Berry Tractor Celebrates 50 Years of Quality People and Quality Products

    /24-7PressRelease/ - WICHITA, KS, May 15, 2007 -- In 2007, Berry Tractor & Equipment Company is celebrating its 50th anniversary in Kansas. In 1957, Fred Berry Jr. and his brother Paul established the Berry Tractor & Equipment Company, formerly known as the Sam H. Denney Road Machinery Company, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. While Berry Tractor's roots date back to 1928 in St. Louis (their father, Fred Berry Sr., had owned a farm equipment distribution company in St. Louis from 1928 to 1957), the opening of the new Wichita company proved to be the beginning of a journey that continues to this day.

Berry Tractor started in 1957 as an International Harvester dealer in Wichita with branches in Garden City and Russell, and it still operates out of the same Wichita location - 930 S West Street on Tractor Row - as it did in 1957. Kansas is a huge grader market, having the second highest mileage of "unpaved but maintained" roads in the country, so Berry Tractor soon took advantage of this opportunity and became the largest Galion motor grader dealer in the country (and later one of the largest Komatsu motor grader dealers).

Berry Tractor continued to grow through the 1960s and 70s, and in 1976 purchased the International Harvester dealership in Topeka. This gave the company all of Kansas except for metropolitan Kansas City. In 1984 the Springfield, MO, territory was acquired. During the 1980s, International Harvester struggled to survive and eventually went out of business. Berry Tractor took on the Komatsu line of heavy construction equipment in 1989 and flourished. Berry Tractor's ability to provide outstanding customer support made it a perfect distributor partner for Komatsu in Kansas and Missouri, and in 1995, it was named the number one service provider in the nation.

From the beginning the company had a policy of charitable giving and community service. Over the years, Fred Berry has served as chairman of the United Way as well as on the board of many non-profit organizations such as Heartspring, the Wesley Medical Endowment Foundation, and the Center for Entrepreneurship, Wichita State University. With a desire to support those causes on a consistent basis, the Berry Foundation was created in the 1970s, and distributed over $100,000 in 2006 to United Ways in 7 cities and to many other valuable community agencies.

Berry Tractor is a family and employee owned company emphasizing long-term relationships with customers, employees, and suppliers. Fred Berry, Jr. continues as Chairman, Walter Berry is President of Berry Companies, Inc., and Dan Scheer is President of Berry Tractor, now a Division of Berry Companies. Berry Companies has nearly 500 employees with 23 locations in 5 states. The company purchases equipment from well-known manufacturers and sells or rents it to contractors, industry, and governmental units. For 50 years, Berry Tractor has put its core values—reliable service and customer satisfaction—into every sale.

Berry Companies, Inc. is in the construction and industrial equipment distribution business, representing lines such as Bobcat, Komatsu, Yale, Bomag and Superior Broom across 5 states. For more information, please see our website at http://www.berrycompaniesinc.com

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