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Engines & Engine Rebuilding / Heavy-Duty Trucks Focus Issue
Diesel specialist services varied clientele with engine work and fuel injection
by Jerold B. Smith
Milton, Wash.—H&H Diesel Service
Inc. has been providing diesel service for
47 years, said Gary Wolfe, general
manager of the firm. Founded by brothers
Slade and Gary Holmes in 1964, the firm
purchased property and built a facility
near I-5 in Milton in 1969, said Owner
Jackie Holmes, who said her husband,
Slade, was killed in an airplane crash 15
years ago.
Sitting on a 4.5-acre site with plentiful
space for the trucks the firm services,
H&H operates three departments at the
business: fuel injection sales and service,
machine shop services, and
truck/equipment repair, said Wolfe, who
was with the company for 11 years, left
for other endeavors, and returned to help
run the firm after the death of Holmes.
“Fuel injection is the biggest part of our
Owner Jackie Holmes is pictured with her bird, Toby, and
General Manager Gary Wolfe at the front parts counter at
H&H Diesel in Milton.
business,” he said. “We sell fuel injection
parts to a variety of loyal customers and
provide outside sales from Centralia to
Aberdeen and all of the Tacoma area.”
The parts department
has an inventory of
$725,000, mostly stocked
with fuel injection
products, Wolfe said.
“Our technicians are
factory-trained and can
provide exceptional
service on fuel injection
systems,” he said. The
firm offers
remanufactured,
exchange, or new units
and is an Alliant Power
fuel injection dealer, as
well as a Bosch Service
Center, and dealer for lines
such as Clevite, Cummins, Denso, Delphi,
Stanadyne, and other products, he added.
“Our fuel injection business is steady
and growing, and we have five injectionshop
employees,” Wolfe said, adding that
the company has invested heavily in
tooling and test equipment to service the
needs of customers that range from fleets
to dealers to repair specialists.
“We get a lot of business due to the use
of bio fuels, which can ruin an injection
system if not used properly.”
With 17 employees, H&H is housed in
an 8,000-square-foot building that has a
parts department, offices, three-bay
service center, fuel-injection center, and
machine shop, Wolfe said. The service
shop, with three technicians, handles 75-
100 vehicles a month, many of those
pickups, but they work on a variety of
vehicles and equipment, he said.
While the firm used to repair a large
number of engines, Wolfe said that
business has dropped off over the years,
Continued on page 6
HDAW 2012 to emphasize company culture; registrations are on upswing
by Rob Merwin
Bethesda, Md.—More than 1,700
managers and executives from 17 countries
attended last year’s Heavy Duty
Aftermarket Week (HDAW) in Las Vegas,
and event organizers said they expect
numbers to increase
for HDAW 2012,
which will have the
theme, “Corporate
Culture: The
Foundation for
Success.”
“Currently, we are
seeing a 30-percent
increase for same-time
registration,” said Cochair
Mike Betts,
president of Betts
Spring Co., of HDAW
2012, which will be at
the Mirage in Las
Vegas on Jan. 23-26.
“The outpouring of
comments regarding
this year’s theme and
“The networking
opportunities are
numerous and not
to be missed.
Nowhere are the
real leaders of our
industry
assembled
together in one
place like they are
at HDAW,” says
HDAW 2012 Cochair
Mike Betts.
the reformatting of our educational program
is overwhelmingly positive,” Betts said.
Co-chair Ken Duval, president of
Canadian Wheel Industries, said HDAW
continues to grow in importance and is the
industry’s premier meeting.
“When HDAW was first developed, we
understood that it would take a few years to
create industry-wide momentum for the
event and to establish credibility,” Duval
said.
“I believe that 2010 was a watershed year
for HDAW,” he said. “Since that meeting,
HDAW has achieved the status that was
envisioned in the early days of its inception;
hence, the increase in the registrations.”
The co-chairs were challenged to develop
a theme that connects what is important and
relevant to the distributor and supplier
community, they said. Last year’s theme
revolved around leadership, and they said it
was important to have HDAW 2012 build
on that foundation.
Betts said that aside from connecting
industry distributors and suppliers, “it is
interesting when one looks inside their own
business each year. You identify what is and
isn’t working, and you build on your
strengths and what you learn from your
analysis.”
“We had just finished reading Tony
Hseih’s book, ‘Delivering Happiness,’
about the importance of corporate culture,”
Duval said. “Mr. Hseih is the CEO of
Zappos and places great emphasis on
company culture and core values.
“The more we thought about the book,
the more it became evident that this theme
would be a natural progression from the
leadership theme of 2011,” he said.
Duval said that all of HDAW 2012 will
concentrate on the impact of company
culture, from keynote speaker Robert
Richman of Zappos to its education
sessions.
Richman, product manager of Zappos
Insights, ranked by Fortune Magazine as
one of the “Top 100 Companies Best to
Work For,” will share how Zappos learned
to serve its two most valuable assets:
employees and customers, Duval said.
Betts said Richman will devote much of
his keynote to describing the unique culture
at Zappos. “His presentation will hit home
with many owners and managers of the
businesses,” he said. “The ‘Y’ generation,
which is the future of industry, looks at their
jobs in a way that is uniquely different than
past generations.
Times are changing,
and we as an industry
must change to be
relevant in the
future.”
Betts said three of
the four 60- and 90-
HDAW Co-chair
Ken Duval says that
all of HDAW 2012
will concentrate on
the impact of
company culture,
from the keynote
speaker to its
education sessions.
minute educational
sessions are also
centered on corporate
cultural issues.
He said one
session, “The Culture
Key: Innovation,
Accountability, and
the Human Art of
Business,” led by Edgar Papke, will be a
“game changer.”
“The takeaways are real and will hit
home with all the leaders and managers in
attendance,” he said. But, more
importantly, he continued, the audience
will realize how the right culture in their
business is the difference between success
and a less than desirable atmosphere.
“In almost all cases, the proper culture
delivers the best results and the most
satisfying work environment,” Betts added.
“Without the right culture, it is nearly
impossible to have the kind of teamwork
that leaders work and wish for.
“We are confident each session will
deliver the audience with significant
takeaways.”
With HDAW holding four educational
sessions, organizers have opened up
additional time for more one-on-one
meetings between suppliers and
distributors, which are also expected
exceed the more than 1,600 held during
HDAW 2011, the co-chairs said.
“One-on-one meetings are a critical
component of HDAW,” Duval said. “Both
manufacturers and distributors value the
opportunity to meet privately to discuss
individual issues. The one-on-one meetings
are the best vehicles to achieve that end.”
The value gained by attending the
product expo, the scheduled one-on-one
meetings, and the educational sessions are
invaluable, Betts said.
“The networking opportunities are
numerous and not to be missed. Nowhere
are the real leaders of our industry
assembled together in one place like they
are at HDAW,” he said.
“This year is the seventh year for
HDAW, and each new year has been
stronger than the last,” Betts said, “and that
has to do with the collaborative nature of
event organizers, Heavy Duty Distribution
Association (HDDA), Automotive
Aftermarket Industry Association (AAIA),
and Commercial Vehicle Solutions
Network (CVSN), as well as 10 other
sponsoring industry organizations that
work on the overall agenda and planning
for the conference.
For more information, go to
www.hdaw.org. n
Parts & People November 2011 Page 3