Page 16 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

(L-R) Ernie Fierro & Duane Doyle Sr. with Don Arndt of D&S Logging, and Gary LeVar/Cat district rep, shortly after Papé acquisition in 2003
car after car of new Caterpillar equipment shortly after we opened. It gave us a huge jumpstart that our competition wasn’t expecting.”
Sales manager Allan Emmons was thrilled at the changeover. “It was amazing to have all that prod- uct on hand. It was a big risk, but it paid off be- cause we were able to hit the ground running. The entire sales staff was excited about being a real Cat dealer again. Coming from no support to having complete support, supplied us with a lot of new opportunities.”
The new territory brought with it two hundred for- mer Papé employees, a decent market share, good machine population, and a half dozen store loca- tions. It also grew Peterson’s territory by 53,000 square miles, creating a contiguous stretch of op- portunity from Santa Cruz County in California to Linn County, Oregon. The only thing better would have been a total sweep of Oregon. But that wasn’t to be. Yet.
One of the subtler challenges Peterson faced was the perception of a big California corporate take- over. Those former Papé employees had already
been dragged through a contentious two years of negotiations and uncertainty. It was important to show them that Peterson meant to rebuild their faith and confidence in being a Caterpillar deal- er by providing the best product support around. “It’s very interesting to import another belief sys- tem into a group of people who have never experi- enced it before,” says Jeff Goggin, Peterson’s chief operating officer (COO). “It’s especially challeng- ing when you’re faced with people who have been devoted to that company for twenty, thirty, forty years and don’t understand the difference. ‘We’re all Cat dealers. Papé is a Cat dealer. Peterson is a Cat dealer. What’s the difference?’ Well, it’s huge! It’s an- other whole culture. It’s the Peterson Way. And it starts at the top.”
Where Papé was highly centralized and tight- ly controlled from the top, Peterson is not. “Our model pushes responsibility downward, allowing people to do what they were hired to do,” states Goggin. “Our challenge was to push more op- portunity and authority into their hands and help them believe that if they made a mistake, they weren’t going to be crucified for it. And you can only do that by proving it over time.”
For Duane Sr., it’s all about core values. “These val- ues are who we are, who we’ve always been, and who we will continue to be. It’s putting our cus- tomers first, having integrity, pursuing excellence, and so forth. It’s how we do business.”
GROWING NORTH
Papé was the ninth Caterpillar dealer territory Peterson has absorbed through the years. And it had to be earned like all the rest. Peterson’s tem- plate for growth has always been the same: Put the customer first. Do an exceptional job. Don’t be afraid to take risks. And let Providence take care of the rest. “Growth has been a part of our culture since the very beginning,” says Duane Sr. “When the op- portunity comes, you need to take it because it
14 | PETERSON: 85 YEARS AND GOING STRONG