Triad Machinery


Specialty: Sales, rentals, parts and service for logging and construction equipment
Management: Kristine Gittins, president
Year founded: 1992
Headquarters: Portland
2005 revenues: $67 million
Projected 2006 revenues: $71 million

Triad Machinery has traditionally focused on providing equipment for the logging industry, but in recent years it has beefed up the construction side.

President Kristine Gittins said 40 percent of Triad’s business now comes from construction equipment.



‘We’ve actually decreased our margins. With a wide shortage of equipment, you’d think you’d be seeing margins increase.’

-- Kristine Gittins

Triad Machinery


The demand for construction equipment is “absolutely exploding,” she said. “The crane market is just unbelievable right now.” Over the last 18 months, Triad has taken on several newlines, including Kawasaki loaders and Cedar Rapids and CMI pavers, to expand from logging.

Rising costs

The Portland-based firm has offices in Eugene, Ore.,Spokane and Tacoma and is expanding into Bend, Ore., and north Seattle.

Gittins said Triad’s sales of log loaders and other forestry equipment grew about 10 percent last year. With lumber prices up, “private landowners are wanting to clear stuff off now that they can make a good profit,” she said. “If timber’s being harvested, somebody’s buying log loaders.”

Gittins

While rising lumber prices help her sell logging machinery, Gittins said global inflation in steel and other raw material prices has been a challenge.

She said equipment manufacturers and dealers have been unable to pass along all of the price increases to their customers.

“The market just won’t bear it,” she said.

“We’ve actually decreased our margins. With a wide shortage of equipment, you’d think you’d be seeing margins increase.”

Interest rate worries

While Gittins said she expects continued growth, the prospect of rising interest rates does concern her.

“We carry a lot of inventory, there’s financing that goes with that,” she said.

Gittins said people are often surprised to see a woman at the helm of an 85-person heavy-equipment firm. But she said her gender hasn’t hurt her career in equipment sales, and it may have helped a little.

“It’s a conversation opener,” she said.



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