“We have product specialists for asphalt paving and compaction, for road rehabilitation and concrete paving, and for crushing and screening. “ said White. “Our team provides best practices, training, and handle product start-ups to ensure that the customer starts off on the right foot.” The lineup of KirbySmith equipment is staggering. Besides the obligatory dozers, dump trucks, Gavin Cole, Vice President, Sales excavators, graders, wheel loaders and track loaders, there are sweepers and water trucks, material handlers and compactors, aggregate conveyors and aerial work platforms, generators and trench rollers and on and on. One of the latest additions to the product offerings are Magni telescoping handlers. Magni equipment ended up at Kirby-Smith after some customers — and some employees — asked for it, according to Gavin Cole, the company’s Vice President of Sales. “Magni equipment is manufactured in Italy,” he said. “These are quality machines and highly innovative, featuring a full line of rotating telescopic boom telehandlers that fit well within our rental and sales strategies.” The list of brands offered by Kirby-Smith is extensive. In addition to the other lines mentioned, the heavy equipment distributor includes Takeuchi, LeeBoy/Rosco, Gradall, Vacall, SkyTrak/JLG, Terramac, Fecon, Sullair, Falcon, Trail King, Atlas, NPK and many more. And sitting among them all is Komatsu construction machinery, which accounts for a majority of the business revenue at KirbySmith, according to John Arapidis, President and CEO. Arapidis came to Kirby-Smith six years ago from Komatsu, where he worked for 30 years in a variety of roles. “I had the opportunity to travel to all the North American dealers, to get to know them, and I created a lot of friends along the way,” he said. “When I moved from the wholesale to the retail side, I couldn’t have made a better choice than to come to Kirby-Smith. It was an honor.” He takes pride in the Komatsu lineup of equipment that he helped steward for three decades but declines to offer an opinion about which of the machines is the premier product. “I’ve seen the products evolve,” he said. “It might have been excava-
tors years ago. Today, Komatsu wheel loaders are second to none, dozers second to none, the haul trucks, whether articulated or rigid frame, are the same. We’ve had a lot of success with the motor grader line as well. Cole agreed and cited Komatsu shifting production of the HM400-5 to their Chattanooga, Tenn. manufacturing facility as a recent example of their commitment to supporting growing demand. “Komatsu produces both the HM400-5 articulated truck and their mid-size and intelligent excavator line in Tennessee,” said Cole. “They also have manufacturing facilities in Illinois, South Carolina, and Texas. Close attention is being paid to the North American market.” Besides overall quality of design and machining, Cole said Komatsu’s Intelligent Machine Controls are the difference between good machines and great ones. Komatsu’s D155AXI-8 dozer, for example, is a 45-ton, 354-hp brute of a machine with Intelligent Machine features that fully integrate 3D design data and let the machine adapt to the skills of an individual operator. In short, it’s heavy, powerful and sweet to operate. While Komatsu is the company’s largest brand, all of the manufacturers represented by the company are fully supported in their space, Cole said. “We sit down with each Kirby-Smith manufacturer and put Machinery is well together a marketing plan positioned with and support plans,” Cole mulitiple facilites said. “We right-size our in the region. inventory and evaluate changes in the marketplace with OEM help. Each OEM has been good to work with. We have wonderful relationships.” The construction group general manager said an indicator of those relationships is that Kirby-Smith has been approached about helping to develop new machines. “We have tested prototype machines for manufacturers, something that only three or four dealers in the U.S. get to do,” Cole said. ** What does growth look like? For Kirby-Smith Machinery Inc., it is a map of the five states in which the company meets the needs of customers — Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois. It is the listing of seven cities in North, Central and West Texas where Kirby-Smith dealerships operate today. From A to W, they are Abilene, Amarillo, Dallas, Ft. Worth, Lubbock, Odessa and Waco. The headquarters city where it all began, Oklahoma City, has been joined by two other Oklahoma cities with Kirby-Smith outlets, McAlester and Tulsa. A Kansas City office serves customers in Kansas and western Missouri and a St. Louis location serves eastern Missouri and southern Illinois. 4
