Pape Group

Specialty: Heavy equipment sales, rental and service
Principal: Randy Pape, CEO
Location: Eugene, Ore.

Photo by Benjamin Minnick Pape Bros., part of Pape Group, is selling Caterpillar’s new line of excavators in Oregon.

The market right now is mostly flat, said Tim Clevenger, director of corporate development for Pape Group, the parent company for Pape Machinery and a number of construction and forestry equipment rental, sales and service companies.

“The market is just hanging there,” Clevenger said. “We’re not seeing much uptick yet.” But Clevenger said he’s optimistic that things will improve soon. Warmer weather is coming, and construction should pick up at that time. “The rental season isn’t on us yet,” he said. “Our prediction is, once that is on us, we’ll be doing well there.”

Clevenger also expects sales of construction machinery to improve as old equipment wears out. “Businesses can only go so long with existing capital equipment,” he said. “You can only operate a forklift for so long ... before you have to do something. We think that’s going to be taking place this year.”

While the market isn’t as large as they’d like, Clevenger said their market share is going up. In the past year, Pape Group expanded into the John Deere line by purchasing two dealerships in Washington and Oregon. “It’s expanded our geographic scope and our offerings,” he said.

Clevenger wasn’t ready to say what kinds of changes Pape Group has planned for this year, but he did say they plan to follow their “long-term vision of being ‘the’ capital equipment player in the West.”