Business View Magazine | December 2019

93 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2019 VERMEER MIDWEST the fiber network - fiber to the home, 5G. Number two is underground gas pipe replacement. And number three is the electric utility, followed by water, sewer, and other underground utilities. Kool notes, “We sell a lot of Larson Trailers, mainly for the fiber optic side. If you’re plowing along and come to a road and you have to take the cable off the reel, go under a conduit under the road, and then put it back on the reel, that’s what the Larson Trailer does. It’s a great benefit for our customers and an exclusive piece of equipment that not everybody has. ProAction Fluids has also been a very good partner for us. We always used to sell bentonite products, but these are a revolutionary liquid solution for our boring equipment to help stabilize the hole when you’re doing directional boring.” Vermeer Midwest also has a secondary business – an environmental division that sells brush chippers, stump cutters, and recycling equipment that grinds up organic material and recycles it for mulch. Marketing their products is easy - there is a tremendous amount of Vermeer equipment in the field and every piece is a billboard promoting the company. The majority of customers own more than one machine, so there is a lot of repeat business. And on-site trouble-shooting is available from Vermeer Midwest’s fleet of 31 mobile service vehicles. “Now, we can go to the customer instead of them having to bring it to us,” says Kool. “For equipment that has a four or five person crew, it makes more sense to pay us to come to the jobsite, versus them bringing it the dealership. That’s a big part of the business.” Another benefit offered to customers: because of the need for more operators in the growing directional drilling market, Vermeer Midwest started new hire training – a two-day class, plus hands-on training and on-the-job training. Patrick Roesler, CFO of Vermeer Midwest, speaks to company culture, noting, “You really feel you’ve become part of the family, here. The company spends a lot of time making sure when Courtesy of Mark Jones