Load King Manufacturing by North American Constructors Journal

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Load King Manufacturing:

Iconic Brand Aligned With Custom Truck One Source

Load King Manufacturing of Kansas City, MO is the brand name used by Custom Truck on all equipment for which it is the OEM Written by Kevin Doyle Produced by Stephen Marino

www.loadkingmfg.com

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acked by 65 years of experience and a reputation for product consistency and performance, Load King Manufacturing of Elk Point, SD became a wholly owned subsidiary of Custom Truck One Source in 2015 and is the brand name used by Custom Truck on all equipment for which it is the OEM. “When we bought Load King we decided to build our vertical business around it, so Custom Truck is the parent company and acts as the dealership for the products that we [Load King] make. The idea is for Custom Truck to become more vertical and therefore control the product more,” explains John Lukow, Product Manager and Senior Vice President of Cranes at Load King. Today, Load King employs approximately 115 individuals at locations in Kansas City, MO, Sedalia, MO and Elk Point, SD and produces heavy construction equipment to Custom Truck’s massive network of distributors spanning the length and breadth of the United States. The company manufactures trailers, cranes, service trucks, dump trucks, water trucks and roofing conveyors for use across an array of industry sectors. Custom

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Load King Manufacturing | 4 Ross Fred

Truck One Source surpassed the $1bn barrier in March of 2020. It is also an active member of the Specialty Crane & Rigging Association (SC&RA). Lukow had been out of the industry for five years when he was lured back by Custom Truck’s founder and CEO Fred Ross in May of 2019. The two knew each other from Lukow’s time working for

“There’s a lot of work to do. R products running parallel, which i prototyping going on and ou - John Lukow, Product M

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Manitowoc. He credits the company’s success to the culture Ross has created. “If you talk to a salesperson, workers in the factory, or one of our people in the office I think the common theme you will get are that it’s just a really good environment to work in. It starts with Fred. Even though we’re

Right now we have five new is very exciting. There is a lot of ur test pads are very busy.” Manager and Senior VP

doing a billion dollars in sales this year, it still feels like a family-run company,” Lukow says. “Fred is honest and extremely passionate about the business, which has grown phenomenally. His door is always open to talk and he’s always sending thumbs-up texts to people for a job well done. Who does that at a billion dollar company? You will get that opinion from me and just about everyone you talk too,” Lukow stresses.

Expanding The Brand The company scored a major coup

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Load King Manufacturing | 7 when it purchased the boom truck, crossover and Truck Crane product lines from Terex in April of 2019. Lukow estimates those units will account for roughly half of the Load King’s operation this year. “We talk about our crane business in two categories – boom trucks and truck cranes. Custom Truck has a really long history with boom trucks and it’s kind of a passion for the CEO. The relationship with Custom Truck and Terex goes back 30 years, when boom trucks were being built by Simon RO,” Lukow notes. Connecticut-based Terex

purchased RO Stinger (formerly Simon RO) in 1997, which was originally based in Olathe, MO then moved about a number of times before returning to Missouri for good. “It’s sort of a neat legacy thing that’s happened. We’re only about 70 miles from where the original factory was so, for us, it’s coming home to our roots and is part of the reason we use Stinger as part of our branding because the original cranes we built were called RO Stingers. If you’re over 50 in the business now you go ‘Oh yeah, we had one of those in the yard, Those things were great!’ So we’ve tried

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Load King Manufacturing | 8 to inspire that type of connection between us and the past,” Lukow explains. The company is in the early stages of re-imagining and re-developing the Terex models, unveiling the first built under the Load King brand at ConExpo 2020 last March that was shipped to customers Canada. “That’s been our first new product development, where we started with the base of what we bought from Terex (Crossover 8000), kept everything we liked about it and then we took our own designs and completely updated the hydraulics, completely updated the crane

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control system and brought crane from an early 2000s design to what we feel is current,” Lukow says. “The overall numbers were down [at ConExpo] but we were so busy. We had two days where we didn’t stop for lunch. It was a really good show for us in terms of meeting people and introducing this new product, sort of like a little coming out party,” he continues. The company announced partnerships with Laguna Crane Services, Empire Crane Co., LLC and WHECO Corporation in April 2020 to provide service to Load King boom trucks, truck cranes,

Load King Manufacturing | 9 and Terex legacy products. The ALL Family of Companies (ALL) came on board as an authorized service center for Load King cranes in July 2020.

Day To Day In his role as a Product Manager, Lukow oversees production and new product development to insure the company is building the products that meet market demands. “There’s a lot of work to do. Right now we have five new products running parallel, which is very exciting. There is a lot of

prototyping going on and our test pads are very busy. I work with both the engineers and our sales guys. We have 7,000 products to sell, so you can’t expect a sales guy to be an expert in cranes. Basically I tell them to go meet people and if they say the word crane then give me a call. We’re here to help the sales guys close the deal,” he says. Custom Truck’s engagement with suppliers has evolved since its decision to become a more vertical entity. The company built its reputation on its ability to purchase trucks, spec them out and fit them with specialized attachments to meet each client’s specific needs.

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Load King Manufacturing | 10 “Basically, it came down to to annual agreements and big purchase orders like ‘We need 400 bucket trucks this year.’ But when we got more vertical and knew we were going to be buying steel and electrical components we built a Purchasing Department and we’ve hired people from big companies with the pedigree and the background for that work,” Lukow says. “Becoming a supplier with us starts with contacting our purchasing folks and then there is an involved vetting process they all go through. We get to know their capabilities and what their quality control standards are before we ever make a decision,” he adds. As an example, Lukow cites a recent project for which it opted to replace the electrical components in Terex vehicles. “We wanted to move to somebody new because we knew it was going

to be a 10-year decision. We had a field of seven [candidates] that we narrowed down to two. We conducted site visits, took a scientific approach and I feel like we picked the right guys and they‘ve done a great job developing a control system that we’re going to adapt to all our products,” Lukow says.

“It starts with [Founder] Fred [Ross]. Even though we’re doing a billion dollars in sales this year, it still feels like a family-run company, ” - John Lukow, Product Manager and Senior VP www.loadkingmfg.com

Load King Manufacturing | 11 Lukow believes the company’s membership in the SC&RA has been beneficial in a number of ways. “We really like the advocacy portion. It gives the industry a voice. There’s a lot of work to do in the country on infrastructure and SC&RA is able to say in a unified manner that ‘This is a group of 1,000 business owners that really want you guys to pay attention.’ The other thing is communicating with OSHA and standards committees, like ASME.. We’re moving thousands of pounds with big equipment and it’s human beings that are at risk, so I like their stance to promote safety training and

certification,” he elaborates.

Looking Forward Surpassing $1bn in revenue speaks for itself. The Load King/Custom Truck One Source collaboration is rock solid and seems likely to endure well into the future given the vast scope of infrastructure upgrades needed across the county. As to maintaining forward motion, Lukow’s advice is simple: “The customer is always right. Period. End of discussion.”