FZ-Lancastar Farming, Saturday, January 9, 1988
Hamilton Eq
EPHRATA When Bob
Hamilton, Sr., rented an old tobac
co storage in Ephrata in 1938 and
started Hamilton Equipment, Inc.,
odds were stacked against him
ever making it as a wholesale
distributor.
Rent was cheap enough. Just
$35 a month. But young Hamilton
was a city kid from Pittsburgh. His
only farm experience was summer
jobs on Allegheny county farms.
His only engineering experience
was civil. He earned that degree
working his way through Universi
ty of Pittsburgh during the great
depression.
“Fortunately no one told me my
ideas wouldn’t work,” Bob said
recently.
It wasn’t easy. The business
almost “bellied up” the first year.
But succeed it did.
On Sunday, with Bob Hamilton,
Jr. presiding at the Pennsylvania
Farm Show exhibit, Hamilton
Equipment, Inc. will celebrate its
50th anniversary with a five-tier
cake, and the good wishes of state
dignitaries and farmers alike.
It also will be Hamilton Equip
ment’s 50th year at Farm Show.
Bob, Sr., first showed in 1939.
Hamilton Equipment doesn’t
sell directly to farmers or industrial
customers. But the company
serves them in many ways.
‘Today we’re the show people
Bob Hamilton, Sr. decided to become a wholesale farm
equipment distributor in 1938. “Fortunately no one told me
my ideas wouldn’t work,” Bob grins.
Hamilton Equipment’; first office and warehouse was
this old tobacco storage In Ephrata. Rent In 1938 was $35 a
month.
tc
pi
celebrate the firm’s 50th
anniversary at 1988 Farm
Show.
for 40 manufacturers and hundreds
of dealers,” says Bob Hamilton, Jr.
who now heads a firm that serves
dealers in New Jersey, Delaware,
Maryland, Virginia and West Vir
ginia as well as Pennsylvania.
“We’re big on shows. It’s our
way of keeping farmers posted on
new equipment and new prac
tices,” the young Hamilton
explains.
Hamilton Equipment intro
duced the first front end loader and
first backhoe in the East And, in
1946, it showed the first elevator
that could handle both grain and
hbrates 50th Year of Service In Wholesaling
p» .... -qulpn.. jy parts
department plus 49,000 square feet of equipment warehousing. A branch warehouse
at Raphlne, Va., has another 33,000 square.
baled hay.
The wholesale firm has been
showing Danuser posthole diggers
since 1949.
A no-till drill that plants in
stubble and sod has been a big hit
in the 1980 s.
Looking back. Bob Hamilton,
Sr. credits the good advice of deal
ers and manufacturers in getting
him through 1938 in one piece.
That and an unanswering belief in
service... to dealers and their farm
customers.
Bob Hamilton learned as he
traveled.
“In 1939 and 1940 you could
leave Monday morning with $25,
call on dealers all week and return
home Friday with $5 and change,”
Bob Hamilton, Sr. recalls now.
Some years he drove 60,000 miles.
First dealer was L.H. Brubaker
at Strasburg, Pa. First manufactur
er, Champion Irrigation. Today,
Danuser Machine Company has
the longest continuous record with
Hamilton Equipment... almost 39
DR. GEORGE F.W. HAENLEIN
Extension Dairy Specialist
University of Delaware
What Makes Some
Dairy Farms More
Profitable?
The dairy business in this region
has undergone drastic changes
during this past decade, and not all
by the choice of the dairy farmer.
Political decisions made in
Washington, on the World market
and by labor unions have also
influenced these changes.
For example, dairy farm profits
have been affected seriously by
milk surpluses in the marketplace.
Yet, can you find a beverage
dispensing machine anywhere
anymore that sells milk as well as
soft drinks?
Because many of these
machines are serviced at best only
once a week, and since milk often
turned sour, they’ve stopped dis
pensing it in recent years. But why
not use UHT milk which stays
fresh for 3 months without refrig
eration? Apparently, dispensing
machine owners make more
money on soft drinks than on any
kind of milk.
For this as well as other reasons,
the surplus continues, supported
by the convenient but false claim
that UHT milk has a cooked taste.
People in Europe have been drink
ing UHT milk for years and it con-
years,
When dealers told him all equip
ment had to be shipped from the
factory. Bob cut freight costs for
dealers and farmers alike by pick
ing up equipment by the truckload
and delivering direct to dealers.
The Firm now keeps seven trucks
on the road fulltime.
“I also learned that when a deal
er or farmer wanted a part or piece
of equipment, he wanted it yester
day,” Hamilton grins.
To speed deliveries, Hamilton
Equipment expanded warehousing
ami stocked full lines of equipment
and parts near the dealers.
Warehousing has grown from
the original 4,000 square feet of
1938 to almost two acres (82,000
square feet) today at Ephrata, Pa.'
and Raphine, Va. And everything
is stored under roof.
That includes 17,134 parts and
$2,500,000 in new equipment on
any given day. Inventory is auto
matically updated by modem com
puters. Parts ordered one day usu-
Dairy Management
tinues to be very popular there.
Many fast food restaurants in
this country have finally switched
from non-dairy creamers to the
REAL half-and-half— either
pasteurized, or ultra-high
pasteurized for easier handling- or
they provide milk.
Yet, most of our airlines still fail
to provide the REAL thing in cof
fee on flights, and you can’t even
get milk, while soft drinks and
juice are routinely served, along
with beer, wine and other alcoholic
beverages.
Thus the surplus continues, and
would be worse, if it weren’t for
the deduction of 15 cents per
hundred pounds of milk- from far
mers, not dealers- for milk and
milk product advertising and
research.
And thus, no matter how effi
cient a dairy farmer you are, your
income to a large extent is deter
mined by forces not under your
control, including vending
machines and airlines.
But what about the factors you
can control as a producer?
A recent study of 1,477 Pen
nsylvania dairy farms found that
one in four of these farms had a
zero or negative cash flow com
pared to 5 years earlier when this
was the case for only one in 10
dairy farms. To compensate for
ally are delivered the next
“Parts are an important consid
eration when we take on a new
manufacturer,” says Bob Hamil
ton, Jr. “In case of foreign firms,
we insist they open a U.S.
warehouse.”
When dealers were flooded with
new equipment after World War
11, the big wholesaler trained a
team of repair specialists to help
dealers put equipment back in the
field quickly. The service is still
offered for all Hamilton lines.
Shop schools also are held for
service people, and
shows for farmers.
Where will Hamilton Equip
ment go from here?
Bob Hamilton, Jr. looks ahead
to more warehousing, bigger
inventories and new high tech
equipment.
Says Bob, Jr., “New technology
and practices will bring new inno
vations in equipment, a'nd new
profits for growers. We’re pre
pared to meet that challenge.”
declining profits, during the last 5
years of this study, the dairy far
mers expanded their operations,
which resulted in greater surpluses
and lower milk prices. At the same
lime, these producers tried to
become technically more-efficient.
However, when these Pennsyl
vania dairy farms were ranked by
size into four groups, large and
small farms in the study were
found to be less efficient than
medium-size farms in terms of the
cost of producing milk. That was
so 5 years ago and still is, true.
The dairy farms that increased
in size usually did not become
more efficient. Indeed, greater
efficiency in the purchase of feeds
and animals and improved forage
production, not size, were the most
effective factors m increasing
profits.
In terms of dairy farm survival,
in this study, the debt load per cow
and falling asset values were also
more important than actual pro
duction levels or size of farm. This
finding supports the logic of our
own continued efforts in Delaware
DHIA not to push for high produc
tion of each >cow per se, but for
improved efficiency indexes
especially net returns over feed
cost, genetic indexes, calving
intervals, and the like- as these
will improve dairy farm profitabil
ity more than anything else.