White Oak

Family Business Flourishes Under Second Generation White Oak Equipment Inc. Celebrates 35 Years in Virginia When it comes to running a family business, there’s no such thing as a 9 to 5 day.

“We’re White Oak 24-hours a day,” said Tom Ficklin, president of the Fredericksburg, VA-based heavy equipment dealer.

In each minute of every hour, Tom and the rest of the staff of the 35-year-old company strive to exude an image of integrity, trust and reliability.

The company’s morals come from its founder, Frank McCarty, who began to transfer control of the company in 1991. He can still be found manning his office in the company’s Fredericksburg location on most days.

Frank started White Oak Equipment in 1970 by borrowing $8,000 to become a Case Equipment dealer for the immediate Fredericksburg area.

With years of farm experience behind him, he and partners Jesse Willard and Russell Sullivan, focused on agricultural equipment.

Frank handled the store’s parts and sales, while Jesse, who had some experience working with John Deere equipment, took care of service.

Russell maintained a role as a silent partner. They had one employee, a mechanic.

The new partners set what they thought was a reasonable goal for their first year — $350,000 in sales. By year’s end, sales well exceeded that amount.

In its second year, the White Oak staff was sell-

Vice President Mark McCarty (L) and President Tom Ficklin jointly own and run the company. They both enjoy their individual roles and positions and look forward to helping their many customers in Virginia for many years ahead.

ing Case agricultural equipment like they had been doing it for decades, earning praise from the manufacturer. Frank said they won a sales award and the company’s entire staff took a trip to Martinique.

As their business began to take root and they looked toward bigger iron they ordered three Case 580 backhoes.

Case mistakenly sent 15.

But Frank saw the error as a challenge and took it upon himself to sell all of them in quick order.

“That’s what put White Oak in the construction business,” Tom said.

The transition of the business’ focus from agriculture to construction was finalized in the mid1980s.

That’s when sales really began to take off.

The construction business in Virginia was sprouting in the late 1980s and the White Oak

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owners knew there were opportunities in other parts of the state.

“A lot of our business was drifting north,” Tom said.

The company opened its location in Manassas in March 1989 to cater to this growing marketplace.

Just five years later, changes started to take shape at White Oak and eventually more growth opportunities began to present themselves.

Case was preparing to divest its Case Power and Equipment locations, dealerships that were owned and operated by the manufacturer, in Ashland and Chesapeake.

Even as the company expanded through the Old Dominion State, a transition in the company’s management was under way.

Frank and Jesse had already bought out Russell’s share of the company and, in 1981, Jesse passed away, leaving Frank as the sole

Brian McCarty, company treasurer and part owner of the company, runs the Ashland location as branch manager.

Janice Graves, the company controller, keeps White Oak and Case on her mind all the time. Posters commemmorating the move of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse hang in her office, a job that used Case equipment.

Frank McCarty, now retired from the company he started in 1970, still enjoys coming to the office in Fredericksburg.

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STAYING POWER. CASE CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT AND CNH CAPITAL, ITS FINANCIAL SERVICE PROVIDER, CONGRATULATE WHITE OAK EQUIPMENT ON 35 YEARS IN BUSINESS. Since 1970, White Oak Equipment has set the standard for what it means to be a Case dealer. They know how to be your true professional partner, providing world-class equipment and aftermarket support, industry-leading warranties and flexible financing and insurance products through CNH Capital.

Locate White Oak Equipment or any Case Construction Equipment dealer at www.casece.com.

©2005 CNH America LLC. Case is a registered trademark of CNH America LLC. CNH Capital is a trademark of CNH America LLC. All rights reserved.

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www.casece.com

White Oak Equipment has been servicing the Fredericksburg area from its location at 358 Kings Highway since 1975. It has been recognized as a top dealer for many of the manufacturers it represents.

owner.

The Next Generation A decade passed with Frank alone at the helm.

But then it was time for the next generation to play a larger role in White Oak’s management.

Since he was 6, Mark McCarty said he knew he would one day work in his father’s business.

“This is all I’ve ever wanted to do,” he said.

At a young age, Mark would ride along with his father on deliveries and would hang around the business.

“Any young kid is fascinated with equipment,” he said.

His father said he never brought his headaches from work home with him, which he said would have swayed his children from wanting to carry on the business. And, he never pressured them into pursuing a career with White Oak.

E.B. Marsh (L), Clint Hummer and Darrin Bache are the company’s salesmen in the Fredericksburg area.

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“I wanted them to do what they wanted to do,” Frank said.

Mark received a work permit soon after he turned 14 and started helping out on a larger scale. He would take the school bus to White Oak and would spend the evening washing equipment. As a high school student, he began working in the parts department.

Mark went off to North Carolina State University for a year, where he worked at the local Case dealer, but realized he was destined to take on a

larger role at White Oak. He came on board full-time in 1986 as head of the service department. Mark moved on to the Manassas location working in outside sales, and jumped between there and the Fredericksburg location until he finally landed in Fredericksburg as store manager.

The fascination of his youth remains.

“To this day, I like taking a machine to my house and doing something with it,” he said.

In 1981 Tom, who married Frank’s sister, Linda, in 1982, graduated from Virginia Tech. He went to work on his family’s farm, conveniently located near the one on which Frank grew up. In 1983, he went to Frank to rent a loader to begin preparing a lot for a new house. He ended up with a new career. After a few follow-up conversations with Frank, Tom accepted a job at White Oak. Tom started in the shop and moved on to collections. When White Oak purchased the locations in Glen Allen and Chesapeake in 1994, he moved his family to Richmond and took on the role of manager of both stores.

The transition of White Oak’s ownership from Frank to the next generation started in 1991 when Tom and Mark bought into the company.

For the next decade, they slowly worked through the change in ownership in an effort to not disrupt business. During the transition, the three men led the company as a three-headed president, with Frank heading up sales, Tom leading the company’s accounting department and Mark heading service.

In 2001, Brian McCarty took his father’s place as the third owner.

Brian first started working with White Oak on a full-time basis in 1996 as a salesman following his graduation from High Point University. He said it was a good fit from the start, as he had been around equipment all of his life. But Brian quickly learned it took more than a thorough knowledge of iron to be successful as an equipment salesman. Forming a trusting relationship with customers is just as important, he said.

In addition to his role as part owner, Brian is the Ashland branch manager.

Service Manager Jeremy Messick (L) and Parts Manager John Jett both work in the Fredericksburg location. White Oak keeps a large supply of fluids, filters and other wear items on hand.

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Customer-Focused Even with four locations and more than 70 employees, the White Oak crew maintains its focus on customer service. Tom said they understand the issues facing family-owned contractors since the family-owned White Oak has to leap some of the same hurdles.

Most of its customers are small contractors that own five to 10 pieces of equipment and perform primarily earthmoving jobs.

The company is the authorized Case dealer in eastern Virginia and parts of eight counties in northeast North Carolina. It also sells equipment from Takeuchi, Kubota, Eager Beaver, Wacker, TCM, Quipnet, Vibromax, Towmaster, McMillen, Loegering, Bradco, McLaughlin, FFC and Beltech.

As White Oak has expanded its offerings, its

Steve A. Muffler is the parts manager for the Ashland location. He keeps a watchful eye to ensure the store doesn’t run out of any parts.

The Ashland location sales team is composed of (L-R) Bill Broughton, Rusty Edwards, Ricky Edwards and Jim Knight.

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customer base has grown and is attracting bigger and bigger contractors. As the dealership has grown, its long-term customers also have found success and are taking on bigger jobs requiring larger equipment.

Two People, 47 Years of Experience Through a good part of White Oak’s history, two employees have stuck with the company through good times and bad.

Rick Marsh celebrated the start of his 24th year in 2005 with a promotion to sales manager of all four locations.

He came to White Oak from sporting goods sales, starting in the parts department. He moved into a sales role approximately a year-and-a-half later.

Marsh said the four locations share the same heart, but, because of their varying locations and the evolution of their areas, the sales staff has to adapt differently.

The White Oak sales team enjoys loyalty from their customers, he said. In return, the company will offer the same loyalty to their needs.

He said it’s harder to earn the loyalty in the fastgrowing area in northern Virginia, which is becoming home to more and more people who work in Washington, D.C. Earning a contractor’s trust takes good people skills. In order to create a new business relationship, “You really don’t need to know the equipment as much as you have to know how to deal with people,” Marsh said.

When hiring a new member of the sales team, he looks for an interest in the construction business, but, more importantly, someone who is willing to give every effort they can to their work and who is “sharp on their feet.”

Marsh wants each sales team member to feel like he or she is the CEO of White Oak. Just a year after Marsh received his first paycheck from White Oak, Janice Graves, the com-

Steve Kelly is the service manager for the Ashland location.

The company has invested in a new fleet of service trucks and rapid response vehicles.

The Ashland operation is located at 11243 Washington Hwy. This facility is naturally positioned to serve the Richmond area.

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Congratulates White Oak Equipment for 35 Years of Dedicated Service to the Construction Community!

CORPORATE OFFICE 358 KINGS HWY. FREDRICKSBURG, VA 22405 540-373-7755

LOCATION #3 9115 INDUSTRY DR MANASSAS PARK, VA 20111 703-330-1333

LOCATION #2 11243 WASHINGTON WAY GLEN ALLEN, VA 23060 804-798-9281

LOCATION #4 4550 BAINBRIDGE BLVD. CHESAPEAKE, VA 23320 757-543-2273 13

50 Years of Innovation 3 Generations of Satisfaction 1 Guarantee of Reliability

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Making quality construction attachments since 1951

pany’s controller, joined the team.

In this position, Janice oversees the financial end of the business, including accounts payable and sales processing.

Her first interaction with White Oak was through Frank, who asked for her assistance in installing the company’s first computer system.

She agreed to help out as a favor in the evenings after her day job. But once she stepped foot inside White Oak, she never really left.

Over two decades, Janice feels like the company has become a part of her. “These people are my family.”

She sites the communication among all employees, as well as the mutual respect, as keys to its success over the past 35 years. Even with the tremendous growth in business and the size of the staff (which numbered just 17 people when she started), Janice said it still feels like a small business.

Under Janice’s watch, the company has kept up-to-date with its computer technology. It upgraded to an IBM iSeries server in 2004 and purchased new PCs for all of the branches.

Sales Manager Rick Marsh stands next to a Case 845 motorgrader. Case expanded into larger machines a few years ago when it introduced artic trucks, large excavators, wheel loaders, dozers, motorgraders and other products. White Oak expanded as well by offering its customers these products when they first became available.

Growth and Recognition White Oak is experiencing its biggest growth in northern Virginia, especially Stafford and Spotsylvania counties. More and more contractors need more and more equipment to handle the seemingly endless demand for new housing developments.

Over the past few years, White Oak has been recognized for its success not just among contractors, but in the community as well.

White Oak has a large inventory of new machines on hand at all of its locations in Virginia from a variety of manufacturers including Takeuchi, Case, Vibromax and Wacker.

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It earned Fredericksburg’s Business of the Year Award in 1996 and was nominated for the Richmond Chamber of Commerce’s Impact Award in 2005.

By mid-2005, White Oak’s sales were up very significantly following a dramatic increase in 2004 from 2003.

The company sold the second largest amount of Kubota mini-excavators in the country in 2004 and was the eighth largest Eager Beaver dealer, Tom said. It also won the President’s Select Award for sales performance from Wacker for the third year in a row and is among the top Takeuchi dealers in the nation.

While business is booming for White Oak now, the management knows the good times aren’t going to last forever. They hope they have learned from the 1989 and 1999 recessions how to properly prepare for the next economic downturn. By the late 1990s, White Oak “had gone big

Wayne Penn, corporate parts manager, is also the Manassas store product support manager. White Oak added a new fleet of technical support vehicles all in an effort to keep his customers up and running.

White Oak Equipment has been representing the Case product line since 1970. The company entered the construction equipment game when Case mistakenly shipped 15 Case 580CK backhoes instead of the three they had ordered. Instead of sending them back, Frank McCarty saw an opportunity and sold them all in short order.

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Congratulations...35 years of success

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Salesmen David Lindsay (L) and Matt Yonkoski lead the charge from the Chesapeake location.

Dorsey Ficklin (L), product support trainee, and Steve Muffler Sr., product support manager, work at the Chesapeake branch.

into the rental business,” Tom said, and had approximately 100 employees to cater to its growing customer base.

Preparation Key to Success By the time the recession hit bottom, the company had reduced its headcount by 40 people, mostly by attrition. They still maintained a successful sales team and capable technicians.

This time around, Tom said White Oak hopefully is better prepared for the next downturn, which is inevitable with the cyclical nature of the business. The company is increasing the sales force, its customer base and the number of trucks in its road service fleet to keep its old and new customers happy.

“The customer needs repairs at his site when he needs them done,” Tom said, noting that optimizing uptime is one of the most important things to a contractor.

The company is planning to add 6,000 sq. ft. to the service department in Ashland.

More than half of White Oak’s technicians go through factory training each year and are certified to work on all the new equipment the company sells.

“It’s nice to sell machines, but if you don’t take care of them, you’re not going to sell many more,” Tom said.

Arnold Sullivan, salesman in the Manassas area, enjoys selling a diverse product line offered by White Oak, including the Takeuchi track loaders, to his customers.

As Frank looks back on the past 35 years, he never realized the company he helped create would have achieved this level of success.

“We just wanted to pay the bills,” he said.

The key, he said, was to keep things simple — pay all of the bills on time and to put money back into the company.

Keeping his priorities in line also helped create a successful business.

“Keep God first and family second and the business will come along,” he said. CEG

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Annual Oyster Roast Raises Money for Needy Residents

James Dobson (C), shown here with his family at the 2005 oyster roast, received $43,000 in donations from the community to help pay for cancer treatments.

For one Fredericksburg, VA, area resident each year, the world is their oyster.

For 21 years, White Oak Equipment Inc. and Friendship Baptist Church have hosted the party of the year in the central Virginia town to raise money for someone in need.

Frank McCarty started the event more that two decades ago as a way to help one of his own employees. Jim Dawson, a salesman, had been diagnosed with cancer and needed financial assistance to pay for the treatment.

Frank planned an oyster roast as a one-time event. He and the White Oak staff transformed part of the facility into an oyster extravaganza and welcomed the community in for a delicious seafood meal.

Because of the success of the first year, Frank decided to make it an annual event, choosing a different beneficiary each year.

At first, he opened up the charity to a member of Friendship Baptist Church. But the event grew and became a part of the community. Anyone in need is now eligible to be the focus of the oyster

roast.

As of 2005, the event has raised more than $396,000.

The beneficiaries have been varied. One year, it benefited a local man who slipped into a coma following a three-wheeler accident. In another year, a young woman undergoing dialysis received more than $12,000.

The 2005 event raised $43,000 for James Dobson, a five-year-old with a brain tumor.

All of the money brought in through “pay-whatyou-will” donations goes directly to the beneficiary each year. White Oak and a number of local sponsors cover all of the expenses.

Each of the people Frank has helped with the oyster roast has touched him in a special way.

“They all have sad stories,” he said.

But the appreciation they show is what keeps the event rolling.

Frank said it does wonders for them when they experience “the feeling of people supporting them and feeling for them.” CEG

It seems like the whole community converges at White Oak’s Fredericksburg location for the oyster roast.

An army of volunteers helps make the event a smashing success each year.

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White Oak’s Four Locations Fredericksburg 358 Kings Highway Fredericksburg,VA 22405 540/373-7755 Manassas 9115 Industry Dr. Manassas Park,VA 20111 703/330-1333 Ashland 11243 Washington Highway Glen Allen,VA 23060 804/798-9281 Chesapeake 4550 Bainbridge Blvd.

Chesapeake,VA 23320 757/543-2273 22

C ongratulations White Oak E quipment on your 35th Annivers ary!

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Serving you with quality equipment for 35 years

Ashland 804-798-9281

Fredericksburg 540-373-7755

Chesapeake 757-543-2273

Manassas 703-330-1333