Modern Machinery
Specialty: Machine sales, rental, parts and service for heavy construction, mining, forestry and municipal markets
Management: Jim Hassebrock, regional manager
Year founded: 1971
Local branch: Kent
Western Washington construction activity picked up in late 2003, causing business to rebound at Modern Machinery’s Kent branch. |
2004 was a good year for Modern Machinery’s Kent branch as the regional market for heavy machinery continued to improve and the Missoula, Mont.-headquartered company continued to up its investment in Western Washington.
Regional Manager Jim Hassebrock said the market in Western Washington started to take off in late 2003 and has continued to improve dramatically since then.
“Our market is up over 50 percent (in 2004 compared to 2003),” he said.
Modern Machinery has branches in Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and the Russian Far East.
Modern acquired its Washington and Oregon branches by buying Pacific North Equipment from Wajax Ltd. of British Columbia in late 2002. Before the purchase, Pacific North had been shedding branches and employees.
Hassebrock, formerly with Pacific North, said the new owners have been investing heavily in the company’s facilities, training and tooling.
While Pacific North leased its facilities, Modern bought the Kent facility late last year and is negotiating to buy others. It’s building a new branch in Rochester, Thurston County, to replace a leased facility in Chehalis and is looking to expand into northern Snohomish County.
Hassebrock said the company is investing in new service trucks and in dynamometers that can handle the newer, electronically controlled engines that have grown more popular in the wake of tighter air pollution standards on heavy diesel engines.
“You find manufacturers engineering ways to deal with the new regulatory requirements,” Hassebrock said, but customers have expressed less interest in ways to reduce pollution. He said he gets some requests for biodegradable hydraulic fluids when people are working in waterfront areas, a few inquiries about machines’ ability to run on ultra-low sulfur fuel and no inquiries about biodiesel.
Modern Machinery represents more than a dozen manufacturers, but its main line is Komatsu. It is one of the six largest Komatsu distributors in North America, according to Hassebrock. He said he recently sold some Komatsu D475 dozers, each weighing about 230,000 pounds, to the Centralia mine, the only large coal mine in the state. Those machines will be the largest dozers operating in Western Washington, he said.