Peak Performance

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Representing some of America’s most recognizable brands of industrial equipment keeps Peak Industrial at the top of their game

When your mission is to serve at the highest level, there’s no such thing as failure. Every market shift and turn of fortune is an opportunity to form strong bonds, meet new needs, and exceed changing expectations. Since 1942, the Pugh family of Salt Lake City, Utah, has leveraged that philosophy to build an enduring organization committed to reaching new summits of service for their customers and employees.

Created as the parent company of several businesses in transportation, construction, and allied industrial applications, Peak Industrial holds true to founder Warren E. Pugh’s vision of creating a business built on excellence, community service, and principled action.

Today, the third generation of Pughs, along with their business partners, run a multi-line distributor of construction equipment, specialized vehicles, and other industrial equipment that serves customers from the Intermountain West to the Pacific Northwest.

Peak operates a quartet of dealerships that sell and repair some of the nation’s most recognizable industrial brands. Peak Thermo King is an authorized sales, service, and parts dealership serving Utah, Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Oregon. The Thermo King brand is renowned for transport refrigeration solutions serving primarily the trucking industry, while it also includes a strong presence in the commercial bus industry with its HVAC systems.

An authorized Bobcat® dealership, Peak Machinery serves Washington and Northern Idaho with a wide selection of new and pre-owned equipment. From compact tractors and skid steer loaders to lawn mowers and mini excavators, Peak Machinery offers great products backed by the best customer service available.

“We’re big enough to compete and small enough to care” is the motto of Peak JCB, dedicated to selling and servicing JCB Construction equipment, including backhoe loaders, telehandlers, excavators, skid steers, and much more in Salt Lake City, Provo, Ogden, and Park City.

As a premiere Club Car distributor for Western and Southeast Washington, Peak Machinery - Golf offers best in class Club Car vehicles and genuine Club Car parts and accessories, backed by the support of a factory trained service department and a fully stocked rental fleet.

“If our customers couldn’t work, our economy would literally stop. Our way of life would stop. We wouldn't be able to eat fresh produce or build a new home,” company president Tim Pugh told BOSS.
The importance of America’s industrial space is always at top of mind for Pugh, who deeply appreciates the everyday, hands-on work of keeping our economy driving forward. “From construction workers to truckers, they literally make our economy move.”

Peak purchases equipment from OEMs and resells it to their business partners. “From there we provide the parts, service, warranty, support, maintenance, service, all of those pieces that help customers to keep operating their equipment,” he explained. Peak has approximately 250 employees, about half of which are technicians, across 14 physical locations.

“The equipment that our customers use and that we're selling and supporting is their livelihood,” he stressed. “Think of a reefer trailer for an owner operator, for example. If their load goes down, their ability to make money and to deliver that product to their customer is compromised. Our ability to get that equipment back up and running is critical to their success.”

During the pandemic, Peak was instrumental in obtaining equipment and providing rental and storage needs for grocery stores. “We had really strong customers with big brands, and we were able to procure additional new and used equipment to help them with the sudden expansion,” he recalled.

On the construction side, the microchip shortage put the industry in a bind, but thanks to strong relationships with their OEM partners, Peak was able to drive allocation and get parts in stock to repair their customers’ construction equipment. “It wasn't always easy, and there were things that were out of our control, but we constantly communicated with customers to keep them apprised of what we are doing so they could continue to deliver their service to their customers.”

As with the workers in all the industries that Peak serves, Pugh has a great deal of respect and appreciation for truckers. “Trucking will always be a staple in our economy, and I think that's a very underappreciated job. It can be very difficult. These are individuals who sacrifice time with their families, sometimes even living in their truck. That’s a really challenging environment, but they provide a huge value to our economy.”

There will always be a need for product shipping, and Pugh expects it to be impacted by current trends in production reshoring stateside and in Mexico. “It will continue to grow as trucking companies have an opportunity to bring product more closely to the consumers so that we can eliminate some of the risk that we had with the supply chain during the pandemic,” he affirmed.

Peak’s organizational focus homes in on the best solutions for the long term, and making decisions that provide value to their employees. “That's one of the things that helps us to attract talent because they know what they're going to expect when they come to work for us,” he said. “We're close with our employees; we know them and can have a personal touch on what's happening with them, and that may be different from a larger company where size makes that hard to do.”

Since its inception, the Pugh family business model has added value every step along the way. As Pugh put it, “Everything we do becomes very personal. Our customers can really appreciate that this company's not going anywhere, and that we're very committed to serving them and the industry.

“That legacy of a family business represents more than just a brand or a company name. It stands out to our customers in a different way.”