10 minute read
hoffman equipment: celebrating a century of success
By: zoe baldwin A lot can happen in a century, just ask Hoffman Equipment, whose history of success now spans a full century across several specialties. From the Great Depression to the Great Recession and every up and down in between, Hoffman has truly proven their mettle as a firm that’s built to last.
Walking into the Piscataway Headquarters for Hoffman Equipment, there is an almost tangible hum and bustle to their operations, even during the bleak days of December when we sat with President & CEO, Tim Watters to hear about their past hundred years of cranes, construction, and growth. In his office is a stunning large-scale ink drawing depicting a vivid port scene from the early 20th century; on the adjacent wall is an antique sepia photograph of two of Tim’s ancestors standing in front of a horse-drawn milk wagon. Both images pay homage to Hoffman’s earlier days and offer a nice vignette into the firm’s rich history.
“So, my grandfather Harry and his brother William – everyone called him Winks – started out in the roofing business, but actually ended up automating it,” Tim starts. “You see, they came back home after being introduced to trucks in World War 1, and now, you’ve got to go back in time,” he pauses and points to the photograph of the horse drawn milk cart. “All the other roofers are running around with horses and buggies, so they buy a truck. Then the other roofers start calling up to see if they would deliver materials, so overnight their roofing business turned into
In the early days of containerization, Hoffman’s crane fleet loaded most of the freight in and out of the New York ports. Another Volvo wheel loader heading out the door! Two of Hoffman’s service techs servicing a new machine.
a trucking business. Two years later they bought a second truck, and they were off and running in a whole new direction.”
For the next few years, the brothers continued their Belleville-based trucking business until Harry, Tim’s grandfather, went to Iran with the military where he was exposed to heavy equipment. When Harry came home, he took this newfound knowledge and focused the firm on heavy rigging, specialized rigging, and heavy trucking, as opposed to day-to-day freight. This was the second successful pivot for the Hoffman brothers, whose ability to respond to the changing needs of the market set the stage for the firm’s impressive legacy.
In 1957, Winks passed away, leaving his portion of the company to Harry, who in turn brought in his son (Tim’s uncle), Harry Jr., also known as Jim. Harry passed away three short years later, leaving Jim as full owner of Hoffman Rigging and Crane. “He led the company through our heyday in the trucking and rigging business – through the sixties and into the mid-seventies.” Tim explains and gestures toward the mural of the port hanging on the wall. “As containerization of freight came into vogue in the mid 60’s, he moved the operation to Port Newark and bought a bunch of 200, then 300-ton cranes to handle these containers in Port Newark and Port Elizabeth. While we were still very active in the heavy rigging business, we were stevedoring containers at the port as well. That business was short lived though, once the ports came to appreciate the economics and productivity of stationary cranes as compared to mobile cranes.”
So while the container business waned during the early 1970’s, Hoffman’s rigging business was just kicking into high gear….and the driver for this success was the nuclear power industry! “In that industry’s heyday, we were the dominant rigging contractor in the Northeast region performing heavy rigging service in the
construction of nuclear reactors. Salem, Forked River, Shoreham, etc.,” Hoffman did the heavy rigging and installation of the heavy reactors, boilers, and generators into the power plants being built at that time. Unfortunately, this industry’s growth spurt was short-lived, and came to a near complete stop shortly after the Three Mile Island accident in Harrisburg, PA. As world economics changed and America was no longer the manufacturing hub it once was, Hoffman pivoted again and refocused their resources on their domestic territories in NY, NJ, and more recently Pennsylvania and Delaware. Tim Watters purchased the company from his father and Bill Hoffman in 2002 and the company has grown significantly since. From two locations and 45 employees in 2002, Hoffman now boasts nearly 150 employees working from seven locations in Piscataway NJ, Deptford NJ, Middlesex NJ, Lionville PA, the Bronx, Medford NY, and Marlboro NY.
In the 70’s, Hoffman Rigging and Crane Co. was the preeminent rigging contractor for the nuclear power industry, here seen moving a large vessel to its new home.
Once again, Hoffman was able to pivot in a new and more successful direction. “We still had our own operators at that point. Both of those industries [stevedoring and nuclear construction] died a sudden death in the mid-seventies and my uncle at that point was ready to retire. My father, Joe Watters, and Bill Hoffman (Wink’s son) worked in the company at that time, saw an opportunity and purchased the company and the equipment dealership located right where we sit today.”
In 1978, Hoffman purchased Robert’s Equipment company, the Piscataway-based Fiat-Allis and P&H crane dealership. The move made sense for the Hoffman – they had already built up a several decade history with crane operations and owned a number of P&H cranes – but this purchase was more than just a pivot. It represented a full-scale business model change as they completely abandoned the rigging and stevedoring businesses that drove their success for the previous 50 years.
An interesting specialty that sprung from the Hoffman’s port experience was their foray into the export market, which was a large portion of their business through the mid-eighties. “A lot of construction equipment at that time was still manufactured right here in the USA and we were able to leverage our new manufacturer relationships with our foreign contacts to create terrific export opportunities for the lines we represented. One example of our success was when a big Italian engineering company won a bid to construct a huge new refinery in Colombia. We supplied all of the rolling stock for that job – equipment, generators, compressors, trucks, vehicles, etc. – over 150 units. In the early eighties, we put together similar packages in Iran, Venezuela, Russia, and Egypt, and provided installation and ongoing services on location as well!” Hoffman has come a long way since their start as a dealership as a Fiat-Allis shop. With their recent purchase of the Penn-Jersey company, Hoffman is now the dealer for Volvo Construction Equipment throughout their entire territory. “It’s been a long road, but we have finally arrived, and we now represent only the premium brands in the industry” says Watters. “In addition to Volvo, we are dealers for Manitowoc, Atlas Copco, NPK, Astec, LeeBoy, Case and JCB – these are all Premium brands and we are damn proud to offer these brands to our customers”
Watters attributes the success and growth to “our unwavering commitment to customer service. Even 50 years ago as a rigging contractor, our success was a result of our commitment to providing the best service to our customers. Our tagline then was ‘The Total Service Company’, now it is ‘Service you can count on’. While the logo has evolved a bit over the years, the message remains the same: you can expect and count on Hoffman to provide exceptional service and satisfaction!”
Hoffman lives up to this tagline now by providing customers with exceptional service and parts support. “From our seven locations, we have over 100 people whose only job is to support our customers, whether with parts, service, or application and technical knowledge. We support these people with over 50 service vehicles, huge parts inventories, and the latest service technologies available. Most importantly, we invest in all of our people with training!”
Hoffman invests a huge amount of money training their people and focuses this investment in five distinct areas: technical train
Well recognized as the premier crane distributor in the region – here one of Hoffman’s crane techs preps a new GMK all-terrain crane for delivery.
ing for technicians; product and application training for sales and techs; safety training; IT training; and management and leadership training. Says Watters, “Our industry is advancing rapidly and to remain competitive and provide better value proposition to our customers, we need to invest in our people to advantage the latest technologies, tools, software, and applications that are available.”
In the ever-evolving field of equipment, one of the biggest advances recently according to Tim have been in the arenas of GPS technology and active care systems, where the manufacturer gets real time updates about the machines through cell phones and satellite connections and through the computers they now put on board. “So right now, Hoffman and Volvo get a ping from the machine, and we can then flag an issue for a customer long before they would otherwise know a problem may exist. So, we’re calling them and saying ‘You’ve got a problem developing, would you like us to come out and tend to this now before it advances and becomes more acute? Volvo has an office building full of people that monitor the alerts that come in from the fleet, and they notify us all of those that deserve attention, and then we have 60 minutes to alert our customer about the situation. Many times the customer may say ‘Yeah I know about that and we’re OK for now,’ but a lot of times they don’t know and they appreciate that we are helping them fix small problems before they get big, reducing their downtime and improving their bottom line! This has really only come online in the past couple of years – it’s a completely new channel of information and is quickly developing to become standard product offering.” "While the logo has evolved a bit over the years, the message remains the same: you can expect and count on Hoffman to provide exceptional service and satisfaction!" - Tim Watters
As the technology evolves there is no doubt Hoffman Equipment will be there on the forefront of it all, ready and waiting for whatever the market may bring. The intrepid firm has navigated every challenge imaginable and garnered many accolades along the way, including the 2014 President’s E-Award for Export, acknowledging a major deal where they delivered $50M in USmade construction equipment to Cameroon, Africa.
Tim, a third-generation Hoffman, took over the business in 2002 and has carried the model for success into the new decade with the recent acquisition of the Volvo line. Four generations of Hoffman’s have worked for the firm since its founding, and Tim sees a bright future ahead for those yet to come. He likes the idea of another expansion, should the opportunity arise, and anticipates a long and fruitful relationship with Volvo.
UTCA congratulates Tim Watters and Hoffman Equipment team on a 100-year legacy of success; we can’t wait to see the next century yet to come.
