Star Equipment's 45th Anniversary

Star Equipment Celebrates 45 Years in Business

By Giles Lambertson CEG CORRESPONDENT

When Max and Beverly Bowman decided to start a construction equipment company in 1968, Max perused industry publications for inspiration about a name. He saw an ad for a Kansas company called White Star and latched onto “Star” because he could build a logo around it.

Thus was Star Equipment Ltd. born 45 years ago in Des Moines, Iowa. It has evolved into a four-location, three-generation family-owned enterprise that shows no signs of being a shortlived shooting star. Rather, Max Bowman now is chairman of the board with three sons in executive positions and grandchildren seemingly settling into Star careers.

The board chairman looks back on the experience as another “American dream.” But, he adds, “I don’t know if I would start a company in these times. It would be a lot harder now. We went to the bank and said we wanted to start a business and three days later we had a credit limit on our account and were told, you can go ahead. Now you go to the bank and they want a physical and everything else. Where they wanted one document, now they want 27.”

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An aerial shot of Star Equipment’s Des Moines location.

OLD AND STRONG COMPANIES LIKE STAR EQUIPMENT DON’T GET THAT WAY BY STANDING PAT. THEY EVOLVE AS THE INDUSTRY EVOLVES, PARTICULARLY IN THE 21ST CENTURY.

From page 2

So it was fortuitous for Iowa contractors that the Bowmans ventured into business when they did. Max Bowman was 33 and, he admits, not mindful of starting a family legacy company. His stepfather was a successful building contractor and Max had worked for two or three construction equipment dealers. He saw the industry had a future and simply wanted to be a part of it.

“I liked construction equipment and what it could do and I could see that it was going to change and change pretty rapidly,” Bowman said. “The other company I had worked for had just introduced the skid steer loaders into Iowa. There seemed to be constant change.”

The fledgling Star Equipment was principally a new equipment dealer. Its original lines of equipment included the Uniloader skid steer manufactured 80 miles northwest of Des Moines in Hudson, Iowa. That machine shortly was incorporated into the Case lineup and Star switched to selling the Mustang skid steer made in Owatonna, Minn. Other showroom staples for the new Star were diesel-powered Atlas Copco compressors and Homelite water pumps and generators, and then saws (now sold as Husqvarna).

A Family Executive Team

The company started on 2nd Avenue in Des Moines in a building that now is a part of a complex of Star buildings, with some 30,000 sq. ft. under roof on the 10-acre site.

Front Row: Alli Bowman (Charlie’s wife), Estella Bowman (Charlie and Alli’s daughter), Lois Bowman (Brad’s wife), Roman Donegan (Tory and Alyssa’s son), Alyssa (Bowman) Donegan. Second row: Charlie Bowman, Brad Bowman, Tory Donegan (Alyssa’s husband) Back row: Bev Bowman, Max Bowman.

“The first year we were busy trying to make a living,” Max Bowman said from his 2nd Avenue office where he still works three to four days a week. “The kids almost grew up down here. Their mother was working here and the kids came down after school and on Saturdays.”

Beverly Bowman worked beside her husband for 20 years and three of the four Bowman children became so intrigued by the company business that they still work there 45 years later.

One son, Bruce Bowman, is company president, having “kind of done everything” at the company after high school, including driving trucks and working with rentals. After taking college accounting courses, Bruce decided to computerize the company’s accounting system in 1980. “That became my thing to put in,” he said. “It was a real adventure.”

With Des Moines remaining the principal Star location, the company expanded to Cedar Rapids in 1987, which now has a 10,000sq.-ft. facility on 6 acres, to Waterloo in 1995 (5,000 sq. ft. on 19 acres), and Ames in 2006 (17,000 sq. ft. on 7 acres).

“We’re always looking for areas to expand into, but we’re not ready to jump out and do it in today’s economy,” said the president.

Another son, Brad Bowman, is a vice president of Star and oversees the Cedar Rapids and Waterloo offices. He, too, worked his way through various levels of responsibility at Star, as a mechanic, a service manager, a general manager. Unlike in the more established operation in Des Moines, running the branch offices requires wearing several hats to work, one for parts, another for rentals, for service, for new equipment sales.

“Inventories are pretty much the same across the company,” Brad Bowman said of the Star locations, “but the customer base can be quite different. In Waterloo and in Cedar Rapids, we have a

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The company started on 2nd Avenue in Des Moines in a building that now is a part of a complex of Star buildings, with some 30,000 square feet under roof on the 10-acre site.

THE COMPANY STARTED ON 2ND AVENUE IN DES MOINES IN A BUILDING THAT NOW IS A PART OF A COMPLEX OF STAR BUILDINGS, WITH SOME 30,000 SQ. FT. UNDER ROOF ON THE 10-ACRE SITE.

manufacturing base. A lot of the industries are driven by manufacturing and that changes the dynamics of our business. When one manufacturer decides to have layoffs, it can impact us.

“That’s why we are continually trying to broaden our customer base. Through the years you just naturally find that you get along better with some people than with others. We consciously try to cultivate better relationships with the others and expand our base.”

A third son, Brett Bowman, is a vice president and general service manager for all four branches. He worked with another company — Schwing America — for 10 years before returning to Star 20 years ago, where he keeps service personnel technically current through factory-level training. He also oversees five service trucks responding to customer calls nearly every day.

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Hooking up this Wacker Neuson light plant for delivery before retiring after 18 years with Star Equipment is Dwight Humke. “Star Equipment and the Bowman Family have been great people to work for. I will really miss working here,” said Humke.

Chad Elliott, Keller Excavating (L), Ames Iowa stops in to pick up a saw blade and Scott Thompson, Branch Manager, Star Equipment assists him.

“It’s the way the Bowmans treat me. So many people get up and dread going to work. This is the only company I’ve been where I actually enjoy going to work.”

Roger Bacon

Des Moines Rental Manager

With Des Moines remaining the principal Star location, the company expanded to Cedar Rapids in 1987, which now has a 10,000-sq. ft. facility on 6 acres, to Waterloo in 1995 (5,000 sq. ft. on 19 acres), and Ames in 2006 (1,700 sq. ft. on 7 acres).

From page 6

“We have some service people who have been here 15 to 17 years and some who are in their first year with us,” Bowman said of his service workforce, adding that replenishing the veteran staff with young talent remains a challenge. “It’s actually very hard to find good help right now. Many would like to work with a computer rather than work with their hands. We have to train them more and more. If a guy wants to run a computer all day long, he is not going to make it in the mechanical shop.”

A Diverse Product Line

The core division of Star Equipment is the light general-use machinery that continues to grow as an industry segment. Still a dealer of Mustang skid steer loaders, Star today also offers Takeuchi compact construction equipment and Gehl telehandlers. Specialized light machinery such as Somero concrete finishing rakes and screeds are new and popular additions.

Equipment rental accounts for 20 to 30 percent of Star business and currently is

climbing back to the upper range. Mini-excavators are the big attraction to customers at the moment, according to Roger Bacon, Star’s Des Moines rental manager. “People are finding out how versatile they are.”

Bacon first started working for Max Bowman in 1977, leaving after five years to move west, only to return in 1994. What brought him back?

“It’s the way the Bowmans treat me,” he said. “So many people get up and dread going to work. This is the only company I’ve been where I actually enjoy going to work. The Bowmans are good people. We have teamwork. If you have a better idea, they’ll accept and use it. I have a couple of years before I retire, and I’m not even looking forward to it.”

Bacon’s first involvement with the company was pumping concrete with a sister enterprise of Star. He and Brett Bowman pumped concrete for construction of silos and bridges, one of the first companies,

An outside shot of Star’s Des Moines location.

An aerial shot of Star Equipment’s Cedar Rapids location.

in Iowa in the late ’70s and ’80s to offer the service. The enterprise was closed after six years, but Star Equipment still is in the concrete pumping business as a distributor of Schwing boom pumps and Mayco trailer-mounted pumps. The company has trained mechanics at each location to service the concrete handling equipment.

Another niche that Star entered into successfully in the 70s (and is still growing) is the service truck division. ”The company provides both chassis and body upfit for vehicles that technicians can drive to the field for high-end service. These include technician and lube service trucks as well as material handling and boom trucks with telescopic booms and mounted National Crane, IMT and Elliott units.

Star Equipment has long been a new technology leader, first in laser and, beginning a decade ago, in global positioning systems. Max Bowman first encountered the red laser beam in 1969-1970 and introduced a sewer laser construction system to Iowa. The company has expanded its laser line many times over in the ensuing years and is leading the way with its GPS lineup. Together, the service truck division and GPS/laser line account for nearly a third of Star’s business.

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THE CORE DIVISION OF STAR EQUIPMENT IS THE LIGHT GENERAL-USE MACHINERY THAT CONTINUES TO GROW AS AN INDUSTRY SEGMENT.

(L-R) Brett Bowman, Steve Torgerson, Marty Schwarz, Rob Jorgenson, Michelle Howard, Norm Hutchinson, Curtis Young, Kenny Burkhalter, Jesse Miller. The Star Equipment service team is equipped and ready to meet customers’ needs.

A Leader in Technology

Old and strong companies like Star Equipment don’t get that way by standing pat. They evolve as the industry evolves, particularly in the 21st century. Technological evolution today forces change and adaptation at head-spinning speeds, but Star Equipment isn’t dizzied by it at all.

The company that introduced sewer laser construction systems to Iowa and tinkers with GPS systems like an expert self-taught shadetree mechanic is too forward-looking to be caught pushing yesterday’s technology. What it sees ahead is a world of increasingly exacting construction tolerances and refinements in construction machinery that take the breath away.

So Star was more than happy to be part of a makeover project that advanced the technology of construction. An Iowa City contractor, Streb Construction, wanted to upgrade its 1999 CMI slipform concrete paver by retrofitting it with a global positioning system rather than buy a new one with integrated GPS features. Working with hydraulics and paver engineering companies, Star helped turn the old machine into a modern one by adding a Topcon millimeter GPS system.

“The two major benefits of the Topcon system are its ability to control the concrete paver to steer accurately and in the desired direc-

Streb Construction added a GSI, Gomaco Smoothness Indicator, to the retrofitted machine. The GSI is a non-contact surface smoothness instrument that uses three different sensors, two sonic and one slope, to read the smoothness data and display it on a real-time, touch-screen graphic display.

tion without the use of string lines, and to control the elevation of the paver so the concrete coming out is to grade,” said Star’s GPS specialist, Charlie Bowman.

Anyone at all conversant with computers understands why employing the space-based navigation system instead of mile after mile of stringlines and stakes is a big time- and money-saver. Days and manpower are required to meticulously stake out a stretch of ground to be paved. Then, once the stringline is tautly strung, it immediately becomes vulnerable to being knocked out of alignment by a clumsy workman or an unobservant truck driver.

The tried-and-true stringline system is increasingly unacceptable in 2013 to busy contractors and demanding project engineers. The better way is using a GPS paving system. It constantly receives input that squares a desired elevation with what a paver is positioned to deliver and adjusts the paver accordingly through Topcon’s Lazer Zone technology. The adjustments are in increments of one millimeter, by the way, or about a .030 of an inch. That’s exacting—and there is no fiddling with stringlines to achieve it.

Streb incorporated in 1965 and serves eastern Iowa. The company purchased its first slipform paver in 1990 and had evaluated the Topcon GPS system for a while before buying it through Star’s Cedar

Rapids office. After the successful conversion of the CMI machine, Streb became the first contractor to have the Topcon system retrofitted to an earlier-generation concrete paver.

Following completion of the upgraded paver’s first project— 8.5 mi. (13.7 km) of concrete overlay on a county road— Streb executives declared the makeover a success.

“We’re very pleased with the Topcon’s performance,” said Steve Streb, vice president of Streb Construction. “Without the GPS system, we would have had 17 miles of string line to contend with while trying to perform paving operations.”

Bill Painter, Topcon senior manager of paving systems, also was pleased. He called the Streb refashioning project “a unique situation in which we installed the very latest technology on an older paver. We are very pleased with the results.”

Bruce Bowman, Star president, said the company will continue to invest time and resources promoting new technology, such as the Topcon system, the Somero laser-based concrete finishing tool and other exacting new instruments in equipment advancement.

“One thing Star Equipment has prided itself on is providing cutting-edge equipment so customers can cut their costs on the job,” Bowman said. “That will continue to be our focus and that differentiates us from our competitors.

“If you’re selling soap and everyone else is selling the same soap, there’s not much difference between you and another dealer,” he said. “But when you have a product line that saves contractors money and gets jobs done better and quicker, you serve your customers better. That’s what Star prides itself on.”

All of the companies, with their areas of expertise, contributed to the upgrade of the 1999 CMI SF3302 slipform concrete paver. A paver that had been innovated, designed, and manufactured in the 20th century was now retrofitted and upgraded to be the peer in capability, performance, and results of a new 21st century concrete paver.

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“As GPS becomes more standard and easier for a non-engineering guy to use, it will take a bigger bite of the business,” Bruce Bowman said.

For three years, the biggest share of responsibility for GPS statewide sales has been on the young shoulders of Charlie Bowman, Brad’s son and a third-generation family member. He, too, grew up around Star equipment yards and offices, formally joining the company fulltime after graduation

“I guess one of the things that got me into GPS was my age,” the younger Bowman said. “As part of the generation that has worked with computers since kindergarten, the technology used out in the field is not a lot more difficult.”

Yet it is a field that is constantly evolving.

“GPS is becoming more and more prominent in construction and is vastly improved. A new piece of equipment that has been around five years may have the same outer housing as before, but it does a lot more than it did,” said Bowman.

A Company With a Future

Star Equipment has earned a reputation of being innovative. Roger Bacon attributes it to company leadership.

“So many younger people don’t know what it takes to build a business,” he said. “Max and his sons are looking two or three years down the road and thinking about what they can do to improve the business. They always are going to equipment shows so they can be on the cutting edge, training their people, diversifying all around. They have that insight.”

Charlie Bowman seems cut from Bowman cloth. He is excited about “the newest thing,” a real time GPSlaser profiler still in development. The device is pickupmounted and driven along a road bed so it can take a million snapshots every 10 feet to establish contours and elevations.

“You can’t move forward without trying new things,” he said, illustrating what he means with an idea he promoted at Star. “We retrofitted a millimeter GPS system on a concrete paver, something that had never been done before. There was a lot of talk about whether we could do it.” A Iowa City customer successfully employed the device. Charlie Bowman believes when concrete work resumes in the spring, three or four other customers will give it a try.

Another of Brad Bowman’s children, Alyssa Donegan, is the other third-generation family member. She graduated from the University of Iowa on a Friday and came to work at the Des Moines office the following

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The core division of Star Equipment is the light general-use machinery that continues to grow as an industry segment.

STAR EQUIPMENT HAS EARNED A REPUTATION OF BEING INNOVATIVE. ROGER BACON ATTRIBUTES IT TO COMPANY LEADERSHIP.

“Star equipment will do whatever it takes to help their customers out,” said Kyle

(Buck) Bowling Rental Department Des Moines, Iowa.

(L-R) John Andreas, Larry Curtis, Justin Davis, Mathew Olson, the parts crew of Des Moines, Iowa are ready to deliver quality service.

“If you need a part for any machine, if we don’t have it, we will find it. If we can’t find it, it doesn’t exist.”

Larry Curtis Des Moines Parts Crew

From page 16

Monday. She works in marketing, as well as inventory control and a myriad of other responsibilities.

As she grew up, she hadn’t been set on joining the family at Star, she said, but it seems a good fit.

“We do pretty well in differentiating between personal and working relationships. Sometimes work does come home, and we go out to eat together when we celebrate something.”

But Donegan credits non-family members for making the company a success.

“We have been in business for 45 years and you don’t do that if you don’t have quality people. We have a really good group of men and women.”

She echoed her father, Brad Bowman, in attributing much of the success to the workforce.

“The secret to our success really is the value of the people that we employ,” she said. “Most are very well educated in the products we

handle and how to use them. The truth of the matter is they are the ones on the firing line in day-to-day business who make whatever good ideas we have come to fruition. Without those people, we would be out, simply put.”

Family and non-family company employees working in tandem will keep Star Equipment relevant for at least 45 more years, Bruce Bowman, company president, firmly believes.

Bruce Bowman’s stepson, Remington Lawyer, is now working in the company and is part of the continuation plan for Star Equipment. He works part time while attending Iowa State University and will graduate in spring 2013 and will come on board full time when he does. Since he was 16 years old, Remmington has worked in several departments part time while attending school and full time during the summers.

“Everything revolves around serving the customer,” he said. “And you have to do that with some efficiency; if not, then you eventually will fail. Because we are a more localized company, we have the ability to adjust and change on the fly and be successful.”

Max Bowman led the company through tough times in the early 1980s, a period of high interest rates and inflation. Everybody was doing two jobs and “it was tougher than a boot,” he recalled.

The current economic climate also has been challenging and the company has had to adapt. Through this, howver, the company is on track to continue to play a prominent role as construction equipment dealer in Iowa.

“It is one thing to build up a company and another thing to keep it going,” said the president. “In the next 45 years, I see us being a larger, stronger company still based in Iowa. We will never get so big that we can’t be a part of our industry on an intimate business level. We are in a great industry that will be around a long time and we intend to be a part of it.” CEG

“The secret to our success really is the value of the people that we employ. Most are very well educated in the products we handle and how to use them. The truth of the matter is they are the ones on the firing line in day-to-day business who make whatever good ideas we have come to fruition. Without those people, we would be out, simply put.”

Alyssa Donegan

Equipment rental accounts for 20 to 30 percent of Star business and currently is climbing back to the upper range.

Proud partner of STAR Equipment

Manitowoc would like to extend our sincere congratulations to our partner, STAR Equipment, for serving Iowa and surrounding states for 45 years.

STAR Equipment has been o ering industry-leading National Cranes and exceptional customer support since 1968.

Congratulations

A Leader in Service

a heating system guarantees warmth. The truck has a triple heat source system: Heat is pumped from the truck engine, off an electrical outlet when the truck is parked overnight, or from a diesel-fueled heater in the field.

An AC converter is integrated into the system as well so a lightbank can be operated for early-morning and nighttime service work. The truck carries eight fresh oil tanks, a salvage (used) oil tank, a grease tub, and a water tank for radiator work/repair.

When Max Bowman started his company 45 years ago, truck bodies weren’t anywhere close to the top of his product line. In fact, they weren’t even on the list. That changed in 1976 and service trucks sales are now a growing part of Star Equipment’s business.

Star partners with Iowa Mold Tooling (IMT), a Garner, Iowa, fabricator of service vehicles. IMT’s mechanical, lube, and knuckleboom crane trucks are sold around the world. Star’s slice of the IMT business includes Altorfer Inc., an ag and construction equipment dealer with 22 locations in Iowa, Missouri, and Illinois.

Altorfer is a Caterpillar dealer and teamed up with Star and IMT to produce a large and rather unique lube service vehicle. Part of its uniqueness is its size: The truck cab and body stretch 32 ft., bumper to bumper, and ride on tandem rear axles. IMT’s usual lube truck body configurations are smaller—13-ft. and 17-ft.

Another unique element: The service truck body rides on a Caterpillar chassis, the new Cat 660 vocational truck chassis.

“There are not too many of those around, yet,” said Howard Schiffer, Altorfer’s general service manager. Caterpillar has moved seriously into the truck business with its big-grilled 660 powered by Cat CT series engines linked to automatic transmissions.

When Star sells an IMT-bodied service vehicle, the buyer has the choice of choosing a chassis or letting Star crane and service truck salesman Jerry Jaksich solicit one. Schiffer wanted the new service truck to ride on a Cat chassis.

“Cat has always made engines and transmissions, “Jaksich said, “but now they’re putting them under their own hood and going down the road. They’re really putting the chassis out in the forefront as a viable player in the industry.”

The Altorfer service truck body is ground-breaking in other ways, too. The body is enclosed to keep the oil and lube products warm in the winter months, which is not that unusual, except that

Altorfer has a fleet of about 60 service trucks operating in its threestate service area, according to Schiffer, with many of them IMT-bodied trucks bought from Star. When it came time to replace some aging lube trucks, the IMT-Star team came together to help Altorfer design a new one. Four of the new trucks have been delivered and more are likely to follow.

Jaksich’s sales for Star Equipment are three types: commercial service trucks, knuckleboom crane trucks, and long-boom crane trucks. Besides sourcing the bodies, Star also installs additional equipment to meet a customer’s requirements and upfits new equipment to trucks already operating in a fleet. The trucks range in size from 13,000 to 50,000 lbs., gross volume weight.

Jaksich believes the truck service part of Star will continue to grow because the size and complexity of so many pieces of heavy equipment manufactured today make field service an essential part of a contractor’s operation.

“The new machinery requires more trained technicians and it is harder all the time for companies to find those kinds of technicians, so the companies are relying more on dealers for the technical support,” he said. “The dealers are stepping up to the plate. Moving the big machines to the shop is difficult, so the dealers are taking the shop to the machines.

“They have really upped the game at Altorfer with this new service truck,” he added. Altorfer did it, that is, with the help of IMT and Star Equipment.

The company provides both chassis and body upfit for vehicles that operators can drive to the field for high-end service. These include mechanical and lube service trucks as well as material handling and excavation trucks with telescopic booms and mounted National Crane units.

Star Equipment has earned a reputation of being innovative.