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The Kimball Equipment team in Spokane is represented by (L-R) Ian Pendergrass, Caleb Zehm, Tom Oviatt, Kaleb Schaub, Brad Critchfield (Superior rep.), Curt Sainsbury, Ryan Oliver, Jeff Engblom, Josh Clinger, Kirk Rainbolt, Brady Almazan, Justin Doughty, Brian Bergstrom, Mason Bates, Garrett Church, Shane Beattie and John Studt.
Kimball Equipment held an open house and a customer appreciation event at its new Spokane, Wash., facility on March 6. The event featured multiple prize drawings, facility tours and various vendors with their equipment on display. Customers also were treated to a pig roast by Richard's Custom Pork BBQ.
This facility is the 12th location for Kimball Equipment in the West, adding to its existing dealerships in Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho and Oregon.
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"This event served as a great opportunity to speak with potential customers, as well as current customers," General Manager Curt Sainsbury said. "We were excited to showcase our newest facility here in Spokane, Washington. We received great feedback and served more than 100 customers and employees an amazing lunch. We look forward to furthering these relationships."
Vendors were set up to answer any questions from customers, including CWP, which is Kimball's own conveyor belting and wear parts line; and Superior Industries, which is one of its equipment, conveyor and components line manufacturers.
ASGCO also had a vendor table, as it displayed a large variety of accessories to crushing equipment, from safety and guarding, to dust control to urethane wear products. FLYFAB also was on hand to show its custom welding, fabrication and line boring in the field for Kimball.
This location is unique in that many of the people now with Kimball were connected by another local equipment business. It started with what seemed to be a crazy idea from Josh Clinger and Jeff Engblom, who contacted Kirk Rainbolt, CEO of Kimball, and told him, "We have a great idea — I think we can put together a solid team and bring in the right guys to make it work."
From there, according to Engblom, "they started to put a team together, they brought in their service guy John Studt, their belt guy Kaleb Schaub, parts guy Brian Bergstrom, Josh Clinger and myself. We were sourcing buildings at the same time. And then two months in, we called Curt Sainsbury, the current general manager of Kimball's Spokane location, and asked him if he wanted to come run the store for us. We all agreed that we had something good going that we thought needed to be put back together and made a run for it."
Each of them had been in the industry for most of their lives and, most of all, they are happy to be working together again knowing that they have created something special and unique.
"When this opportunity came along, and it's like, all of us in our wheelhouse, so it's kind of like bringing us back to our roots and lets us just do what we do best," Engblom said. "And it's been very successful, even our first year out. Our customer base has always worked with all of us and we've never had any issues filling their needs."
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Clinger is proud of the working relationship between himself, Engblom and Sainsbury, who account for more than 80 years of local industry experience.
"Between the three of us, we know our market, we know our people and we just came in," Clinger said. "We have the respect of our customers and, coupled with strong infrastructure and resources that Kimball Equipment has provided, success in the market was quick to come and it's the reasons we have been so successful within our first six months in business.
"I think what all of us have here is that the three of us are strictly focused on the customer," Clinger added. "Take care of them at any cost, take care of the customer. We wake up in the middle of the night and do whatever we can. Everybody's on call 24-7. Everybody will do whatever they can at any given point. When we go on vacation, we still answer the phone and take care of emergencies to help our customers. That's the whole goal. That's what it's always been here. Every single person here will turn a wrench to help a customer."
Kimball Equipment's Spokane branch is located at 520 N Dyer Rd., Spokane, WA 99212.
For more information, call 509/321-8876 or visit www.kimballequipment.com. CEG
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