Brand diversity allows Flaman Ag to negotiate with suppliers and meet its customers needs. The dealership group carries 59 different product categories from 46 different suppliers, with grain handling, storage and drying equipment as their primary product areas. “We’re constantly looking for new things, and every year or two we’ll take on a new line or the odd thing will drop off,” Flaman says.

For many business owners or even a department managers, letting go of responsibilities and trusting someone else with them can be hard to do. After all if you want something done right, you should do it yourself, right?

In over 30 years of working in the parts department at Kern Machinery, Chris Schott has seen a lot of changes. When he first started, a 24-hour turnaround on getting a part was amazing. “That’s not good enough any more. There are thousands and thousands of dollars on the line, so 24 hours is too long,” he says. “That creates the need for more inventory because customers want solutions and they want to be rolling now. If they have a piece of equipment down, they may have 3 pieces that operate behind it that can’t operate because the other one’s down. Well that adds up to big money fast. Downtime is a big thing for our customers and they’re under a lot more pressure.”

Richard Knott is a parts department lifer. The parts manager started his career off working for another John Deere dealership north of Kern Machinery’s stores. After a 3.5-year stint in the parts department at that dealership, Knott came to Kern Machinery and 31 years later is still keeping the parts department on goal at the Buttonwillow location.

Joe Alvarado leads by example and doesn’t take any of the opportunities he’s been afforded for granted, something he attributes to his time in the Marine Corps. When Alvarado returned to civilian life, he started working for a farm equipment and auto parts company in Tipton, Calif. It was a small, family-owned operation, but it was there that he fell in love with agriculture — more specifically the people of agriculture.

Santiago Alcantar wasn’t an expert on agriculture equipment when he joined Kern Machinery in 2013, but he was an expert when it came to customer service and retailing. Before joining the dealership as the parts manager for the Bakersfield and Lancaster stores, Alcantar worked as a manager for AT&T and Sears.

Due to the small orchard market, Washington Tractor turned to Antonio Carraro to provide its customers with a niche product to fit their needs.