The machinery is the lifeblood of the business and the brand names on engine hoods are familiar wherever heavy machinery is used — 20 different lines in the two states.
Starting a heavy equipment company means overcoming a unique set of challenges. Maintaining a company’s viability year after year after year may be an even greater achievement. After 25 years, it is safe to say Mid Country Machinery has been successful at all of the above.
“When we started, we never looked back,” said Mid Country President Bud PeCoy, speaking on behalf of the company’s founding executive team. “There were predic-
tions that we would be broke in the first year of business, but that just motivated me. I never looked back.”
PeCoy credits his business partners — co-founder Lucas Peed and longtime partners Mark Swedlund and Bob Conaway — with helping to grow the company from a used equipment outlet in Ft. Dodge, Iowa, in 1997 to a five-location dealership today.
The dealership’s first three offices stretch in an east-west row along U.S. Hwy. 20 in upper Iowa. In 2020, Mid Country dropped farther south to the Des Moines area to
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open a fourth Iowa branch.
Prior to that, an out-of-state location was opened in Syracuse, N.Y., in 2014. Each location is thriving.
In the first quarter-century of Mid Country’s existence, the U.S. economy has been up and down and sideways, too.
Disruptions following al-Qaeda attacks on the East Coast in 2001 were followed by the deep recession in 2007-08 after the housing industry collapsed. Covid lockdowns and ensuing economic disruptions in 2020, including supply-line interruptions, were a peculiar challenge. Now, inflation and high gas prices are bedeviling decision makers in every executive suite.
PeCoy seems remarkably blasé in looking back at this economic turmoil.
“We were so busy, we didn’t put a whole lot of thought into things,” he said. “We didn’t have the luxury of lying
The newest company location is in Bondurant, Iowa, which is part of the Des Moines-West Des Moines metropolitan area. The bright red 30,000-sq.-ft. facility is just two years old and is managed by Cole Ruge.
In fact, he said, the earlier recessionary period was “one of the best times for the company. We were presented with some unique opportunities, and we took advantage of them.”
The way the company handled the pandemic panic is illustrative. PeCoy acknowledged it was a “very scary moment because we didn’t know what to expect. None of us had ever experienced anything like that before. But after about 30 days with that mindset, we realized we had to go forward with or without Covid.”
Some of the success that Mid Country subsequently experienced during the pandemic PeCoy attributed to “a governor who didn’t want to slow down the economy.”
While the New York state experience was a little different than Iowa’s, PeCoy commended Mid Country’s committed employees and partners at all locations for pulling together to get through the ordeal.
“When we started, we never looked back.”
Bud PeCoy
The current economy still is volatile, of course — “trying times,” is how PeCoy described it.
“But we are in a good position because we were very proactive in getting equipment on order,” he said. “That has worked in our favor. We’ve had outstanding growth in the last couple of years.”
While the company’s overall business activity is up 15 percent, year-to-year, equipment rentals are up 47 percent, PeCoy said. “And we have the equipment we need to grow that rental.”
The rental wing of the company operates under the name MCM Rents, though each rental store is situated in a Mid Country Machinery facility.
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Co-founder and company vice president Lucas Peed manages the store at the original location in Ft. Dodge, which is Mid Country’s busiest store in both sales and rentals. Besides the skills that Peed brought to the enterprise, PeCoy
credits Peed’s father Joe with critical mentoring of him and his son.
“Joe was very instrumental in helping us get the company started,” said PeCoy. “He gave us good advice on building a successful team, how to negotiate with the banking industry, how to work with state and local regulators.”
Key team members included Swedlund and Conaway, both of whom came on as partners not long after the company was formed. Swedlund since has retired. Conaway is a vice president and has developed a broad and vital network of contacts within the United States’ concrete paving industry. Kyle Ruge joined the company in 2003 and today is chief financial officer of the firm.
Aaron Reicherts is Mid Country’s overall sales manager, a position he has held for a decade after 10 years as Kawasaki regional sales manager.
“Aaron has been one of the driving forces in keeping the
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“We are in a good position because we were very proactive in getting equipment on order.”
Bud PeCoy
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sales team on course and contributes a great deal to the ongoing success of Mid Country and MCM rents,” PeCoy said.
The first Mid Country employee way back when was Rob Lowrey, who today is parts manager of the Ft. Dodge facility. Other key people at Ft. Dodge are Trent Cook, who is company-wide rental manager; Brandon Kinseth, who manages the rental counter at Ft. Dodge; and service manager Joe Schott
At the Waterloo location, Tim Plagge manages day-to-day operations. He was an early employee of the company and still has a sales territory. Now, Plagge also is overseeing the construction of a modern facility to replace the original Waterloo store. Other principal employees in Waterloo include Jeff Furman, who is service manager and director of MCM product support; rental manager Brett Johannsen;
office manager Sharon McClain; and parts manager Cole McClain.
Doug Miller manages the Sergeant Bluff facility near Sioux City and works a sales territory. Other managers in Sergeant Bluff are Jason Curry (rental), Russ Ruhde (parts) and Taylor Lambert, who is acting service manager and instrumental to day-to-day operations.
The newest company location is in Bondurant, which is part of the Des Moines-West Des Moines metropolitan area. The bright-red, 30,000-sq-ft facility is just two years old and is managed by Cole Ruge. Steve Grell is service manager and Tim Kramer manages rentals.
Reicherts has a sales office there, as well, in overseeing the work of 10 salespeople in Iowa and three in New York.
The New York state location is somewhat unique besides being the only non-Iowa Mid Country store. Located in
Brewerton, a northern suburb of Syracuse, the facility began in 2011 as a machinery repair and maintenance business as envisioned by partners Joe Panebianco and Jeff Polniaszek. They subsequently affiliated with Mid Country in 2014 “and have made it into a very successful location,” PeCoy said.
“We are known as having the best service department in the area. With Jeff’s service knowledge and Joe’s product and business skills, the store has been a very good fit,” he said.
Rory Serwinowski is parts manager and Tom Blaczienski manages rentals.
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While all 90 people in the organization are important, so are the machines parked in sales lots, being rented out in large numbers, or being pored over by techs in service bays.
“We are known as having the best service department in the area...”
Bud PeCoy
The machinery is the lifeblood of the business and the brand names on engine hoods are familiar wherever heavy machinery is used — 20 different lines in the two states.
Full-sized machine products are from Kobelco, Bomag, SANY, Hitachi, JLG, Sakai, Fuchs and, in New York, LinkBelt. Compact equipment brands include Gehl/Manitou and ASV. Haulers are Bell America and Bergmann. Other manufacturers include Etnyre, Revolver and several attachment lines.
All that equipment — typically, $50-60 million in new machinery parked on company lots — is augmented by Leica Geosystems machine control systems. Incorporation of the control technology in machinery “is becoming more
and more expected by customers,” PeCoy said.
Mid Country is the Leica distributor for Iowa, New York and New Jersey.
“We have highly trained guys who know the technology like no one else and customers who lean on us for technical assistance,” he said.
Mid Country Machinery started in 1997 as an outlet for used machinery. It still is. According to PeCoy, second-hand equipment always has been a high focus. The value of quality used machinery has never been higher, partly because of the supply chain issues. Each location offers the equipment. Kobelco was the company’s anchor brand beginning in 1999 and remains popular, particularly since it has introduced more environmentally friendly engines.
“We have highly trained guys who know the technology like no one else and customers who lean on us for technical assistance,”
Bud PeCoy
PeCoy called the manufacturer “a great partner. It has grown with us. We attribute a lot of success to Kobelco.”
JLG and Skytrak also are mainstay lines.
The company has represented SANY equipment for nine years now, with its equipment lines filling some voids in equipment types. More recently, LinkBelt has come aboard, and Mid Country is broadening its representation of Hitachi. Already carrying the company’s wheel loaders, it will offer Hitachi excavators beginning in 2023.
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Even after 25 successful years, companies need good management. This is especially true at a time of high inflation and instability in the supply
The rental wing of the company operates under the name MCM Rents, though each rental store is situated in a Mid County Machinery facility.
process. At the midpoint of 2022, PeCoy sees positives and negatives in the near future.
“Right now, the dollar is strong, so we have good buying power. How long that will last is anybody’s guess,” he said. “Energy prices are a concern, but we have products that are very fuel efficient, including equipment lines with the Isuzu engine. We see that as a shot in the arm for us.”
He acknowledges that the price of new equipment is a concern, with price tags “a little crazy with manufacturers cranking up the pricing. In their defense, the manufacturers’ costs are much higher now. We don’t know where the end is. Some say 2023 will be worse than 2022. That poses a threat going forward.”
While Mid Country’s overall business activity is up 15 percent, year-to-year, equipment rentals are up 47 percent.
Some U.S government policies puzzle him.
“We would love to see some of this pipeline stuff free up again. Canceling of the Keystone pipeline was a really big blow for us. I don’t see why we can’t do that project in an environmentally friendly way,” he said.
Such concerns are out of dealers’ hands, of course, so Mid Country is working on what it can control. The company broke ground very recently for a new facility in Waterloo that will mirror the new building erected in Bondurant two years ago.
Servicing of equipment at all the facilities remains a priority, PeCoy said.
“Some people don’t understand how difficult it is to keep a fleet up and running every day. We understand that.”
How about expansion of service and sales outlets across the market area? PeCoy sees opening of stores in Omaha, Neb., and down towards Kansas City, Mo., as the next logical steps.
Product lines are well-established, but there always are new products out there. For example, he sees growth in autonomous equipment as machine controls continue to become popular.
“Machine controls on dozers is a very big thing, and excavator digging controls, too, but now controls are getting into skid steer loaders and other lines,” PeCoy said. “New technology is coming into attachments, things you wouldn’t have thought possible five years ago.”
Attachments in general will be a growth area, he said, including forestry.
“You might ask, who needs forestry attachments in Iowa? But it definitely is a void we intend to fill, and we want to get more into the aggregate industry with crushers. There are a lot of niche things we want to have for our customers,” said PeCoy.
To everyone at Mid Country, customer service is key.
“One thing that we as a team have in agreement is to not slow down and to make sure we remain focused on our customers first, to try to give them the best and easiest experience possible. We truly value our relationship and without them we have nothing. We fully intend on taking Mid Country Machinery to a much higher level,” said PeCoy.
With one partner (Mark Swedlund) in retirement in Florida, the 64-year-old PeCoy was asked when he might do the same.
“I’m not broke in yet,” he quipped.
After all, the company’s 30th anniversary is coming in 2027. Time flies. CEG
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“One thing that we as a team have in agreement is to not slow down and to make sure we remain focused on our customers first, to try to give them the best and easiest experience possible. We truly value our relationship and without them we have nothing. We fully intend on taking Mid Country Machinery to a much higher level.”
Bud PeCoy
