3 minute read
BUFFALO CREEK FINDS SURE THING IN SANY, IRONPEDDLERS
By Eric Olson
CEG CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
On his path to becoming a successful entrepreneur, Chad Whitley always figured he needed to rely on one or two “sure things” — people or companies that would help him reach his desired business goals.
Today, as his businesses prosper, partnering with people in whom he trusts is still something from which he is not likely to deviate.
Whitley runs several different businesses in the town of Marshville, approximately 30 mi. southeast of Charlotte. He is the president and owner of Buffalo Creek Investments, a firm that lends money to contractors and farmers.
In addition, he owns Deer Run Farm where he uses excavators and other equipment to clear land, harvest timber and sell the property to farmers for them to plant row crops such as soybeans, corn and wheat.
His third company is Buffalo Creek Construction, run by Whitley’s son, Seth, a licensed contractor. It develops and builds homes in the Monroe area but also has constructed houses at the North Carolina coast.
The amount of work Buffalo Creek Construction does to put in septic tanks is currently booming because, he added, “there is a moratorium on new sewers for Union County and the city of Monroe, and, because of COVID-19, many more people are wanting to move out into the county, and they must have a septic system. What we do is dig test pits so that the county’s environmental health department can come in to see if they are suited for a proper septic system.”
SANY’s Products Lead to Repeat Business
It is in running Whitley’s construction and farm businesses where he leans so heavily on not one, but two “sure things.” They come in the form of professional relationships that greatly benefit his companies while offering little to no risk to those operations.
To keep both Deer Run Farm and Buffalo Creek Construction running properly, he and his crew rely heavily on construction equipment made by SANY America Inc., and provided by Ironpeddlers, a Monroe-based dealer.
“I have used many different types of equipment over the years, and I tell this to everybody: When I buy a piece of machinery, I am buying for the dealer as much as I am for the equipment,” Whitley said. “Whether it is a big or small piece of equipment, it is a partnership between me and that distributor. I like loyalty and long-term relationships.”
He began extensively working with Ironpeddlers three years ago.
“They have really taken care of me as far as the machines, the delivery, the service and the warranty,” Whitley said. “At the end of the day, I am buying the dealership. Of course, the manufacturer must back up the distributorship so it can back the client, and I have had a good rapport with both SANY and Ironpeddlers.”
Buffalo Creek Construction employs nine SANY models at its job sites, including a 52,000-lb. SY215C excavator, five SY35U mini-excavators (one of which it just bought earlier in the fall of 2022) and a workhorse SW305K wheel loader built to deliver 27,000 lbs. of breakout force.
Seth (L) and Chad Whitley stand with their newest investment, the SANY SY35U excavator.
