked here for 30 to 40 years and built the company into what it is today. They are also Yanmar ViO35 mini-excavator performs landscaping at a residential site in Skowhegan, Maine. among the people to thank for our success.”

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Congratulations to o Heavy Machines, Inc. for r 50 Ye ears of Industry Service e

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Heavy Machines Emphasizes Construction, Specialties, Services

Barko has a well-earned reputation for the highest quality forestry equipment, frrom harvesting to loading and land clearing to biomass.

Hitachi (HCMA) loaders construbute to a stellar equipment lineup at Heavy Machines Inc.

A Diamond Z DZT 8000 tub grinder works in a mulching yard.

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As Heavy Machines has matured over its 50 years, it has established itself as a robust distributor of construction, material handling and forestry products and services.

It offers different lines of equipment in a variety of industries, and over many years of trial and error, the new century has seen Heavy Machines establish the perfect trio of manufacturing sectors to continue its success.

The first two, forestry and material handling products, have been offered by the company from the distributorship’s beginnings.

But because Heavy Machines had been wanting to make its entry into the construction equipment business for several years, hundreds of hours of study were put into identifying the right manufacturers to represent.

That finally occurred in 2008 when three events coincided to slingshot Heavy Machines forward. The catalyst was Liebherr earthmoving equipment making its debut at the dealership’s display yards in Memphis and southern Louisiana — but at a most uncertain point for American business.

“In very bad timing, just before the stock market crash in 2008, Liebherr decided it needed to take its full construction line to the U.S.,” said Steve Northcross, Heavy Machines’ senior vice president of sales and marketing. “We had never been in the construction industry before, but that’s also when Eric Hinshaw came to Heavy Machines. He had been a Link-Belt dealer before in Memphis and had also once run a Volvo store.

Eric gave us a distinct perspective on what it takes to go into the construction equipment business.”

From Memphis, Hinshaw serves the company as its vice president and general manager across its entire operation from Louisiana to Maine. His arrival signaled a new direction for Heavy Machines and helped the distributor maneuver through the depths of the Great Recession.

“Eric is colorful, well known in the industry and a powerhouse individual,” said Gus Wilson, the chief financial officer of Heavy Machines.

“He is also very smart and understands construction very well. He’s one of those people we lean back on. We talk about the front-line employees that are essential to us and are empowered to make the right decisions and Eric, Jay Nelson and Steve Northcross are the people that make those strong leadership decisions and guide the company into successful product lines.”

Maine Operations Allowed to Fly Solo Hinshaw’s task of managing operations across half the country, although challenging, is made easier by the experienced crew he has running things in each location, particularly in far off Maine, where there are Heavy Machines branches in Portland and Skowhegan.

Liebherr, Link-Belt and a few other manufacturers that knew Heavy Machines well in the South needed the distributor’s expertise selling machines in the Maine/New England region. As a result, the company expanded its construction equipment business there to join the existing lines of forestry and material handling machines and, at the same time, extend the equipment makers’ reach into that construction market.

“The guys we have running that business for us up there don’t need too much help,” said Hinshaw, citing the skills of Jared Clawson and

A Liebherr LH40 tracked log handler lifts and moves short logs.

“We sell earthmoving machines, but with specialty equipment, we tell our salespeople that they need to learn their customers’ businesses and know just as much about their company as the customer does.”

Eric Hinshaw

Mel Blaisdell, who run the sales and rental part of the business in Maine, and Kristian Carrier, who handles parts, service and operations.

Nelson, the president of Heavy Machines, added that those guys are, “great examples of our philosophy of hiring the right people and then giving them the authority and the autonomy to run their business. We have always preferred to not manage over people’s shoulders but let them run their business as if it was their business.”

Hinshaw Expanded Company’s Equipment Lineup Hinshaw influenced other construction equipment manufacturers to join Heavy Machines, bringing to it Hitachi loaders, Diamond Z grinders, and Dynapac compactors and pavers, among others. He characterizes these manufacturers and lines, along with Liebherr and Link-Belt excavators (LBX), to be the distributor’s main products in 2021.

“Heavy Machines, for example, sells excavators from Liebherr and Link-Belt primarily to pipe and earthmoving contractors,” he added.

“They are almost just a commodity for us now,” Hinshaw said. “But we do a lot of business with guys that use them for sheet-pile

A Liebherr LH110C excavator works at a port in Alabama. The LH110C has an operating weight that ranges from 209,000 to 300,000 lbs. The LH110C seen here is the first one Heavy Machines sold.

A Liebherr L566 wheel loader works at a waste management facility.

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maker has remained strong since 2007.

“Obviously, that product line is separate from the three main legs that make up Heavy Machines, as it is a piece of processing equipment,” he said.

“Often, we can sell an excavator or help with some other equipment that is within a grinding site, but typically, a grinder stands alone. Processing equipment — crushing, screening, grinding, shredding — is an emerging fourth leg of our business.”

As a result, Hinshaw spends a lot of time schooling new salespeople on everything there is to know about specialty products before sending them out on sales calls.

“For instance, we have specialty people that sell all the grinders for the whole company,” he said.

“They know everything about grinders, including how that equipment is used for mulch, storm, and erosion-control sock applications. And each appliLink-Belt 160 X4 with a Hultdins log grapple work short wood at customer’s job site. cation is different. Following a big storm, let’s say a customer of ours wants to ground up 1,000 cubic yards per hour of downed trees and uprooted stumps. He will not be happy with anything longer than eight inches of storm clump coming out of the grinder and into the waste pile. We need to make certain that they are equipped with the right machines for the application.”

Northcross, like Nelson and Hinshaw, has always been an enthusiastic supporter of Heavy Machines developing an emphasis on specialty products and services for each of the three industries it supports.

“I personally thought it was a terrific way to get into the construction industry because we had been a specialized dealer before,” he said. “And as one, we felt we could give a contractor a new perspective on what it means to be taken care of because we are already on call 24/7 to support the production modes at paper mills — they never shut down.

An MBT drum debarker debarks logs, a product Heavy Machines owns and manufactures. Lumber mills and OSB plants are the same, so when they call on Heavy Machines’ Industrial driving. They are also used with shears for the demolition and Services people, we need to be ready to get in there and make the job scrap business, but the sheet-pile application in construction has right. It would be much harder for a lay construction dealer to come been most important for us.” in and do specialty work for pulp and paper mills like we can.”

Specialty Pieces Gaining Traction at Heavy Machines That is in line with Heavy Machines zeroing in on what tools its customers need to carry out specific tasks. Hinshaw explained that the dealership has focused more of its business on specialty applications like grinders and shredders.

“We sell earthmoving machines, but with specialty equipment, we tell our salespeople that they need to learn their customers’ businesses and know just as much about their company as the customer does,” he said. “We do a lot with process units, or production equipment, like the cranes or log stackers in a paper mill’s woodyards. Process units can also include a grinder for making mulch in the forestry industry or a shredder for use in the steel and waste business.”

Nelson noted that the Idaho-based Diamond Z manufactures an able-bodied product, and Heavy Machines’ relationship with the

Industrial Services Division Offers Onsite Specialty Work For over 25 years, Heavy Machines has operated its Industrial Services Division, always on call to serve the most acute needs of industrial complexes as they shut down for much needed additions, heavy welding, and fabrication repair. The division was developed

by Steve Northcross’ Projects Group at the distributorship.

Industrial Services consists of engineering services, estimators and welders, as well as administrative support based in Memphis.

Additionally, it has experts working in the field to fix woodyard debarking drums, stacker/reclaimer systems, decks, conveyors and chutes, and perform general millwright services.

“We work in what is primarily called a ‘woodyard,’” Nelson said.

“In forest products vernacular, a woodyard is where logs are processed before they go into a mill, a separate discipline from what goes on within the mill. Our people work outside in the woodyard

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where there are debarking systems, chutes, conveyors, and all things to do with the log conversion process to wood chips.

“Those are heavy-wear items, obviously, where millworkers are pounding 3,000-pound logs down a chute into a drum, truckloads at a time,” he said. “As you might imagine that equipment takes a lot of abuse. We come in with our welding and fabrication people and rebuild or repair older machines or build new systems for our customers.”

Independent Service Techs Expand Business One might think that if Heavy Machines had customers from Louisiana to New England, it would also An 1800 ED II Furokawa rock drill works in eastern Tennessee. have branch locations in most of those states. In fact, of the nine distributor locations, seven are in only four Southern states: Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia. The other two are in Maine.

But Heavy Machines has also established sales and service capabilities in many of the areas between its Deep South and New England territories.

“We do have some LeTourneau product, for instance, in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina where we have resident technicians that live and work in those territories,” Nelson said. “They get their parts and technical support from our Atlanta branch. We also cover the Rottne brand of log forwarding and harvesting products in New England, again through tech people working from their homes.”

In recent years, Heavy Machines has poured a lot of its profits back into its branch service departments and to A Rottne F15D forwarder work the woods in Maine. beef up its operations for field service techs in other areas of the country.

“I think that the results of that are obvious in that we employ a large fleet of service trucks, and we have what we think are some of the best technicians in the business,” said Nelson. “The biggest investments we make, though, are in our people. We spend a tremendous amount of money on training. Each technician will receive no less than four weeks of formal factory training a year — some of them do more.”

Referencing Heavy Machines’ longtime belief in hiring people with the personality to be independent thinkers, able to run their operations and handle problems without constantly calling Memphis for help, Nelson said that that entrepreneurism carries over to the distributor’s service resident techs dotted across its territories.

“They don’t work with daily supervision, and they control their own schedule and report to their home office,” he said. “In effect, they get to be their own boss. A lot of people like working in that environment, free of somebody telling them what to do every second of every day. They conduct their business, knowing that their livelihood is at stake when they take care of a customer. If they don’t do a good job, if they end up having to do re-work — whatever goes south on them in dealing with a customer — that comes back on the tech Jonathan Loyless, and, most likely, that is a customer that they won’t get a chance to VP-Retail Account Manager work with again.

(678) 634-8262 “We try to carry that self-managed approach to every job we possibly can. We tell potential hires that if they have a high level of initiative, are a self-starter, and prefer not having someone looking over their shoulder, then Heavy Machines is the place for them.”

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Family Dealership Has History of Success, One Poised to Continue

If all goes according to plan, August (Gus) Wilson will someday be the third generation to run his family-owned business, Heavy Machines Inc., in Memphis, Tenn.

In preparation, Wilson has spent the past 13 years serving as chief financial officer (CFO) of the large equipment distributorship, which boasts of nine dealer locations in the mid-South and New England.

The full-service company marks 50 years of continuous operation in 2021. Along the way, it has grown from a single store that sold and serviced one product for the forestry business into a respected sales, maintenance, parts, rental and industrial service distributor for the materials handling and construction trades as well and operates from Louisiana to Maine.

Although seemingly destined for a career at Heavy Machines, it was not entirely obvious to Wilson that that would be part of his career path. But, as it turned out, in the time that he has worked at the distributor’s headquarters, he has helped shape the path to success for one of the South’s top equipment companies.

Nelson added that in its initial years, Heavy Machines, known then as LeTourneau Sales and Service until 1988, cut its teeth by selling a mint’s worth of LeTourneau cranes, intermodal handling products at port and railyards, mining machines, and log-processing equipment. In the process, it created a customer base of 400-500 customers from Texas to New Orleans to Savannah, north to Boston and west to Chicago — effectively covering the eastern half of the United States.

Family Legacy Led Gus Wilson to Distributorship Born and raised in Memphis, Gus Wilson received both an undergraduate and graduate degree from the University of Memphis.

After spending a decade at an accounting firm as a CPA, he saw an opportunity to join the family business and after a lot of thought, realized the benefits of being at Heavy Machines.

“With a background in accounting, I didn’t really have a strong desire to serve in the construction or forestry industry, but I did have a calling to be a part of the legacy that my grandfather had started back in 1971,” he said. “It is fun to be a part of the team here, not simply for that reason, but to continue something that my family planted so long ago. I wanted to help see it thrive and see it remain successful.”

He noted that most adult children coming to work at their family’s company are immediately treated a little rougher because they are given a higher set of expectations and loftier goals to aspire to than their non-family colleagues.

“But it works out very well because you can’t have a thin skin in this industry, and you must be resilient and versatile as time goes by,” Wilson said. “For me, the reward is seeing the family business grow, giving back to your family and employees, and getting a chance to serve Seen here is Heavy Machines’ original facility in Memphis, Tenn., in 1971. them and the industry.”

Wilson added that he always hears about businesses Heavy Machines Began as a failing after the second or third generation, but Heavy Machines can Sapling Among the Trees proudly say that it was able to successfully transition from a first genHeavy Machines was started in 1971 when Wilson’s grandfather, eration to a second to a third, and that hopefully there will be a fourth Richard Wilson Sr., at that time the owner of a Memphis machine generation working within the company one day. tool company, and Richard LeTourneau, son of one of the most He is not sure if there was a common thread that permeated each famous earthmoving equipment inventors/entrepreneurs of the 20th generation of the Wilson family that led them to success, although century, formed a partnership to sell LeTourneau Technologies’ line he does believe that the chance to be mentored and groomed for of forestry equipment. leadership at Heavy Machines has been of great benefit.

“The elder Wilson, who has since passed away, had sold the type “My dad, Richard Jr., came to the company in 1973,” Wilson said. of equipment that could be applied in the furniture making business “He was able to see the business grow from its roots. I think he began before he teamed with LeTourneau,” explained Jay Nelson, president by working on tree crushers and railroad stackers, so he was very of Heavy Machines and a colleague of Gus Wilson. much doing the hands-on work in every aspect of the business, “That was the connection to the forestry side, if you will,” Nelson including sales, through the 1980s and ‘90s. When my granddad got said. “Mr. Wilson became enamored of the products LeTourneau sick, that was when my father transitioned to run the company, but made, especially the big log-handling equipment. He convinced he had been groomed for success over 25 years.

LeTourneau that he could handle the distribution of those machines “For me, it was a little bit more trial by fire,” he added. “When I in the East. It began opening branches in places like Memphis and was asked to join Heavy Machines, we were in a bit of a transitionary Montgomery before it grew from there.” phase because we had an aging CFO and an aging comptroller, and

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the plan was to merge those positions into one. The hope was they could bring another Wilson in for succession planning, and they wanted to make sure that the employees and the family knew that there was going to be a continuity in the leadership, direction and ownership of the company.”

Wilson plans to be ready when called.

“We have a president now in Jay Nelson who is very much in charge of things and is also an effective leader. I have been like a sponge in that I am trying to learn everything I can from him in case I am offered the chance to lead the company.”

base, develop the product knowledge, and get the product out in the field to get it generating sales.”

Wilson said that one of the best long-term benefits Heavy Machines derived from that otherwise stressful period was establishing its relationship with Link-Belt.

“We are a very large dealer now for Link-Belt and the manufacturer has made a significant impact in the regions we represent,” he added. “It is a great product and I think one of the highest complements we can pay is that their equipment just continues to work — they never break down — which may be bad for our parts and service department, but great for the industry and for the customers that we are ultimately serving.”

The LeTourneau product lines, including its construction and forestry equipment, were later sold to Joy Global Mining, which also bought Heavy Machines’ last coal mining branch in West Virginia in 2012. Four years later, Komatsu purchased Joy Global Mining, but Heavy Machines still sells and services different lines of LeTourneau forestry machines today under the Komatsu ownership.

In a move to further diversify and expand markets in 2012, Heavy Machines obtained an existing dealership in East Tennessee that was tied to Link-Belt and Kawasaki (today, HCMA) distribution, while also adding those same product lines to its Memphis branch.

More products continue to be added to the distributor’s showrooms in some regions like Dynapac compactors and rollers, Furukawa drills, TANA landfill compactors and shredders and now the Liebherr mining products in the southeast.

Services, Product Diversity Led to Major Growth The early ‘90s saw Heavy Machines’ acquisition of Manitowoc Engineering Company’s Debarking Division, an important milestone in the company’s history in that it widened the distributor’s influence in the forest products industry with ring, flail and drum de-barker manufacturing.

In 2021, Heavy Machines handles drum de-barker production and heavy welding work in pulp mill woodyards with a greater emphasis on welding services.

More product additions and industry reductions continued from the 1990s until the present backed by the careful consideration of Heavy Machines’ top executives, which include Rich Wilson Jr., Gus Wilson, Jay Nelson, Steve Northcross and Eric Hinshaw.

As a result, Heavy Machines began to explore new opportunities with under-served manufacturers while also zeroing in on industry buying patterns, special product applications and characteristic machine configurations and machine inventory needs.

With the major news in 2001 that Liebherr appointed the Memphis-based company to be the distributor for all its forest products equipment in the U.S. South, East and Northeast, thanks in large measure to Northcross and Rich Wilson Jr., Heavy Machines was able to lay the groundwork for future agreements with the manufacturer.

And indeed, that happened in 2004 and 2005 when Liebherr signed deals with the dealership for it to sell and service the manufacturer’s scrap and material handling products in New England, the mid-South, southern Louisiana, and Florida.

The crown jewel in its agreements with Liebherr came in 2008 when Heavy Machines was tabbed as the maker’s construction equipment dealer for the Memphis and Louisiana regions.

That last move, along with Heavy Machines picking up Link-Belt excavators and various niche products, happened to coincide with the Great Recession in 2008-2009 that descended like a fog over the American and global economies, crippling or wiping out many companies of all sizes.

Spirit of Entrepreneurship Infuses Company Jay Nelson believes that the half-century success of Heavy Machines can be attributed to the entrepreneurial spirit that Gus Wilson’s grandfather instilled into the company from its first day in business.

The fostering of independent thought and market analysis, which led to the various industry and product additions/subtractions over the years, designed to drive Heavy Machines’ success, were borne from Richard Wilson Sr.’s desire to also never let his company become self-satisfied.

“As a company, if you stay complacent, you can end up dying,” said Gus Wilson. “In other words, if you stand still, you can get run over in this business as the industry shifts or moves away from you.

So, I think this company from the ground up has a long history of employing people who are strongly entrepreneurial. For example, when we bring in our new field service techs, we initially help them with their client bookings, but once they have that know how, they go out and seek business themselves. They set their own schedules and it is very hands off from us. They have a lot of autonomy and most of their success is built from that independent spirit.

Individualism really does matter to us.”

But Wilson also explained that that sense of being independent can also be found in Heavy Machines being able to constantly reimagine itself.

“I think that is apparent from our offering LeTourneau products in the ‘70s, to being able to offer the Liebherr products in the scrap industry in the 2000s, before moving into the construction industry in 2008-09 when we picked up the Link-Belt dealerships, and the niche stuff like Diamond Z and TANA shredders and compactors,” he said. “We also know that industries are fickle and if construction is having a boom, forestry may not, so it is good to have a large breadth of knowledge and a large skill set from which to draw success.”

Company Perceived Downturn as an Opportunity Heavy Machines, however, saw the recession more as an opportunity than a liability, according to Gus Wilson.

“Well, everything was in the basement, so at times like that, things are not necessarily cheaper, but they’re more exposed,” he said. “I think the decision was made that Heavy Machines couldn’t just be as niche-oriented as we were up to that point with forestry and scrap handling products. We were looking at the breadth of what we could sell in the geographic region that we defined, and it did appear that there was an underserved market in the construction industry. Link-Belt, being an effective partner, was able to come in and help us enter that market effectively, and honestly, entering the market on a downturn was sort of helpful because it took quite a while to ramp up and really develop the customer

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Steve Northcross Helps Navigate Heavy Machines On Path to Success

The vision needed to mold the comDuring its years of service to conpany that is today known as Heavy tractors and industries in different Machines Inc. belonged to company regions of the country, Heavy founder Richard Wilson Sr. He also Machines has marketed and sold provided a strategy for success in 1971 equipment for an extensive list of by instilling entrepreneurial concepts manufacturers, in the process supplythroughout each layer of the business ing products for niches as diverse as and finding people who could impleforestry, mining, port and railyards, ment them. scrap handling and construction.

Fifty years later, his methods are Much of that is thanks to the talents still commonly practiced among of Northcross, a fact not lost on others employees at all nine branches of the at Heavy Machines.

Memphis-based distributorship and is (L-R): Steve Northcross, senior vice president of sales and For instance, in deciding when and what drives many of its independent marketing; Jay Nelson, president and CEO; Eric Hinshaw, how to adapt its business toward offerfield technicians working across the vice president of sales and general manager; and Gus ing a new product or service, as well Wilson, chief financial officer. eastern half of the country. as away from one, Heavy Machine’s Company President Jay Nelson brain trust credits Northcross’ efforts said Wilson never wavered in his belief that the correct solutions in spending many hours studying the consequences of making such would often come from giving his people the time to be independent an important move. thinkers, regardless of their position within the organization.

“What is essential to making a successful pivot is having a vision“He was smart enough to know that if he had a group of people ary that can show you how to make a change, but then you also need working in southern Georgia, for example, and he was in his office an implementor who understands the nuts and bolts of the process in Memphis, managing those people day-to-day was not feasible,” and can do the pivoting,” said Gus Wilson. “Steve is our visionary.

Nelson said. “But he hired the right people and gave them the where- He understands the product lines and he’s always seeking new prodwithal and the autonomy to run their branch. The company has ucts and development. The implementor is Eric Hinshaw [the vice always done that; we don’t manage people over their shoulders. president of sales and general manager]. Eric has a very in-depth Rather, we let them run their operation as if it was their business.” knowledge of certain niche industries and helped guide us successHe added that Wilson understood that LeTourneau Sales & fully into the construction industry and the earthmoving equipment Service (the name by which Heavy Machines was known for its first business.

17 years), as a dealer of LeTourneau forestry products, cranes and “Steve also led the effort to change our company logo and intermodal equipment, would not work simply by being in Memphis taglines, which helped to refresh the entire company brand,” Wilson because the applications were going to be too few. said. “He controls our marketing plan and the campaigns, and really “But a large footprint with branches spread out in forest product looks to the future with a long-range view.” hubs like Montgomery, Raleigh and Savannah, each with our cusNorthcross maintains that the key to making a successful pivot as tomer support managers, was working very well,” he said. “Sure, an executive with an equipment dealership is to remain agile. they reported back to Memphis, and we gave them expectations “If you are not, you had better learn how to become agile because and budgets, but other than that, they ran their own show. If they the world is changing too fast,” he said. “I have seen us once go 12 needed help, they called us, but we didn’t insist upon it. And that is years without making changes. It seems the windows to do so are still how we run Heavy Machines today.” getting smaller and smaller. You have got to be ready to move because if you aren’t, you will not make it in this business.”

Course to Success Charted by Steve Northcross The elder Wilson passed away years ago, and his son, Rich Wilson Northcross Hails From Unlikely Background Jr., is Heavy Machines’ current owner, while his grandson, Gus For someone as well regarded as Northcross is throughout the Wilson, serves as the dealership’s CFO. equipment dealership and manufacturing industries in North But it could be that his vision for the company and its success was America, he is unique in that prior to coming to Heavy Machines, also a trait acquired by Steve Northcross, the distributor’s senior vice he worked as a journalist. After being trained for that avocation in president of sales and marketing for the past 38 years. college, he reported for newspapers in Texas and Kentucky before At Heavy Machines, Northcross has become the company’s North landing a posting with a publishing company in Montgomery, Ala. Star, the constellation by which the company navigates its way to “I got wind of a job at a trade publication there after becoming success. He has spent his entire time with the Tennessee equipment disillusioned with journalism in the 1970s because I was doing dealership guiding it along the correct course and is one of Heavy some very intensive investigative reporting. Leaving it behind was Machines’ most knowledgeable and savvy executives. the best decision I ever made,” Northcross said.

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He had learned a lot about the forest products industry while in Alabama, though, because of being able to travel all over the world visiting sawmills and logging operations where he soaked up everything he could learn about the trade. Later, the opportunity came up that the publication needed someone in advertising sales, he said.

“That’s when I raised my hand and told them, ‘Nobody in our advertising group knows more about this industry than I do,’ he relayed.

He got the job and was soon sent to cities like Chicago to call on big ad agencies, where he found that he had a talent for the job.

“On one trip in 1983 I was down here in my hometown of Memphis visiting my family and I made a call on Heavy Machines to sell them some advertising,” he said. “I made a presentation on buying some ad space in the magazine and before I got out of there, Rich’s dad told me, ‘We have a job opening for a salesman in our Alabama and Georgia regions.’”

Rich Jr. later hired Northcross to work in the Savannah region, home to some large pulp/paper manufacturing facilities and the eastern railroads that were major clients for LeTourneau products, the only product line carried at that time by the Memphis equipment distributor.

“Within two years I was given the Alabama territory, too. My background in forest products was perfect for Heavy Machines and I had learned a ton about the railroad industry from our VP of railroad sales — Fred Boone.”

Despite Obstacles, Growth Continues at Heavy Machines Following Heavy Machines’ first pivot away from LeTourneau, the dealership began to scout around for other product lines around 2001, Northcross said. That led to its game-changing partnership with Liebherr, which, over the next several years, gave the distributor the rights to sell its forestry, scrap and material handling equipment in different regions of the country, as well as the manufacturer’s construction products.

“Then, the market crash hit in 2008,” he said. “We came out of that, though, and started to expand and take advantage of the fact that some dealers had gone away, and things had changed with different manufacturers in that they didn’t have the representation that they had before.

“They once wanted distributors everywhere; they thought that that was what made them good,” Northcross added. “I think what they now have pivoted to is the notion that to compete better, they need large regional dealers that can bring them continuity to a consolidating and changing business landscape. They also want a closer working partnership with their dealers and that’s what they get from a distributorship like Heavy Machines.”

He added that through the 2010s, Heavy Machines “systematically opened new branches and brought on new people and products to the point where we feel like we are in a strong position with what we have to offer. We have grown the company significantly just in the last seven years and have been blessed with having an owner who trusts the management, who wants to make the place grow and gives us the latitude to do it.”

Company Growth Depended On Diversification Northcross and Rich Jr. realized, though, that their company could only grow so much by representing only one major manufacturer in LeTourneau. At a meeting with Richard Sr., the three executives came to an agreement that the distributorship desperately needed to diversify its lines and began to explore selling equipment from other industries.

“We knew LeTourneau was a good line, but our growth was stunted by the fact that it changed owners every four or five years,” Northcross said. “And Rich Jr.’s dad agreed. As a result, we changed the company name to Heavy Machines Inc. in 1988.

“Once we did that, it started to open some doors,” he said. “We began to represent other lines, but we didn’t want to associate ourselves with poor quality products, or with people that wanted us to do all the work. Rather, we wanted to partner with people and companies that, if we had chosen to do so, we would have felt comfortable investing with.”

That led to Heavy Machines’ involvement with Manitowoc Engineering — a division of what is now the Manitowoc Crane Co. At first, the Memphis distributor only marketed and sold the manufacturer’s line of debarking equipment for use in paper mills, sawmills, and wood chip mills.

Later, though, Heavy Machines struck a deal to purchase Manitowoc’s debarking division, which was only 3-4 percent of the Wisconsin maker’s entire revenue, Northcross said. In the sale, Heavy Machines also acquired all the division’s intellectual property and a huge cache of files.

“It is still a business that we run through our Special Projects Division, which I head up today,” he said. “We do shutdown work for pulp and paper mills, especially surrounding the woodyards.

That has been a good business for us.”

Steady Hands Operate Heavy Machines Successes and failures occur with any company that has been in business for 50 years, and Heavy Machines is no different. Different product lines have come and gone during that time and emerging through recessions and a world-wide pandemic have put pressure on the Memphis-based distributor.

But Gus Wilson, the company’s current COO and descendent of the founder of Heavy Machines, said that he, Northcross, and the other managers of his family’s business have sober, well-designed plans in place to deal with both the good times and the bad.

“When we do have large successes, as a company we don’t withdraw those profits but turn around and reinvest them back into Heavy Machines by purchasing more equipment and serving more customers to the best of our ability,” he said. “Over the past nine years, for instance, we have worked on expanding our rental fleet and adding branch locations in Nashville, Atlanta and Mobile. But in the downturns, the rule is conservativism, where we play it safe to be able to weather those storms. We saw that in 2008 with the Great Recession and we maintained profitability while retaining most of our employees even though there were some hard decisions to be made.

“Even last year with COVID-19, it’s a testament to how resilient our employees and the company can be because we did see some modest business decreases,” Wilson added. “Everybody was willing to pitch in and serve because they understood what the environment was. As a result, we had a very successful recovery — as successful as a company could have in the face of a pandemic — because we saved for a rainy day and practiced conservatism by making sure we didn’t go crazy on how the facilities got reinvested. As a result, I think the branches that we have are effectively positioned for the future.

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Experience the Progress.

Happy 50th Anniversary to Heavy Machines, Inc.

Purpose-built machines Liebherr offers custom-made machines and technologies for the construction and material handling industries. A diverse range of wheeled and crawler excavators, wheel loaders and dozers offer all the equipment requirements you need for the construction and material handling industries. Even under the toughest operating conditions, the powerful and economical machines of Liebherr are built to last.

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