Alta Equipment Company recently named Ryan Curtis general manager of its New York division, which includes three stores located in Batavia, Syracuse and Albany.
Alta Equipment is a publicly held company, which over the course of the past few years purchased Liftech, which primarily represented JCB, and Vantage Equipment, which primarily represented Volvo. Alta also represents additional manufacturers, including Toro, Mecalac, Arctic, Doosan Portable Power, Terramac, SDLG, Gradall and Towmaster.
Curtis' first exposure to the construction equipment industry was as a sales representative of Liftech, primarily selling JCB machines in western New York State; he was promoted to sales manager for all northeast locations in 2014.
In 2020, Liftech was purchased by Alta Equipment Company and, in 2021, Alta Equipment Company purchased Vantage Equipment. Shortly thereafter, in February 2022, Alta Equipment named Curtis the director of sales of the two combined companies.
In his position as general manager, Curtis is responsible for all aspects of Alta Equipment business in New York State, including parts, service, rental and fundamentally all aspects of the customer experience for any product sold, rented or supported by Alta Equipment.
In a recent interview with Construction Equipment Guide, Curtis expressed tremendous enthusiasm with the progress Alta Equipment has made in the marketplace over the past couple of years.
"Essentially, since the time of the acquisition by Alta Equipment, business has more than doubled from what was being experienced by the old companies. This tremendous growth can be attributed to a number of things, but first and foremost I point to a tremendous investment in inventory — Alta Equipment has substantially increased its investment in both our rental fleet and our inventory for retail equipment, as well as parts on the shelf every year. The end result has been a proportionate increase in sales and customers."
The increased investments have not been limited to product. Alta Equipment also has invested in people, branch managers have been put in place at every location and the number of technicians has increased from 28 to 47.
"We have changed how our inventory is managed," Curtis said. "Years ago, under previous management, inventory was centralized at the Syracuse location and dispatched as necessary to the other branches, which wasted precious time if a customer in Buffalo had an immediate need.
"Today, if our rental managers or sales reps has a need for a piece of equipment, he is able to pull the inventory from their local store. We added branch managers because we thought it was important to have an individual on the ground in each market who transcends all departments and brings down any perceived walls between various departments so that people can make a decision on the spot that's best for the customer. You would always have a service manager or a parts manager at any given location. A branch manager transcends all of those boundaries and represents the customer.
"Looking down the road in my new position with Alta Equipment, we will continue to look for opportunities to improve the customer experience by making sure that our product inventory levels on both the parts and sales sides meet the needs of the New York contractor and that every one of our team members are putting the needs of the customer first, understanding that ultimately, if the customer is having a pleasant and profitable experience, Alta Equipment's position in the marketplace will continue to grow." CEG
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