Page 453 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

Grand Opening of Hillsboro facility in 2018 (L-R) Erin Sorgel, Kim Lund (works for contractor who built Hillsboro facility) and Kimie Pellizzaro
of credit with Cat Fi, it was Erin who led the ne- gotiation. “We went back to Cat Fi in Nashville and presented our plan to the president of Cat Financial and his people. My dad and Mark were there too. There was probably a dozen people total. It was basically a kickoff to get their approval for our five-year plan. Then we went back home and spent months and months working with lawyers, which involved thousands and thousands of pages of documents.”
When the executive team at Cat Financial changed in 2018, Erin went back to Nashville to reaffirm the contract with Cat Financial, present Peterson’s strategic plan for the next business cycle, and tell the Peterson story to the new executives. Court- ney Graf, western region finance manager for Cat Financial at the time, was in that meeting. “Erin walked us through Peterson’s history back to her grandfather’s time. She talked about all the acqui- sitions and the growth from a financial perspec- tive; she talked about the debt-to-equity through the years and why the financials looked the way they did, and how they were getting much stron- ger. It was a very important discussion and a very important time to tell the Peterson story. There was a lot riding on that meeting. My boss and his boss—the president of Cat Financial—were fairly new to their positions and needed clarity on why Cat Financial was providing support to Peterson
that was typically provided by banks. Despite the smaller group in the room, the level of people in there had to be intimidating.”
Today, a major part of Erin’s responsibility is re- ducing Peterson’s debt-to-equity ratio to a more mature level, which in turn, gives Peterson more stability. “We’ve gotten super aggressive with our financing,” says Erin of her team—Kimie Pellizza- ro, director of finance and treasurer; Julie Cunha, controller; and Frances Yee, Peterson’s general counsel. “We spend the majority of our time fo- cusing on ways to reduce our debt and get better credit lines for the company. We’ll peel off a piece from Cat Fi and give it to a different bank with a better interest rate. It’s all incredibly time-con- suming.”
FINANCIAL AND LOGISTICAL SUPPORT
Erin has spearheaded a number of major projects over the last decade involving an intense amount of focus, teamwork, and financial acumen. Many have centered around territorial growth. Back in 2010, when Peterson acquired Halton-Cat, Erin was the project manager. “I was essentially the black belt on Halton. When you’re taking on a dealership, there are thousands of action items that have to get done. We had a project group that met regularly to talk all that through. Like how we were going to have paper on the first day or cellphones. Who was changing the signs? Who was changing the locks? Who was changing the utilities? Who was going to make sure we could sell a part that first day?”
Then there was Peterson’s Portland headquarters move in 2018. Transferring the entire operation to a brand-new facility in Hillsboro was a huge undertaking for everyone involved. “It took us a year to get the financing done for Hillsboro,” says Erin. “And it took us a year before that to get the construction loan done. These things just take for- ever. The Hillsboro documentation alone filled two legal-size binders. It was crazy.”
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