Machinery Profile

May/June 2008

A Century of Change

Brandeis Machinery and Power Equipment Co. marks 100 years ofservice in the heartland

By Tom Nicholson

A well-known name among contractors in Kentucky and Indiana, Louisville-based Brandeis Machinery and Power Equipment Co. has been providing equipment and service for the region’s construction and mining industry for over 100 years.

A Komatsu dealership with nine branches in the two-state area, the company continues to grow its customer base and product lines, maintaining a reputation as the go-to guys when it comes to heavy machinery and service. The firm has traversed a century of change, adapting to modern times but never altering its formula for success.

Ask how it’s done, and the Brandeis team points to the firm’s motto: “We don’t lie, cheat or steal….We treat everyone with respect and care….We settle for nothing less than to be the best in the business.”

Backbone of the Region

Brandeis occupies 300,000 sq ft of sales, service and parts facilities, with nearly 300 employees. (Photo courtesy of Brandeis)

Plain spoken and all business, the folks that keep Brandeis alive and well are the management, mechanical, office and sales people who take pride in the firm’s long-standing role as a mainstay in the Kentucky and Indiana construction markets.

Throughout the region, generations of contractors have been purchasing and renting heavy equipment from Brandeis, allowing the firm to play a vital role in the development of the area’s infrastructure. It keeps contractors equiped with the latest and greatest in everything from backhoes to bulldozers.

As such, simply calling Brandeis an equipment dealership doesn’t suffice. The contractors who rely on it consider it part of the backbone of the region’s construction industry. Practically no major project in the region gets off the ground without a visit first to one of Brandeis’ equipment lots, whether it be for earth-moving equipment, paving equipment, cranes or trucks.

“There is something gratifying about running a company with a tradition and history dating back 100 years,” says Jay Paradis, chairman of Bramco, Brandeis’ parent company. “The biggest challenge for a company of this age is retaining the fundamental reason it was established while reinventing it to address the needs of today’s marketplace. For most 100-year-old companies, managing the present and planning for the future far outweighs reflecting on the past.”

History of Service

Brandeis has always run a no-nonsense operation with a quiet history rich in service and technology. “As a company with a long history, Brandeis is dedicated to staying current without leaving behind those who helped us reach the present,” says Brandeis President Gene Snowden Jr.

Founded in 1908 by Robert E. Brandeis, the company started with two employees in a modest 2,000-sq-ft storefront. Today, Brandeis occupies 300,000 sq ft of sales, service and parts facilities, with nearly 300 employees serving a region-wide customer base.

Looking to the past, Paradis notes tough economic times during the Great Depression and the World Wars, and says the closing of equipment manufacturer International Harvester in 1979, which represented 70% of the firm’s business at the time, was a blow.

But the challenges merely served to strengthen the firm’s resolve, Paradis says. After losing IH, Brandeis diversified its product lines and took on the Komatsu line of equipment, and today, Brandeis is one of Komatsu’s largest equipment distributors in the nation.

Brandeis began representing the Komatsu heavy equipment line in 1980.

Since then, expansion opportunities have flourished, with the firm now operating branch locations in Louisville, Lexington, Stanville, Paducah and Corbin, Ky.; and in Indianapolis, Evansville, South Bend and Fort Wayne, Ind. At each branch, in addition to a full line of equipment sales and rentals from Komatsu, Atlas Copco, Wirtgen, Sennebogen, Kobelco and Tadano, Brandeis offers 24-hour, seven-day-a-week service with a fleet of service trucks equipped with air compressors, welders, cranes and specialized tools for onsite diagnostic and repair services.

With equipment ranging in value from $35,000 to $7 million, the firm does about $200 million in total business annually, with 25 to 30 pieces of equipment moving every week during steady periods, Snowden says.

Full Line

Primary to its business are sales of earthmoving equipment, chiefly Komatsu backhoes, graders, excavators, wheel loaders and crushers, articulated and rigid-frame trucks. Mining equipment makes up the second-largest volume in sales, with drills from Atlas Copco figuring prominently. Third in sales is paving equipment from manufacturers such as Gomaco, Etnyre and Vögele, including asphalt distributors, pavers, chip spreaders and road wideners. Cranes and material-handling products fill out the firm’s product inventory, with crawler hydraulic cranes, lattice booms and mobile hydraulic cranes from manufacturers such as Sennebogen, Kobelco, Terex and Tadano.

The company’s inventory includes both new and used equipment and a full scope of peripheral equipment for a wide range of project needs. Strategies attributed to the firm’s longevity are careful fiscal management and prudent investing, says Paradis.

“Financial conservatism” has been a key to success, Paradis says. “As business goes, we have not gone out on a limb as much as maybe other businesses like ours have. From a financial standpoint, we’ve been careful not to over-leverage the business. That sometimes meant we had to pass up opportunities.” But in an industry ripe with cyclical turns, “being a little bit cautious financially is a good thing,” he says.

With its parent company Bramco owned by a group of owner/employees that includes members of the Paradis family, Brandeis’ day-to-day operations are guided by stakeholders who actually work on site, Paradis says.

“We have a tradition of owners working in the business, not just staying out and taking in dividends,” Paradis says. “There have been a lot of businesses like ours that have tried to go public and had public ownership. Those will come and go, but the tradition of active ownership where the owners of the business actually come to work everyday, that has really helped.”

Looking forward, Snowden sees growth continuing along with the region’s construction industry. “We’ve grown a lot through the years, both territorially and in terms of sales volume, and we hope to continue growing,” he says. “Certainly there are always ups and downs in this business and some years are going to be better than others, but we’re optimistic about the near- and long-term future of our industry and our company.”