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ELLIOTT & ACHI CHITTA
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James “Jumbo” Elliott (L) founded Elliott & Frantz in 1962. The initial lines included Allis Chalmer, Buffalo Springfield and Northwest Engineering. His son, James M. Elliott (R) is the company’s CEO.
AS CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, Jim Elliott today can look back on more than a halfcentury of helping guide the equipment dealership to its current position as a pre mier equipment provider on the East Coast. Sixty years of representing industry-leading equipment manufacturers tells the story.
His main takeaway from his years of focusing on sales is the quality of customer with whom he worked. “What I love about the industry is the customers,” he said. “They are a great bunch of people. They are hard-working entrepreneurs.”
The relationships he formed during his years of interacting with contractors and fleet owners weren’t one-sided, he said. They were founded on mutual respect.
After his father James “Jumbo” Elliott and Harry Frantz founded the company in 1962, Jim Elliott began working part time in the shop. He was 15 years old and eager to familiarize himself with the parts and serv ice function of the business.
your products. They believe in your ability to take care of them.”
And the caretaking, he added, was “a total team effort.”
In 1969, he joined Elliott & Frantz full time as a 22-year-old salesman of such industry staples as Allis-Chalmers graders and tracked equipment and Buffalo Springfield compactors. Asked how long he worked in sales, he quipped, “I’m still a salesman.” He, in fact, became the compa ny’s sales manager before being promoted to president in 1981.
Telematics — the long-distance monitor ing of engines and systems — will continue to erode the resistance that some segments of the industry have demonstrated, Elliott believes. After all, he said, “These are smart people in the industry, and they realize that it will benefit them. Contractors are getting onBrandsboard.”in the Elliott & Frantz equipment yard have changed, with Hitachi and Wirtgen and Gradall now leading the way in customer sales and satisfaction. But some things don’t change: An Elliott is still at the helm. When Jim Elliott decides to retire fully, another generation of the family is in the wings in the person of Jim’s daughter, Catherine, who is chief operating officer.The beat goes on, in other words, as Sonny and Cher musically declared in 1967 when Elliott & Frantz was just hitting its stride.
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The equipment dealership, co-founded in 1962 by Harry Frantz (R), was predicated on a philosophy of cus tomer service.
All About Mutual Trust, Respect
“The customers have faith in you and in
Looking ahead, Elliott doesn’t see vast changes in the way the dealership will relate to its customers in the future or in the character of the customers themselves. New technology will make its presence known in the machinery, of course, as well as in the way smart machines relate to themselves and their operators.
“I had to learn an entirely new vocabu lary — technical and service terms. But I got to work with service personnel, and I had not had that exposure before.”
“Even as a little girl, I was struck by the fact that the relationship between Elliott & Frantz and our customers helps each busi ness mutually sustain itself and become successful. And the relationship is all pred icated upon friendship and a handshake, which even as a kid I thought was remark able.”The close interaction between customers and her father, Jim Elliott, was such that the young Elliott grew up with the concept of friends being customers and vice versa.
“I have never felt disadvantaged or excluded in any way because I am a woman. I feel as more women come into the industry that it becomes clearer that it is important to have both men and women working together to bring something differ
As Catherine Elliott moves inexorably toward the CEO position at Elliott & Frantz, she does so as a fan of the customers she wants to serve.
“The industry is in a moment of flux,” she said. “I was just talking with a friend from college, and we were saying con struction is special because it is genera tional and is built on traditional values of hard work, relationships and integrity. Yet, the flip side is that the industry has so much opportunity for innovative ideas and technological advancement — some of which haven’t hit the construction industry at the speed they have other industries.”
CATHERINE ELLIOTT continued on page 20
“I always try to hammer home that there is much opportunity for women to succeed in this industry. It’s fulfilling to bring a unique perspective, or our voice as women, to the table.”
CATHERINE ELLIOTT IS IMPRESSED by hard work. The chief operating officer of Elliott & Frantz has been interacting with employees and customers of the heavy equipment dealer since she was three or four years old. Even at that age, the willing ness of skilled people to roll up their sleeves and go to work made an impres sion.“I always thought the work was cool,” she said. “But I am in awe of how hard the work is and how dangerous the work can be. Our customers get up at 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. every day and go out in the field doing dangerous work in all the ele ments. The work is difficult and yet people have committed themselves to it for a life time.”For its part, the company has been working hard for 60 years to support all this dedicated labor of its customers. The company executive said she recognized early on that the ability of the dealership and its customers to work hand in glove was something special.
Poised to Carry On Her Father’s Legacy
“My dad is friends with customers out side of work,” she said. “We would always be going to family parties and weddings and dinner on the weekends. My parents would bring me along, and I would meet my dad’s friends who also were his cus tomers.”Now, Elliott finds herself working along side some of the same Elliott & Frantz peo ple she came to know as a child.
The “colleague” role began in 2012 when Catherine Elliott joined Elliott & Frantz as an employee in the service department. The work was administrative. That broadened her workplace under standing considerably because it was unre lated to the communication and English focus of her college studies.
Her systematic transition into a leader ship role at Elliott & Frantz has occurred despite being a female in a male-dominat ed industry. She said she never has consid ered gender an impediment to her progress as a business executive in the heavy equip ment industry.
“I know all the people who have worked here over the years because we are lucky to have low turnover. Now they are my colleagues.”
From there, the third-generation family employee moved to sales, working under a now-retired 40-year employee, Steve White. “I learned so much about structur ing deals and financing and how to value trade-ins. It was a great experience to work under him. He is such a smart guy.”
She still services a couple of customer accounts from those days. Then, she became involved in interviewing newhires, which gave her first-hand knowledge of the next generation of company person nel. With her father easing into retirement, Catherine Elliott in recent years has moved to the executive decision-making and financial side of the company.
Consequently, she has promoted the hir ing of women by equipment dealers in general and Elliott & Frantz in particular.
All of which means that she believes change is coming. As an example, she cited
ent to the table. I do think the more diverse perspective a company can bring to the work, the more successful it will be.”
Her longtime association with Elliott & Frantz and the heavy equipment industry of which it is a part has given the chief operating officer an interesting, bifurcated view of the business world of construction. She believes that, while construction is grounded in timeless values, it is on the verge of some needed change.
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products, selling machinery across the whole product lineup. Milling machines are the brand’s top selling equipment — at Elliott & Frantz and everywhere else.
The Wirtgen connection is notable for another reason.
“I was the first Wirtgen dealer to start renting their machines,” Schaeffer said. “Wirtgen said I was crazy to do that, but now every dealer rents them.”
FORTY YEARS AGO, when Elliott & Frantz was a spry 20-year-old company, Robert Schaeffer joined the team to open and manage company branches in Maryland and Delaware. In that year, 1982, Schaeffer went from representing a manufacturer of pneumatic hammers and similar construc tion tools to joining a dealership that one year before had taken on a new equipment manufacturer, Hitachi.
He recalled the day he walked into the Wirtgen office suite and told the company representatives he wanted Elliott & Frantz to be a Wirtgen dealer.
is bought, too.
In 2000, Schaeffer became president of Elliott & Frantz. Today, Elliott & Frantz has a 94 percent market share for Wirtgen
Robert Schaeffer joined Elliott & Frantz in 1982. Today, he is the company’s president.
The company’s long-standing and grow ing representation of Hitachi construction machinery has enhanced the company’s reputation, the continuity being a reassur ance to equipment-buyers.
The rest is history. But Schaeffer didn’t just climb aboard the Hitachi product line and ride it to success. He helped build out the history of Elliott & Frantz by persuading another premier manufacturer to join up — Wirtgen Group.
The Hitachi lineup of products at Elliott & Frantz wasn’t impacted at all, Schaeffer said. “And dealing directly with Hitachi is much better for our company.”
“It’s a funny story. I told them that and they said, ‘Well, you have to know some thing about millers and rollers and pavers.’ Of course, we didn’t have competitive lines of any of Undauntedthat.”by the indifferent reception, Schaeffer pressed ahead. He argued that for Wirtgen to associate with Elliott & Frantz would be good for both companies. After two months of conversation, Wirtgen executives finally were persuaded and the deal was struck.
“I saw the separation coming years ago, though I didn’t think Deere would do that.”
As for Hitachi, Elliott & Frantz has an unbroken tenure with the company since it signed on 41 years ago, which is an unusu al fidelity between a manufacturer and dealer. Only one Hitachi dealer in the United States has a longer unbroken con nection. The enduring relationship helped Elliott & Frantz when John Deere joined with Hitachi in a marketing relationship and summarily did away with many Hitachi dealers.“Wewere one of the last ones standing because of our market share,” said the president.Hitachi and Deere Company recently ended that marketing partnership and Schaefer wasn’t surprised.
He estimated that 60 percent of the German manufacturer’s products are pur chased straight out by customers, but “most” of the rented machinery eventually
As a bonus, after the Deere-Hitachi part nership was sundered in March 2022, Elliott & Frantz took over distribution of Hitachi products in 12 Virginia counties where it previously had no presence. “We have done very well there so far.”
Representing Quality Equipment Lines … and Stability
The company’s longstanding and growing representation of Hitachi construction machinery has enhanced the company’s reputation with the continuity and consistency being a reassurance to equipment-buyers.
After the Deere-Hitachi partnership was sundered in March 2022, Elliott & Frantz took over distribution of Hitachi products in 12 Virginia counties where it previously had no presence.
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Robert Schaeffer
Elliott & Frantz is headquartered in King of Prussia, Pa.
Elliott & Frantz is a major supplier of Hitachi and Wirtgen Group equipment.
“We look 12 to 15 months ahead of the market and order equipment appropriately. We are getting equipment now we ordered
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We are still a family-owned company that puts a high value on relationships. I have customers I have had for over 30 years and am selling now to my original customer’s sons or daughters who took over the business.”
“
Some of that second-generational busi ness is mirrored in the longevity of the Elliott & Frantz sales people, whom Schaeffer describes as a “great sales force. Most have been with us for more than 20 years. Our success is all about customers seeing the same people year in and year out.”
The primary strength of the dealership, according to Schaeffer, is that it is well cap italized. That is a factor in its ability to order equipment well in advance.
In the end, though, the success of the company isn’t attributable to well-regarded big iron or a sound financial structure. It’s people.“This is a relationship business,” said the president. “We are still a family-owned company that puts a high value on relation ships. I have customers I have had for over 30 years and am selling now to my original customer’s sons or daughters who took over the business.”
The company brands are market-leaders, beginning with Hitachi. Its orange product line runs from off-road trucks and mining shovels to wheel loader, front-end loaders and mini-excavators. The Wirtgen family of equipment extends beyond cold planers, pavers and millers and incorporates Vogele material feeders and pavers, Hamm com pactors ranging from 10-ton tandem rollers with oscillating drums to 3-ton compact models, Kleemann cone crushers and other quarry material handling machinery. Gradall wheeled and crawler excavators are a staple of municipal fleets and Atlas Copco mobile generators and light systems the industry standard.
In a period of market churn and supplyline interruptions, the company president believes Elliott & Frantz is well-positioned because of visionary inventorying.
Elliott & Frantz carries Brandt buckets.
Strickland excavator buckets are among a wide range of attachments Elliott & Frantz offers.
“We’re the only heavy equipment dealer in Maryland, Virginia and Delaware that has never changed the brands we represent,” said Schaeffer, citing rival major heavy equipment manufacturers that repeatedly have switched dealerships. “We represent a certain stability to a customer.”
“We pretty much are able to order any amount of equipment we need without financing or credit issue,” he said. “I mean, the company is 60 years old. We should have money in the bank by now.”
last June. Consequently, we have a suffi cient stock of every product we sell.”
(L-R, back row): Alice Mascio, Sharon Santangelo, Roseanne DiVitantonio, Talya Moyer, Sally Engelhardt and Will Reid. (L-R, front row): Drew Carr, Catherine Elliott and Bill McLoughlin.
Who is buying these large and specialized machinery? Reid said buyers include townships, but most are state agencies and general contractors.“Dowe have recurring customers? Absolutely. The hardest machine to sell is the first one. If you take care of the customer, he’ll come back.”
“Companywide, we are very good about getting back to a cus tomer,” she said. “If one of us takes a message from someone won dering about a parts invoice, we call the parts department and the customer gets a call back. We don’t let them fall by the wayside, we don’t leave them hanging and they appreciate that.”
EVERY CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT DEALER has a sales team. They each have a rentals team. And, of course, all companies have a parts and service team, as well. At Elliott & Frantz, they all are the same
Sharon Santangelo is a key back-office figure in this companywide concentration on moving equipment off the lot. She is the company accountant, but wears lots of hats. Her other responsibil ities include HR work with the company’s 74 employees and being the informal software consultant, the benefits administrator and the comptroller. That’s what working nearly 23 years in the company headquarters office looks like.
“Everyoneteam.in the company has the mindset that sales is the focus,” said Will Reid, Elliott & Frantz sales manager. “If you talk to someone in our parts department or in our service department, you’ll find everyone is interested in selling equipment. That drives theThiscompany.”attitude is a part of the compa ny’s culture, Reid said.“Different sales people have differ ent strategies. It has been our emphasis to have everyone on the same page, to have salespeople know the service and parts side of the business to be able to help as much as they can. Our sales force really tries to get as much training as possible to know how to run the machines. Knowing how to run them will help sell them, so our salesmen go above and beyond to learn about the products.”Reidoversees 15 salespeople at Elliott & Frantz — five of whom are at the King of Prussia, Pa., headquarters branch — and he is looking to grow that number.
Reid said most of Elliott & Frantz initial equipment transactions are“Asphaltrentals. contractors will take a mill out for a week and some one else might have it the following week, but excavators tend to go out and stay out. Eventually, everything is sold.”
Santangelo calls it being part of a team.
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The sales manager said that is the pattern pretty much across all company locations.
The bottom line is that she mirrors Reid’s view: Selling machin ery at Elliott & Frantz is a team effort.
Talya Moyer, the company’s sales coordinator, said the King of Prussia and Jessup, Md., locations are the sales “heavy hitters.” Moyer spends most of her workdays tracking the company’s inventory of new, used and rental machinery so that salespeople know what is available to them. “We work closely,” she said.
“If someone asks, ‘Could you help me out?,’ everyone else will
step up to the plate and say, ‘What can I do?’ That attitude is pretty important in any kind of industry.”
And what is being sold or rented? The top-sellers are Wirtgen milling machines and Hitachi hydraulic excavators. Reid specifically notes the popularity of the Hitachi X135, a 15ton, 88-hp unit that he calls “a good utili ties machine,” and the model 350, which weighs 35 tons and is powered by a 280-hp engine. Reid characterizes the 350 as “an allaround good larger machine.” Hitachi excavators range clear up to 280-ton mining diggers like the model tongetWirtgen’s2600.offeringsbig,too.The11-SP94ipaverisoneexample,andtheW250Ficoldmillingmachinecanripapartanasphalt
strip 7 ft. wide and 14 in. deep. While the Jessup location sells more excavators than King of Prussia — excavators of all kinds, including Gradall wheeled units — the King of Prussia store is the company’s king of Wirtgen equipment sales.
Moyer tracks and coordinates all these transactions, with sold equipment quickly going off the books.
At Elliott & Frantz, Everyone Sells, Rents Equipment
The everyone-is-a-salesmen mindset permeates the company, according to Reid, who said he “loves” working at Elliott & Frantz, where he has been employed for seven years.
“Our sales force really tries to get as much training as possible to know how to run the machines. Knowing how to run them will help sell them, so our salesmen go above and beyond to learn about the products.”
“Do we have recurring customers? Absolutely,” said Will Reid, Elliott & Frantz sales manager. “The hardest machine to sell is the first one. If you take care of the customer, he’ll come back.”
Elliott & Frantz is a highly successful dealer of Gradall excavators.
“With a sale, it’s done, whereas with rental units, I keep track on how long a customer has a machine and how many hours they put on it.”
Will Reid
“There is a family aspect to it, and everyone is willing to help each other — loading a truck or picking up a machine. We bounce ideas off each other. We all are in the same boat, trying to sell equipment and keep the customer happy.”
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From her office in the King of Prussia company headquarters, Engelhardt coordinates the repair and maintenance of customers’ equipment. That is, she monitors the workflow through shop bays and responds to any bottlenecks that idle equipment that cus tomers need back on the job.
SERVICING THE MACHINERY OF CONTRACTORS and other heavy equipment customers means having parts on shelves, expertise in technicians and someone riding herd on the process to ensure it all comes together to a customer’s satisfaction. At Elliott & Frantz, that person is Sally Engelhardt.
If a customer can’t bring in a machine to a branch, a tech will go to the work site to service it. Engelhardt sings the praises of the company’s team of techs that performs preventive maintenance on machinery in the field. They’re not just changing oil either, she said.“They put eyes on everything and give timely suggestions to customers. ‘That fan belt is starting to fray and you may want us to put an order in for it so we’ll have it and you can get it replaced.’ They let customers know they shouldn’t wait till they are in the middle of a big job to fix something.”
If there is a service mantra, Engelhardt said it might be, “Do it right the first time.” That is, she wants techs to diagnose and isolate a mechanical, electronic or hydraulic problem, pinpoint the issue and correctly fix it on the first try.
If a needed part isn’t in the warehouse, the service team has been known to take it from a rental machine.
“If a customer has a piece of equipment that we didn’t sell him and it is one of our brands, I’ll work on it, but not other brands. I have too much work to take them on.”
And what are they working on? Wirtgen and Hitachi equipment are the typical machines in the shops, as well as Gradall excavators and other company products.
Ed Russell has been managing service work in the Jessup branch of the company for 17 years, and has oversight responsi bility for service work in the bays at Delmar, Del., and Manassas, Va. The retired Navy Seabee has five mechanics working under him in the six bays at Jessup, two techs in Manassas and one in Delmar. “But I would take another four or five technicians if I could find them,” he said.
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Bob Jensen, technician of Elliott & Frantz, works on a Wirtgen milling machine.
Dustin Craig poses for a photo by one of the company’s many service trucks.
John Chendorain helps a customer locate a part at the company’s King of Prussia headquarters.
Servicing Equipment — Doing It Right the First Time
“If there is a solution, we work to find it,” she said. “If something doesn’t work, we ask, what’s our backup plan? Time is money, both for us and our customers, especially in today’s world.”
“We are not going to throw parts at an issue,” she said, meaning fall into a habit of replacing parts until something seems to do the trick.All of this diagnostic and hands-on expertise depends on Elliott & Frantz having top-caliber techs, of course. Engelhardt said it does.“Our master techs set us apart from competitors. Some of the most knowledgeable and experienced techs in the industry work for us. I hear compliments from customers and from manufacturer reps all the time. You can’t put a price on that.”
“That doesn’t happen too often, but anytime our customers are down, they are losing money and we are going to think outside the box if we need to.”
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have had a woman ever applied. Engelhardt knows of none who have. “I would love to see more female technicians.”
A Vogele paver heads out to a customer from the company’s Jessup, Md., branch.
She credits manufacturers whose products Elliott & Frantz rep resent with providing first-class training and follow-up support.
While the company has no female techs in its employ, it might
She speaks as a former tech with a communications company, one of 68 technicians with the company and the only female. But, she acknowledged, “heavy equipment is a tough industry to work in.”Another key component of service is parts. Technicians can’t repair a machine if they can’t get their hands on a needed part. The Covid pandemic locked down factories here and there and interrupted the parts supply, which put a strain on the system.
Elliott & Frantz always maintains a large inventory of Wirtgen milling machine teeth.
Branches sometimes will swap a tech between them as needed by a customer. Or a technician will work from a job site for a few days, putting up in a nearby motel until a job is complete.
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“But in almost all cases,” said Russell, “we can get a part overnight if we don’t have it in stock.”
Company President Robert Schaeffer said Elliott & Frantz typi cally has more than $6 million in parts on shelves across the com pany.“We realize what happens when you don’t have the parts you need, so we try to stock items to keep contractors running. We’re never going to have everything, but we try.”
The service coordinator said the company is fortunate to have a cadre of good young technicians applying their newly developed skills in impressive ways. They are graduates of tech schools or new hires from other dealers. “They are a great group.”
Other than the virus-induced shortage of parts, Covid did not have much impact on operations of the company.
Examples: Russell has a technician in Jessup who has worked there for 37 years, and another one nearing 30 years of service work. Company-wide, the pool of technicians ranges from skilled vets “who know more in one little pinky than anyone else in the shop,” said Engelhardt, to trainees fresh out of technical schools. “Having enough young techs coming on always is a concern.”
“In my opinion, they are wonderful,” she said. “They support our technicians 100 percent. If one of the techs gets in a jam, he can call a manufacturer’s hotline and get online assistance to track down an elusive issue.”
Tanner Martz (L) and Luke Patterson are both technicians at the company’s Jessup, Md., branch.
“I’m feeling pretty confident,” the service coordinator said. “We have some smart people running it and they know what they’re doing. They can meet the challenges that come along. I think the company will still be here in 60 years.”
So, will Elliott & Frantz still be around selling equipment 60 years further down the road?
Sally Engelhardt
“Our master techs set us apart from competitors. Some of the most knowledgeable and experienced techs in the industry work for us. I hear compliments from customers and from manufacturer reps all the time. You can’t put a price on that.”
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If a customer can’t bring in a machine to a branch, a tech will go to the work site to service it.
A Hitachi 490LC is being assembled at the Elliott & Frantz Jessup location. This machine was heading out on rental.
“We were fortunate,” Engelhardt said. “We had one or two techs get Covid, but we were really, really careful and distanced everyone. We were constantly scared that it would shut down an entire branch. It wasn’t fun.”
Neither was it fun, Engelhardt recalled, when she joined Elliott & Frantz in 2008, a time when a deep recession hit the construction industry especially hard. She recalled customers being afraid to buy equipment because of the uncer tainty of winning contracts to use the machin ery.“Iron wasn’t moving. It was a bad time to start in the business,” she said. “Now, it’s nice to see people out there building again. So long as they’re building, we’ll always have parts to sell and machines to maintain and repair.”
Partnering With Customers in Maryland
Robert Shaeffer, president of Elliott & Frantz, and his son, Peter Schaeffer, who is the sales manager at the company’s Jessup, Md., facility.
Today, Hitachi excavators and Wirtgen milling machines are the sales leaders at the Maryland store. The Hitachi ZX135, 210 and 350 model excavators lead the way with the diggers and the 4-ft.-wide W120 and the W210 milling machines are top-sellers in the Wirtgen line. Other popular machines moving off the lot include Gradall XL41000-V highway-speed rubber-tired telescoping excavators.
“The top sales position flipflops from year to year between the two locations,” said Peter Schaeffer.Histenure at the company dates from 1994, the last eight as Jessup’s sales manager. The full range of product lines are offered at each location with Hitachi excavators leading the way in sales and rental at Jessup.
Mike Baterna, shipping and receiving; Chris Ellis, shipping and receiving; Daniel Hawkins, administrative assistant; Ted Kushner, parts manager; Todd Kostelec, parts advisor; and Scott Rossvack, parts advisor, all of Elliott & Frantz’ Jessup, Md., branch.
WITHIN ELLIOTT & FRANTZ, stores in King of Prussia and Jessup have a sales thing going. The heavy equipment compa ny’s two busiest locations vie each year for sales leadership. The King of Prussia location goes back to the early days of the company and the Jessup store opened in 1982.
Building and paving contrac tors and dirt and utility contrac tors are the foundation of Jessup’s “very steady” business,
Lisa Danna works in accounts receivable and as secretary at the company’s Jessup, Md., branch.
Brenda Newberry is the sales coordinator at the company’s Jessup, Md., branch.
“With Hitachi, it started with Jim Elliott and Dad (company president Robert Schaeffer) through a lease program,” Peter Schaeffer recalled. “They put out
The store sold a hundred excavators the first year.
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the excavators in every county department in the state of Maryland, put a new machine in their hands at an affordable rate and it took off. We built the market from there.”
ticked off one by one, Schaeffer seems unfazed. “We are in a good position because we have a lot of availability of equipment, more so than our competitors. I would say we look forward to the chal lenges. The future looks bright because of our large inventory of equipment.”
Sales and rentals are spoken of in the same breath at Elliott & Frantz. Everything the dealership sells it is open to renting. Machines typically rented include excava tors, wheel loaders, milling units, and offroad trucks — the latter being Rokbak articulated units (formerly Terex).
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When the issues facing the industry at the moment — supply chain disruptions, inflation, manpower availability — are
Elliott & Frantz offers the full Wirtgen Group lineup in Jessup. Md.
“We are terrifically loyal to customers who, in return, are loyal to us. They enjoy an ease in doing business with us. We give every customer every option to acquire a piece of machinery so they can make the decisions that are best for their businesses.”
Elliott & Frantz’ facility in Jessup, Md.
The Jessup store is situated on six acres with a building that contains six service bays. Schaeffer has six salespeople work ing from Jessup, one in Delmar and two out of Manassas. Bill McLaughlin is Schaeffer’s counterpart in the King of Prussia office.
according to Schaeffer. He added that when the Deere-Hitachi distribution rela tionship ended, “it created a little uncertain ty in the market at first, but Hitachi has done a great job of proving to the customer that it is here to stay. It’s not going any where.”From its Jessup location, store sales and service people range across Maryland, but also do a large volume of business in northern Virginia from a Manassas branch. Some of the Virginia business developed after Deere exited the picture. The location also serves the store in Delmar, Del.
“We have many purchase options and renting a machine first is one of them,” said Schaeffer. “It lets the customer gain equity to put themselves in a position to make a capital purchase. Fully 75 percent of our rentals turn into purchases. There’s some rent-to-rent but most of it is rent-to-own.”
So, while brands change names and marketing relationships can change over the course of 60 years, the Elliott & Frantz business reputation has remained fixed,
according to Jessup’s 46-year-old sales manager.“Idon’t think the business philosophy has changed at all over the years. It is fam ily-owned and customer-centric. We know every customer by name; they’re not a number here. The company always has taken good care of employees. It’s finan cially sound and it’s not going anywhere.”
Beyond having a yard full of equipment, the situation is a good one, Schaeffer said, because customers feel they have a partner in Elliott & Frantz.
Chrissy Sokich, service administrator; Mel Andriths, service secretary; Ed Russell, service manager; Maria Manalanasan, assistant service manager; and Don Watson, Wirtgen product support, all of Elliott & Frantz’ Jessup, Md., branch.
“Jim Elliott might have fired you if you e-mailed a quote to a customer. Now the customers say, ‘Hey, just send it.’ They don’t spend an hour with salesmen anymore.”
So, the tools of a salesman are different than in 1999 when Carr began selling equipment. And the equipment he sells is different, too.“Wirtgen milling machines in particular. The technology the mills have on them is 20 years ahead of the competition,” said Carr. “Computers that calculate what you will get done during a shift —
how many square feet of asphalt surface you milled up, how many tons you have loaded out — all of the information transferred to the office and downloaded in real time for billing.”
“You don’t do that anymore. Customers now are pretty much all online themselves. They are up on what you have to sell them.”
HEAVY EQUIPMENT — and dealers representing it — have changed a bit over the past 60 years. In 1962 ...
Drew Carr has been a sales representative of Elliott & Frantz for 23 years.
In-person contact was the rule when he started at Elliott & Frantz, Carr said. None of this texting or e-mailing that has become a de rigueur form of business communication.
Carr praises “technology that makes equipment better, stronger, faster.” He cites GPS grade control systems — such as the 2D and 3D grade control features on some Hitachi excavators — “that let operators make fewer mistakes and dig more accurately and speed up a job. Faster hydraulic systems are help ing,Hetoo.”does not as enthusiastically endorse mandated emissions control systems.
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Carr remembers putting deals together using Post-It Notes (invented in 1969, inci dentally).“Thatwas before we had spreadsheets,” he said. “Now it’s all online. You compute it and — bam! — there are your numbers.”
• Reinhardt Wirtgen had just gone into business as a freight for warder and was nine years away from manufacturing his first hot milling machine.
• Hitachi Construction Machinery was still building electric shovels for large public work’s projects and was three years away from manufacturing in Japan the first hydraulic excavator built solely from Japanese technologies.
Carr also recalls carrying a bin in his car filled with brochures.
On the other hand, he is a “big fan” of telematics systems — the machine-to-shop communication systems that monitor the whereabouts and performance of equip ment.“Telematics is the first line of defense on equipment, because it gives an accurate reading of what is going on with a piece of equipment.”Theon-board diagnostic and maintenance sensors save mainte nance techs miles of extra driving because they know what’s wrong with a stalled machine before they ever see it.
All modern machinery is “high tech,” Carr said to a question about simple machines. “Smaller asphalt rollers haven’t changed too much over the years. An engine and a pump and you go back and forth. But the larger rollers have temperature sensors and com paction meters. They can be really complex.”
“I understand what they are trying to do, but it adds a lot of cost and that is com pounded when a machine is down because an emissions control system has failed. Looking back over the last five or six years, most of my problems with equip ment have been engine-related.”
As Technology Changes, Elliott & Frantz Remains Committed to Core Family Biz Values
• And James “Jumbo” Elliott started a construction equipment distribution com pany in King of Prussia, Pa., albeit with pencil, paper and landline telephones to reach and service equipment customers.
“Did I have a cell phone when I started? I think I did,” said Drew Carr, a sales rep resentative of Elliott & Frantz for 23 years. The 57-year-old salesman hasn’t been with the company from the beginning, obvious ly, but he has seen technology change pret ty dramatically during his tenure — both in his sales work at the company and in the machinery the company sells.
The veteran machinery salesman doesn’t believe battery-pow ered heavy equipment is ever going to be practical, but autonomous material haulers are a different story. “In a controlled environment like a quarry, that is all good stuff.”
As for the change in sales technology at Elliott & Frantz, Carr said it hasn’t changed the character of the company. “It still is a good family-owned business. There still are a lot of the same peo ple doing the same things, just doing it a little bit faster.”
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the potential for speedier and easier processes for purchasing a piece of equipment or parts for a machine.
The challenge of change notwithstanding, Catherine Elliott said she believes the family company is well-positioned to build on the future. As a foundation for future success, she cited the deal ership’s “great product line” featuring Hitachi, Wirtgen, et al. “We have a very talented organization and I am excited to continue to build on Strengtheningthat.” and building out that “great” support staff over the next decade is job one for the chief operating officer, she said. The benefits of doing so are two-fold. First, of course, customer support will be enhanced. Second, she believes the employees themselves will take more and more ownership of the work they are
Added Elliott: “A new perspective I’m bringing to the company is the idea that collaboration only makes us stronger. I think that will help us serve our customers better.”
Catherine Elliott, chief operating officer of Elliott & Frantz, stands beside a por trait of her grandfather, James “Jumbo” Elliott, who co-founded the dealership in 1962.
“I am completely in awe of the men and women who get up before the sun every morning to go out and spend their day on a job site — milling and paving or whatever. It takes a special per son to feel motivated and passionate to do that every day. I have so much respect for them
CATHERINE ELLIOTT from page 5
She added that she is open to new ideas in general that will improve the internal processes that the company relies on day by day.In the end, as Catherine Elliott moves inexorably toward the CEO position at Elliott & Frantz, she does so as a fan of the cus tomers she wants to serve.
“The way we conduct those transactions probably will start to change, which is exciting, but also daunting. In small, familyowned businesses like Elliott & Frantz, it will be an exciting chal lenge to implement new ideas and make changes quickly.”
20 nds at McGriff.om your frie ds McGriantzrfr o Ellioats off tH wardforving dmoasyoucontinuerelyonyou cGriff. o tnertrusted parpaabeoudto’re pr r th anniversary. We antz on your uro Elliott & Fatulations tCongr 60 ott & F us all.community and inspiresourexample enrichesen ourwithdistinction.Yasyou continuerely on McGriff.com Holdings, Inc.TruistInsurancesubsidiary ofais Incvices,ance SerInsurved. McGriffreserrightsAll vices, IncMcGriffInsuranceSer©2022 SENEFITYEE BEMPLO•NSRISKUTIOSOL•INSURANCE
“Idoing.believe strongly that our best ideas come from our employ ees,” said Elliott. “I believe in having an open-door policy in which someone can come to me and say, ‘Hey, we are doing something this way and it’s working, but I think we can do it bet ter.’ Then running with the idea and seeing how it works.”
“I am so grateful for any opportunity that they give me to do business with them — any opportunity, even if we don’t get the deal.”She freely admitted to being a staunch admirer of the contrac tors and equipment operators the company serves.
21 Investment Management Services Life Insurance Strategy401(k) Consulting . cino, CPFey FGeoffffr F.. For FAA™, AIF® Michael McDermott, CFP® DirectorPresidentof 401(k) & Retirement Plan Services Kathmerree Capital Management congratulates Elliott & Frantz on this 60 year milestone Strong connections are the bedrock of our business, so it’s great to see a partner succeed year after year for six decades. Keep up the hard work friends, and many congratulations! ELLIOTT & FRANTZ: 60CELEBRATINGYEARSOFROCKSOLIDSERVICErokbak.com
22 Congratulations on 60 years of success! An Outsourced Investment Department serving Families, Foundations, Endowments & Pension Plans since 2006 www.millcreekcap.com 161 Washington Street, Suite 1500 Conshohocken, PA 19428 David J. Logan, 484-432-1794CFA
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