Parents often share a common dream: to be able to prepare their children for the future.
Scott and Kathy Guimond have taken steps towards ensuring their sons' success: they've given them shares of their company.
National Attachments was founded 23 years ago in 1989 as a specialty company amongst a myriad of firms that service the construction, demolition, recycling, heavy highway, forestry, municipal and pipeline industries.
Scott, who had six years experience selling earth moving equipment in the state of Maine, started the company, along with Kathy, after he observed that there was a tremendous demand for specialized attachments and very few experts in the field.
"Most traditional equipment distributors are primarily focused on selling the equipment and the attachment is pretty much an afterthought. Contractors involved in specialized areas of work such as demolition, pipeline work and recycling were increasingly making tremendous investments in the attachment at the end of the stick. The investment particularly in hydraulic attachments and demolition attachments is significant and the customers were looking for someone to expertly guide them through that purchasing decision. With that simple concept in mind, National Attachments was established."
The Guimonds became the dealer/distributor for a wide variety of attachment manufacturers from across the world. After about six years in business a company by the name of NYE in Toronto, Canada, came to Scott's attention. NYE was making high quality excavator and loader attachments for the Canadian market that were quite literally overbuilt and over-engineered. In some cases the equipment was being built to be virtually indestructible, according to Scott.
"After doing some investigating I contacted Jack Nye, the president and founder of the company. I found that they made every type of attachment available, including thumbs, grapples, buckets, pulverizers and stump harvesters; all designed for extreme duty and priced very reasonably. After meeting with Mr. Nye we found that they had no distribution outlets in North America. We signed an agreement with them making us their exclusive representative, and the rest is history."
The Next Generation
Eleven years ago Scott's son, Gabe, joined the company and five years ago Scott II also joined the family business. In September of this year Scott and Kathy made the decision to make Gabe and Scott II partners in the company.
"It was just the right time to do this. Our children have survived the test of fire in this industry. The economic depression for the construction industry that started in 2007 was a nightmare for our company. Scott and Gabe invested their blood and demonstrated their loyalty throughout a very difficult time period," said Scott.
"Since joining our company Gabe has focused much of his energy and has gained a tremendous understanding of the demolition industry. He is now serving the company as vice president of demolition products. Scott II has done much the same within the forestry industry and he is now serving the company as vice president of forestry products and acquisitions.
"Acquisitions is a new part of this industry that we really focused on over the last few years. Thousands of pieces of construction equipment attachments were virtually unused or placed off in the side of the yard of contractors during the recession. Many of our customers desperately needed to generate revenue by selling off inventory. For the last few years he has focused on acquiring that excess inventory and selling it here in North America as well as abroad."
For more information, visit
www.nationalattachments.com.
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