Business View - December 2014 99
levue in 1988, followed by another in Kent location
seven years later.
Upon retiring in 1999, Dick Anderson sold his share
of the business to long-time employee Kevin Katona,
who arrived to the ownership role with an enhanced
aim to not only improve service to the existing fishing,
agricultural and food processing customer base, but to
branch out to create relationships within other manu-
facturing and distribution industries.
John Anderson retired in 2000 and sold his remaining
portion of the company to Steve Duffield, prompting a
corporate name switch to the DACO Corporation and a
renewed focus on what the operation now refers to as
“Knock Your Socks off Customer Service.”
“Kevin and I have grown DACO through a plan, more so
than through circumstance,” said Duffield, who’s now
listed as both co-owner and vice president of sales.
“When we took ownership we sat down together and
created our vision, mission and values. Our vision is to
become our customers’ first thought and best choice.
Our mission is to increase our customers’ productivity.
And we have nine values that we use to help guide the
company in how we conduct business.
“We look at all of this periodically to make sure that it
is still relevant and we might tweak it if necessary, but
at the core it has remained the same.”
Katona and Duffield implemented a three-tier com-
mission plan for the company sales team to drive it
toward an assemblage of manufacturers the two men
believed would propel overall growth. The highest com-
mission is paid on a select group of 10 Tier 1 suppliers
provide DACO with a measure of exclusivity with their
products. Seventeen Tier 2 suppliers generate a com-
mission two-thirds the level of the top tier, while Tier
3 comprises the remaining manufacturers and has a
LOGISTICS
