Randy Phillips, southeast region manager of LBX, presents the 2021 LBX Triple Crown Dealer Award to Parman General Manager Colin Hockenberger.
(Parman Tractor & Equipment photo)
In the short time it has been in operation in Nashville, Tenn., Parman Tractor & Equipment has become one of the South's top construction machine dealers. The company has been acclaimed for its strong customer service from the first day it opened in May 2019, and all the way through the pandemic.
Parman specializes in selling, renting and servicing new and used excavators (both large and small), skid steer loaders, backhoes, compacting equipment and other machines for the construction business, in addition to keeping an inventory of agricultural equipment.
In 2021, all the arduous work by the staff at Parman to reach a prominent level of success came to the attention of one of its key manufacturing lines, Link-Belt Excavators (LBX), based in Lexington, Ky.
LBX recognized the central Tennessee distributor by presenting it with a 2021 LBX Triple Crown Dealer Award, one of only five other dealerships in the United States and Canada in its industry size class (below 700 units) to be given the prestigious honor.
Understandably, Parman General Manager Colin Hockenberger was pleased to receive the tribute from LBX, noting, "it is the first one in the history of the company, and we have only been in the business of rental and sales for three years.
"LBX makes one machine, its line of excavators, and they do it very well," he added. "That's how we operate. We want to focus on what we do best and LBX is the partner of choice because of its machines' durability and the company's support. It produces 12 different excavators, ranging from 18,000- up to the 160,000-pound class, and we carry eight of those machine sizes."
Parman Has Quickly Established Itself
Formerly known as Cumberland Tractor & Equipment, the dealership was acquired by Parman Holding Corporation, a Nashville-based petroleum products distributor, in 2019.
After the full-service store was renamed Parman Tractor & Equipment, the new owners and staff, including Hockenberger, President Charley Crichton and Chief Executive Officer Rachel Hockenberger, created a unique brand for the distributor and showed the company to be a reputable and reliable partner to contractors working within a 100-mi.-radius of the busy Nashville construction scene.
To do so, Parman revamped its customer service, rebuilt the old dealership into a more modern facility and improved its capabilities — all of which quickly made it into a more popular company and led to its being honored by LBX for its excellence during 2021.
"I want to say that [Parman's] market and volume shares have tripled from 2019 through 2021, and I believe that is [due to] a combination of organic growth and demand in the area," Colin Hockenberger said. "What is most important for us is the strength of culture and relationships here — those are the things we are most proud of. Plus, our relationship with Link-Belt is very solid."
Careful Evaluation Determined Award Winners
Kevin Roberts, general manager of North American Sales at LBX, said that the manufacturer's process for evaluating and determining its best distributors meant looking at several factors.
"Annually, we review the performance of our dealers and identify a small group that have performed above and beyond in several key categories," he said. "The Triple Crown Award is based on categories of Equipment and Parts Sales, Customer Support, and Strength of Culture inside the dealership, along with [its] relationship to LBX as our valued partner.
"It is our pleasure to present the 2021 Triple Crown Award to Parman Tractor & Equipment for [its] excellent performance last year," Roberts added. "The success we are seeing is a direct correlation to the leadership provided by Colin, Charlie and Rachel and all the hard work the Parman team put forth to grow our brand recognition in the Nashville area."
His comments were echoed by Randy Phillips, LBX's southeast region manager, who said, "As with any successful company one of the key factors to success is the people within the organization. The people of LBX and Parman share several common traits: work hard, be agile, and do everything with integrity.
"It is a true pleasure to represent [and] work with the entire staff at Parman," he added. "There is nothing we cannot accomplish when we work together.
Parman Manages to Thrive During Difficult Years
Hockenberger noted that LBX excavators also were sold at Cumberland Tractor & Equipment at the North Nashville location for approximately 10 years prior to Parman's acquisition of the dealership. They have since been heavily used in the region for many of its commercial, residential, highway and bridge projects, helping central Tennessee to be nationally known for being one of America's top growth areas.
Parman has a sizable yard for its machines, he said, but, like most every other construction equipment dealer, the nation's supply-chain shortages have kept its inventory lower than normal.
The equipment distributor also used a well-tuned business sense to successfully come through the dark days of COVID-19.
"We have been able to survive over the last couple years because of good planning and orders and being able to take advantage of good opportunities presented to us," Hockenberger said. "For example, a lot of other companies have depleted their rental fleets by selling machines out of them. But our rental fleet has been strong, and we keep our customers supplied with new LBX excavators and have new machines for rent."
For more information, call 615/865-7800 or visit www.parmantractor.com.
Eric Olson
A writer and contributing editor for CEG since 2008, Eric Olson has worked in the business for more than 40 years.
Olson grew up in the small town of Lenoir, NC 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 moved on to gain experience at two other publications before becoming a real estate and special features writer and editor at the Winston-Salem Journal 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 married for 33 years and are the parents of two grown and successful daughters. His hobbies include collecting history books, watching his beloved Green Bay Packers and caring for his three dogs and one cat.
Read more from Eric Olson here.
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