SIDNEY — Kirk NationaLease opened several new shop locations again in 2017. Early in the year we began doing business in Greensburg, Indiana, as was forecasted due to expanding operations of a significant customer.
“Kirk operates shop locations in nine states providing truck leasing and maintenance services for the transportation equipment that companies require for their businesses,” said said President Mike Trabue, of Sidney. “We are frequently called for advice due to our extensive knowledge and experience in preventive maintenance practices.
His report continues:
We also moved into a new location working on site with a major school district after being awarded a Maintenance Contract in Longview, Texas. This contract calls for Kirk to supply the technical manpower and perform all Maintenance services required to keep the school districts transportation fleet running smoothly. The fleet consists of primarily the school buses along with the “white” fleet which is made up of various other vehicles utilized in the school systems operation. This is a business sector Kirk NationaLease has been involved with for decades and one that school districts truly enjoy as it allows them to budget for the entire year without experiencing huge swings in transportation operational costs.
In addition, Kirk NationaLease was awarded a new contract performing all Maintenance services on a company owned fleet for a meat processing and packaging company in Gaffney, South Carolina. This company desired to retain all the equipment on site at their packaging plant and Kirk was able to accommodate their needs. Kirk now performs all the services needed on the fleet that consists of a huge variety of specifications covering all the equipment needed to run the plant and pick up and deliver all the products they are involved in. We work very closely with these type of accounts and our owner, Jeff Phlipot gets personally involved with the customers management to ensure we deliver the services expected while offering remedial solutions based on our experiences with other accounts over the years. Based on Jeff’s input the customer actually gave Kirk 5 worn out specialized trucks to completely restore and put back into service. Once the first truck was restored to like “new” again the customer gave the go ahead for the remainder trucks.
Kirk’s Marysville, Ohio brand new shop will be erected in February. This new shop will enable Kirk to more effectively manage our Marysville customers and offer much needed space for customer parking and will give our technicians an improved work area versus the limited workspace they currently are in. Once in the new facility, Kirk will also be able to perform maintenance services for the other accounts we have in the Marysville geographic area.
Kirk is gaining a reputation for delivering customized solutions to an ever changing transportation market and it’s this mindset that sets us apart from our competitors that simply offer traditional products. It is a much longer process initially but in the long run our lease and maintenance products deliver much more personalized and custom services for our customers.
One of the customized solutions we provided a customer involved moving the freight either in or out of the semi-trailer without the use of a traditional forklift and operator. When eliminated, the forklift damage to the trailers virtually goes away. The customer wanted the product to “automatically” unload onto their dock. Kirk saw this challenge and a team of employees consisting of metal fabricators and electrician skills have designed and custom built several of these trailers to date and is in the process of demonstrating them to various companies that are impressed with not only the automation aspect but the end to trailer damages and the costs and downtime associated with that. We are getting rave reviews and foresee orders for these trailers to be built next year.
