Hills Machinery’s Expansions Bring Presence to Southeast

By Eric Olson CEG CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

After a company becomes successful, staying that way means it needs to be like a living organism — always growing and forever adapting.

Over the past several years, the people at Hills Machinery, a Columbia, S.C.-based distributor of equipment built for construction, paving, environmental and agricultural needs, have wholeheartedly embraced that philosophy, with the result being that it is one of the top dealers in the Southeast.

When a team of two brothers, Jim and Adam Hills, began Hills Machinery in 2007, their goal was to build a business that gave customers a range of practical solutions to fulfill their construction and equipment needs.

“We aspired to have growth, but I don’t think you can ever imagine what things will truly be like many years later,” said Jim Hills, the company’s president. “The pivotal thing that has happened over time is the acquisition of talented people and great OEM partners — in that order.”

Case Construction became a major product line for Hills Machinery in 2010, followed by Hitachi Construction & Mining products, makers of excavators; Toro, Rokbak and Hudson Brothers Trailers. They join the heavy paving lines available through Hills — Sakai America, Mauldin and Astec/Roadtec.

Its customers also can find machines manufactured by Case IH, Carlson Pavers, Felling Trailers, FAE, Edge Innovate, Rubble Master, Eagle Crusher and IROCK.

Hills Machinery was pleased to be able to attract both Astec/Roadtec and Sakai products as they are highly soughtafter from highway contractors, and each bring in a different customer base from what its dealerships in North and South Carolina had generally been serving, Hills said.

In those two states, Sakai’s compaction paving-only machines are available through their Hills Machinery branches.

“With Astec, we focused on product support in the first year because of a lack of inventory availability,” he said, adding that Astec’s addition came about in 2021. “It has also brought a significant amount of parts and product support business to us that we had to make sure we were ready to handle, both in added parts personnel and experienced and trained people in the service department. We continue to invest in the people, and the people have been the key to both the customer and the dealer success.”

In addition, Hills Machinery’s Rental Division is now active in the two Carolinas as well and is due to be expanded to its branches in Virginia and Georgia as a focal point of the distributorship’s overall business plan, he explained.

Hills Machinery Branches Out

Until recently, Hills Machinery had nine distributorships across the two Carolinas — in Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, Greenville, Wilmington and Asheville in the Tarheel State; and, in South Carolina, Charleston, Columbia and Greenville.

Then, Hills began to cast its eyes north to Virginia, and south to Georgia, to invest in new facilities to expand the product lines it represents.

In 2022, it opened a full-service facility in the Richmond, Va., market and plans to expand into a stand-alone facility further east in Chesapeake in the state’s Tidewater region. Similarly, the distributor is developing a branch in Savannah, Ga., slated to open its doors this month and has recently wel- comed customers to its new store in Wise, Va.

“We prefer to go with an existing location in Chesapeake, Va., because we can get up and running more quickly, but if we are faced with needing to build, we are prepared to do that as well,” Hills said. “We do have resident technicians in most of the areas where we do not have brick and mortar today. Our response time generally should be from a few hours to within a couple of days for any situation.”

In another market, a Hills Machinery-affiliated company, RJV Equipment/Ditch Witch of Tennessee, operates branch offices in Nashville and Knoxville. Recently, a contract was signed to build a new, second facility in the Nashville market, he said.

It is set to open in the third quarter of this year and offer Ditch Witch underground machines, Kubota construction and Sakai paving equipment.

“We brought on the full line of Sakai products for both the Tennessee and Virginia markets,” he said.

Hills views the Volunteer State as a growth opportunity for the crushing product lines already carried by Hills Machinery in the Carolinas, Virginia, and soon, in the planned Georgia branch.

Dealership Expansion Under Way in South Carolina

All three of the Palmetto State branches of Hills Machinery either have or will soon undergo expansion efforts.

According to Hills, the Columbia store recently added a parts depot measuring approximately 80 ft. long, 40 ft. wide and 24 ft. high, and a high-rack parts system dedicated to Hitachi andAstec products. It also sports 3,000 sq. ft. of new office space, and an 80-ft.-long by 40-ft.-wide drive-through service bay.

“Charleston will feature a large-scale initiative with the addition of a separate building to house office space and a new, 6,000-square-foot training and rental center,” he said. “The existing office, parts and service departments there will be completely remodeled, and we will quadruple our parts storage capacity and double the service area while modernizing it. When finished, it will be a 100 percent increase over the current square footage.”

In addition, the Upstate South Carolina facility in Greenville will likely see the construction of two more drivethrough bays that should double that branch’s service department capacity as well.

Major OEMs Have Vested Interest in Hills

When Hills Machinery decided to expand its business into these other states, it also did so with the intention of selling Hitachi heavy equipment in those markets.

Hills said that the manufacturer played a key role in making that decision.

“They wanted to have larger-scale dealers, and we aspired to continue our growth in those regions,” he said. “So, it fits

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