Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/96778
From the Chairman President & CEO TOBY MACK Associated Equipment Distributors Oak Brook, Ill. A Unique Association, With the Best ROI Executive Vice President & COO ROBERT HENDERSON Associated Equipment Distributors Oak Brook, Ill. OFFICERS Nothing compares to the opportunities we get from AED – including the big one next month. Chairman LAWRENCE F. GLYNN CMW Equipment, St. Louis, Mo. Vice Chairman MIKE QUIRK Wagner Equipment Co., Aurora, Colo. Sr. Vice President TIMOTHY J. WATTERS Hoffman Equipment Co., Piscataway, N.J. Vice President GARRY FRELICK Douglas Lake Equipment, Langley, BC Vice President DON SHILLING General Equipment & Supplies, Inc. Fargo, N.D. Vice President of Finance MICHAEL D. BRENNAN Brandeis Machinery & Supply Co., Louisville, Ky. Past Chairman DENNIS E. KRUEPKE McCann Industries, Inc., Addison, Ill. AT-LARGE DIRECTORS PAULA BENARD C.N. Wood Co., Inc. Woburn, Mass. RICK DAHL Metrolift, Inc. Sugar Grove, Ill. GREGG R. ERB Erb Equipment Company, Inc. Fenton, Mo. DENNIS J. HELLER Stephenson Equipment Inc. Harrisburg, Pa. MIKE ROONEY Thompson Tractor Co., Inc. Tarrant, Ala. MICHAEL J. SAVASTIO Groff Tractor & Equipment, Inc. Mechanicsburg, Pa. REGIONAL DIRECTORS BRUCE A. BOWMAN, Upper Midwest Reg. Star Equipment, Ltd Des Moines, Iowa RICK VAN EXAN, Eastern Canada Reg. Toromont Industries Ltd. Concord, ON PATRICK MCCONNELL, West Reg. Clyde/West, Inc. Portland, Ore. MARK ROMER, Southeast Reg. James River Equipment, Inc. Ashland, Va. JEFFREY SCOTT, Rocky Mountain Reg. Intermountain Bobcat Salt Lake City, Utah GERALD W. TRACEY, Northeast Reg. Tracey Road Equipment Inc. East Syracuse, N.J. GARY D. VAUGHN, South Central Reg. OCT Equipment, Inc. Oklahoma City, Okla. BY LARRY GLYNN Early in my career the management of CMW sent me to my first AED training seminar for dealer salesmen in Denver, Colo. The original owners of the company had joined AED soon after they had formed the company, and as they attended the annual conventions they quickly became believers and supporters. I joined the company as a field salesman in March of 1977. I was lucky and successful in my territory. So in 1981, when two of the original four owners decided to give up control to the younger guys, I was invited to be one of the three future owners of the company. Realize that in 1981 the prime rate was 21 percent, historical margins of the equipment sales were slipping and the country was in a recession – but we didn't care. We were being given our chance, even if it meant going unbelievably into debt and basically not really knowing what we were doing. We began having weekly 5 o'clock Monday night management meetings, which would often last till 9 or 10. A 12-pack of beer, pretzels and nuts were usually dinner for the three of us. Daytime meetings took away from selling time and we could not afford that. One Monday morning in June 1982, we had our weekly sales meeting at 7 a.m., worked all day and then had our management meeting until 10 p.m. When I got home that night my wife, Tonya, who was nine months pregnant, told me it was time to go to the hospital. The next morning at 10 my son, Nicholas, was born. I was so happy and proud it didn't matter that I had been up for thirty hours. It was fun to be young and aggressive. During that first year we decided we did not have the money between us to be everything to everybody and decided to focus our little company on asphalt and concrete equipment, basically the equipment to build roads. Tom McGowan, one the founders who had not yet retired, took me to my first AED convention to show me the ropes. It was fun and exciting. We visited lots of booths and suites and also attended the manufacturer meetings, where Tom would explain that we were buying the company and had taken control. At many of those same meetings I thanked the manufacturer for past support but explained we were no longer going to sell their product. Without fail they turned to Mr. McGowan for validation. I probably set a record for dropping lines at my first convention. Most of the structure and big management decisions for our company came out of ideas we learned from AED meetings, publications or the bar talk at AED functions. When we decided to write our employee manual, we used the template from AED. When I started to attend the Young Executives conferences every summer I met some great friends that I still have today. We talked then and still talk about everything there is to talk about construction equipment distribution. We compare notes on how manufacturers treat their dealers, which ones are profitable and truly provide product support. We talk about the other manufacturers, too. During the 1990s I was invited onto several AED committees, adding more names to my phone book. I began attending the Government Affairs meetings, and from 2002-2004 I was on the board for the first time. My participation was limited due to my first wife's battle with terminal cancer, but during the meetings I could attend I learned how similar all dealers' problems are. AED has provided for us all the tools we have needed to operate the company throughout the years. CMW belongs to about 20 trade associations, but none comes close to giving us the return on investment we get with AED. LARRY GLYNN (larryg@cmw-equip.com) is President of CMW Equipment in St. Louis, Mo. December 2012 | Construction Equipment Distribution | www.cedmag.com | 5