Raleigh-based Wilson-Finley Co. celebrates 70 years in business, offering top-tier heavy equipment parts and services. The family-run company boasts four full-service locations across the Southeast and prides itself on quality products, fair pricing, and exceptional customer service. With a focus on rubber tracks and ground engaging tools, Wilson-Finley continues to thrive under fourth-generation leadership.
CEG photo
Standing in front of track chains are Weston (L) and Austin Davis, who represent the next generation in the family business.
Since 1955, Raleigh, N.C.-based Wilson-Finley Co. has been providing contractors and farmers with tough, well-engineered heavy equipment parts to keep their projects rolling along.
In doing so, the company has established a well-earned reputation among its customers, due not only to its ability to deliver parts and service in a timely manner, but also because of its commitment to fair and friendly attention.
That respect from its customers has always been a direct result of the neighborly culture within Wilson-Finley, a cornerstone of the business since George Wilson founded it 70 years ago.
Down through the decades, Wilson-Finley has been a completely family-run business with Doug Wilson, George's son, later serving as president alongside his son-in-law, Jay Davis, who is currently the company vice president.
Additionally, Doug's daughter Charlotte works with the company. Although her role is primarily in accounting and payroll, she noted she is involved in several other areas of Wilson-Finley, as well.
The couple's two sons, Weston and Austin, represent the fourth generation and have already begun their careers at the company their great-grandfather built.
Today, Wilson-Finley operates four full-service sales and service locations in Raleigh, Charlotte, Richmond, Va., and Atlanta, as well as a parts distribution warehouse in Greensboro, N.C.
From those locations, the company serves customers both locally and regionally with reliable shipping, in addition to in-house repair and service.
In each city and region that it serves, Wilson-Finley's parts departments also are well-known for the amount and variety of components they stock, whether for a dozer, excavator, front-end loader or other piece of heavy machinery. In addition, every part is manufactured to the highest quality and offered at the lowest possible price.
Over the past 30 years, Wilson-Finley's inventory has evolved and expanded to cater to its customers' needs. The most significant changes have included keeping up with new models and products introduced to the construction industry.
Chief among them was the addition of undercarriage parts, including a wide selection of high-quality EARTHQUEST rubber tracks for most types of mini-excavators and compact track loaders.
"The undercarriage components themselves have also changed during my time here," said Jay Davis. "The interchangeability between the OEM and aftermarket undercarriage parts aren't always a good marriage. Therefore, you must have what I call the ‘institutional knowledge' to understand that this part is going to work perfectly with that part, and I think our staff has done an exceptional job documenting that type of information over the past 50-60 years."
In addition, he said that Wilson-Finley offers an enormous inventory of ground engaging tools (GETs), heavy equipment attachments that contact the ground to cut, move and grade during construction. With one of the most diverse GET stockpiles in the industry, Wilson-Finley tailors its selection of bucket teeth, cutting edges and blade stock to reflect local market demands.
George Wilson, A.E. Finley Merge Respective Talents
After having been trained as a certified welder while in the U.S. Navy, George Wilson first worked as a civilian for C.C. Mangum Co., a Raleigh-based highway contracting and asphalt production firm.
"George handled welding operations, reconditioned undercarriages and managed various construction equipment repairs," Davis said. "As that evolved, he saw a growing need for undercarriage reconstruction, which led him to borrow $1,500 from his sister to start Wilson Welding.
"The same was true with the track rollers, idlers and sprockets," added Davis. "Drag lines were big business back then, so they rebuilt their tumblers on the track pads and rebuilt the drag-line buckets, too."
Later, Wilson learned about an opportunity to import aftermarket undercarriage parts to North America, which led him to form Wilson-Finley Co. with the help of A.E. Finley, whose own outfit, North Carolina Equipment, was one of the East Coast's most successful operations.
That association made Wilson-Finley a complementary firm to Finley's more established company by filling a critical need for International Harvester, Case and Allis-Chalmers parts for the aftermarket end of the business as they were not readily available from the OEMs at the time.
When Doug Wilson succeeded his father as president of Wilson-Finley in the early 1980s, John Deere, Cat, International Harvester and Komatsu made up the core group of its available parts.
"Other manufacturers like Kobelco and Case also made undercarriage components that were added to the company's inventory, many of which other suppliers did not supply to the aftermarket," Davis said. "So, we partnered with additional vendors that manufactured those parts and started importing them."
Rubber Tracks, Ground Engaging Tools Popular at Wilson-Finley
Although Wilson-Finley was founded on working with steel tracks, its business also focuses heavily on rubber tracks for heavy equipment.
"That happened about 18 years ago when our supplier at the time was manufacturing some of the small undercarriage parts for the mini-excavators and compact track loaders," said Davis. "Those parts were available, and we saw it as an emerging market. People had begun contacting us to represent them in selling the rubber tracks and from that, we found a very solid manufacturer and EARTHQUEST Premium Rubber Track was born."
The EARTHQUEST brand of rubber tracks are produced overseas and have been engineered with the help of Wilson-Finley, he said, "to provide, on the CTL side, the lowest possible vibration with extra strength in the sides of the rubber tracks so they don't suffer stress fractures and split when they are going over stumps and curbs."
EARTHQUEST rubber tracks maximize that durability while also providing the best traction. They feature various tread patterns that perform well and provide longer track life, even when used on hard or rocky surfaces.
"We have had substantial success with these products and sell to OEMs that use EARTHQUEST as their aftermarket brand, as well as to rental companies, landscapers, land clearance contractors, and farmers," said Davis, who added that "the rubber tracks were immediately accepted. They are very reliable products, and we only have to sell them once. In fact, we haven't had a legitimate warranty claim in over eight years where a track had failed due to a manufacturer defect."
Another of Wilson-Finley's popular offerings is its line of ground engaging tools (GETs), he said.
"We have an enormous inventory of ground engaging tools, including bucket teeth for small, medium and large machines, as well as both bolt-on and weld-on adapters, side cutters, plow bolts and grader blades."
Davis said the latter attachment blends well with the other inventory of innovative products that Wilson-Finley offers through its partnership with Valley Blades, a Canadian manufacturer that has sold its products in the Southeast through the North Carolina company for more than 15 years.
Among the GETs that it has in stock, Wilson-Finley's biggest sellers are those for mid-size, 20-ton excavators and mid-sized loaders/dozers as well as compact track loaders, he said.
"Our volume of bucket teeth and cutting edges have probably tripled in the last 10 years. As a result, we have developed a huge inventory of all those parts and keep a complete record of what our customers purchase so that when they return to our parts department, we can serve their needs as efficiently as possible.
Knowing what a particular customer's needs are even before they enter the store is what Wilson-Finley calls "added value," which Davis said seems to help the company retain repeat business."
"Customers can visit any of our facilities, and if they call ahead, the parts they need are staged, ready for pickup, their invoice has been prepared and they can be on their way. That's our long-term goal at Wilson-Finley: to work in our customers best interests by solving their problems and supplying the highest quality parts for the lowest and most competitive prices."
Each Wilson-Finley Branch Strategically Located
Achieving that company objective, he added, is why Wilson-Finley put a great deal of thought into where it built its branches in the Southeast. The company offers its customers one-day service from its main distribution center in Raleigh to each of its branches even though it maintains a substantial parts stockpile in each retail center.
While inventory expansion is always a focus at Wilson-Finley, he prefers to accomplish that goal within its current footprint and not lengthen its one-day service.
"I want us to remain a regional company," Davis said.
In April 2020, Wilson-Finley moved its Charlotte branch from a building on Reames Road that it had occupied for 45 years to an older facility at 6800 Freedom Dr. the company had updated to modern standards.
"After searching around, we found our new home and moved in right in the middle of the pandemic, a time when there was a lot of uncertainty in the world," he said. "I credit our staff for the amazing job they did in a short period of time moving our Charlotte branch from one place to another. It has been very successful in the new location."
Typical of Wilson-Finley's branches, the Queen City facility has four service bays and when the weather allows, the company's shop personnel have space outside to work on equipment.
"It also has plenty of room for parts storage on the inside," according to Davis. "The customers seem to like the new facility. In fact, the most positive comments we have heard from them is that the Charlotte branch offers easy access because it is located just off I-485."
Company's Future in Good Hands With Next Generation
Over its 70-year existence, keeping the business all in the family has likely assisted Wilson-Finley in establishing a friendly environment for its customers and helping them feel more relaxed while making their buying decisions.
Davis added that the founders instilled a culture within Wilson-Finley where people want to enjoy a productive work experience and, in many cases, remain there a long time.
"We are all about service and you cannot have a top service company without good people," he said. "My son, Weston, was trained by a manager that was here for over 45 years. We also had two wholesale guys who were here for over 45 years, one of whom worked here for over 53 years. There was another sales associate in Atlanta who was with us for 28 years, and a manager in Richmond who retired after 25 years. All of these people had a tremendous amount of knowledge about this type of business."
Now it is up to Weston and Austin Davis as the fourth generation to carry on the family legacy of keeping Wilson-Finley prosperous when their grandfather and parents step aside.
"Currently, my role is in wholesale," Weston Davis said when asked about his duties.
When he was out of school each summer from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, Weston used the time to learn the family business.
"I wanted to begin in the service shop, which has helped a lot," he said. "I couldn't imagine coming in and not knowing what I am selling after I graduated. I learned pretty much everything from the veteran people who had been here for years."
His brother, Austin, also an N.C. State graduate, works in retail sales at Wilson-Finley, where he deals with area landscapers, construction companies and farmers.
"I worked here, too, during the summers as a shop technician and a parts runner — really, I did a little bit of everything," he said.
Their father noted proudly that both of his sons spent time "working in the shops, underneath crawler equipment and in the grease and dirt" to have a knowledge of all aspects of the business.
"This experience has helped them understand and communicate more efficiently with their customers," Jay Davis said. CEG
Eric Olson
A writer and contributing editor for CEG since 2008, Eric Olson has worked in the news-gathering business for 45 years.
Olson grew up in the small town of Lenoir, N.C. in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where he began covering sports for the local newspaper at age 18. He continued to do that for several other dailies in the area while in college at Appalachian State University. Following his graduation, he worked for, among other companies, the Winston-Salem Journal, where he wrote and edited the newspaper's real estate and special features sections for 10 years. Since 1999 he has worked as a corporate media liaison and freelance writer, in addition to his time at CEG.
He and his wife, Tara, have been happily married for almost 40 years and are the parents of two grown and successful daughters. He currently is in the employ of two dogs and three cats, a job that he dearly loves.
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