Shawmut Equipment Celebrates 60 Years as Family-Owned Business
Shawnut Equipment, a leading distributor since 1957, turns 60 this year. Shawmut represents the Manitowoc Crane Group’s range of construction cranes, including Manitowoc crawler cranes, Grove rough-terrain cranes, Grove GMK all-terrain cranes, Grove hydraulic crawler cranes, Grove Yard Boss industrial cranes, National boom trucks and Potain self-erecting cranes, as well as a variety of utility equipment. Shawmut is a full-service company, with threes facilities offering sales, rentals, parts and service located in Manchester, Conn., South Easton, Mass., and Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.
Shawmut was founded in 1957 by George O’Connell and is still run by the O’Connell family. David O’Connell, George’s son, joined the company in the 1960s and took over as president in 1960. David O’Connell’s sons, Brian and Kevin, joined the business in the early 2000s, as well as his nephew Joe Vergoni. All three of them are vice presidents and sales representatives of the company.
“Our business philosophy is to do the right thing for the customer in each and every aspect of the business,” said David O’Connell. “This is the only way to succeed. We have repeat customers who have done business with us for generations, as well as new customers who are doing business with us for the first time. We attempt to treat all customers in a fair and honest manner, whether is concerns an equipment sale, a rental a parts purchase or service work. I am extremely fortunate to have my two boys, Brian and Kevin, and my nephew Joe Vergoni deeply involved in the family business. They are learning the same business values from me that I learned from their grandfather.”
In 1963, the company became one of Grove’s first distributors, serving Connecticut and Western Massachusetts out of its Manchester, Conn., office. In 1995, Shawmut was made the exclusive dealer for the Manitowoc Company’s crawler crane line for all of New England. In the late 1990s, the company opened another full-service facility in Massachusetts to speed up response time for service and parts in the expanded territory. When Manitowoc acquired Grove Worldwide in 2002, Shawmut represented all of its product lines.
In 2008, Shawmut was awarded the territory of the Atlantic provinces of Canada. Shawmut Equipment of Canada was created and opened a facility in Saint John, New Brunswick. In now serves New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. Shawmut is building an additional facility in Elmsdale, Nova Scotia.
In 2014, Shawmut started offering utility equipment sales and rentals, as well as the support required for these machines. It supplies Terex TM Hi-Ranger tracked material handling buckets, Terex General digger derricks, tracked National cranes and Morooka rubber track carriers.
“This transition was very organic for Shawmut,” said Vergoni. “We had already been providing utility contractors with cranes, so when they started to ask us to provide additional utility equipment, we felt it was a great opportunity for our company. At the time of our utility equipment expansion, major utility projects such as the Maine Power Reliability Program, New England East West Solution and Maritime Link were under way with the Northern Pass on the horizon.”
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.