April 29th-30th of this year marked the fiftieth anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam conflict. On that morning a young Lt.(jg) John Conroy (now a Past President of the MDNA, Presidential Appointee and Convention Committee Chairman and  co-owner of Machinery International) was Officer of the Deck on the 550 Foot long USS Vancouver {LPD 2) steaming in slow circles in a 2 mile x 2 mile quadrant off the coast of South Vietnam. Vancouver was designed to attack hostile beaches by launching Higgins boats loaded with Marines in a frontal assault on the enemy beach while simultaneously launching helicopters to attack the enemy from their rear. It's mission this day was very different. It was to rescue as many Americans and their allies as possible from the imminent fall of Saigon. This was a task Vancouver knew well, having just three weeks earlier executed Operation Eagle Pull and rescuing all American citizens and U.S. Embassy employees from Phnom Penh, Cambodia when that country fell to the Khmer Rouge and the "Killing Fields" began.

My main focus that morning was to avoid hitting the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise in its quadrant to the north and the USS Hancock to the south. Enterprise was providing air support and was changing course constantly to launch and recover it's fighters. Our Captain was below and the ship was all mine. It was very peaceful.
I had the 0800-1200 Watch. About two hours into it the lookouts reported a strange cloud formation to the west. 1 stepped out on the bridge wing and looked at it through binoculars with the Junior Officer of the Deck, Ensign Griggs. As we watched it got larger and larger and was coming straight for our formation of 50 ships, virtually the entire U.S. Seventh Fleet. Radar confirmed what was now becoming obvious to us. The "cloud" was hundreds of helicopters escaping Saigon and the surrounding area. The orders had been given to "bug out". and Operation Frequent Wind was officially underway.
For the next 24 hours it was organized chaos as hundreds of helicopters circled over the fleet looking for any open flight deck before they ran out of fuel. The first to land on Vancouver was a South Vietnamese Chinook carrying about 40 refugees. The pilot refused to take off and return to Vietnam. The flight deck crew asked me for instructions. I told them to put the pilot on the radio. I told him there was a large barge adrift about a mile to the east and to land over there and I would send a boat to pick him up. He agreed and took off.
Soon we were overwhelmed with helicopters of all shapes and sizes. The orders were given to start rolling them off the side of the ship as soon as they were emptied to make room for others that were hovering waiting for any open deck. The only ones we kept were the blue and white ones. They were Air America, the CIA's Air Force, and contained the latest top-secret electronics that the Russians would have loved to fish out of the Tonkin Gulf after we had left.
Our crew of360 sailors and 800 marines were pretty much overwhelmed for the next 24 hours. Vancouver took on over 2,200 refugees that day - everything from mothers with children to South Vietnamese generals with suitcases filled with gold. (We confiscated those as per orders of the Admiral). Anyone not on watch helped out. The entire inside portion of Vancouver is a hollowed-out football field where we keep the marine's landing craft and can flood it to launch them. It became our triage center, freeing the flight deck up for the helicopters. By nightfall it looked like the railroad yard scene in "Gone with the Wind" when Sherman was entering Atlanta.
After very little sleep I came back on watch as Officer of the Deck for the 0400-0800 watch. It was dark, the ship was quiet, and 1 felt the awesome responsibility of being in charge of an 8600 Ton Ship carrying 360 sailors, 800 marines, and now 2200 refugees.
As the sun rose I looked to the east and saw, to my chagrin, a floating barge adrift with the outline of a Chinook helicopter and a very tired pilot still waving his arms. In the chaos of the morning earlier I had completely forgotten to launch a boat to pick him up. Boy was I embarrassed. I immediately ordered a boat to retrieve him, a hot meal to be ready for him, and directed that he be brought to the bridge. When he arrived I couldn't even get in an apology as he hugged me and said he was just happy to be alive.
We arrived in Subic Bay in the Philippines a few days later with our precious cargo. Fifty years ago.
-John Conroy

Much of John Bouley’s adult life has been spent in service to others: to his family, his business associates and customers, his community, his nation, and to the world.

John owns and operates Furnace Brokers International, which buys, sells, appraises, and exports industrial heat treat furnaces and ovens from its headquarters in Tolland, Conn., a Hartford suburb. He has been in the thermal processing business since 1973 and has run Furnace Brokers since 2016, when Clarence Sherman, his original business partner, retired.  They established the company as Furnace Brokers, Inc., in 1983, and remain the best of friends.

“I’m a very proud member of the MDNA and have been since January 1990,” John said in a recent interview. He has chaired the MDNA’s Northeast Chapter and remains an active member there. “I like what we stand for,” he continued. “I really appreciate its Code of Ethics and the (Austin D. Lucas) scholarship program.”

Furnace Brokers operates on a global level, buying and selling used industrial heat treating furnaces and ovens. The majority of its sales are in ovens, and it also offers some new equipment. “We can give you value and you can have it today, at a substantial reduction in price,” he said of Furnace Brokers’ appeal to customers. “We buy and sell, and we’ll refer rebuilds to a network we’ve established.”

John is a Rhode Island native who enlisted in the Marines at age 17. His four-year stint included a Vietnam combat tour as a helicopter door-gunner.  Home from the service in 1971, he enrolled in college, then a Marine buddy pointed him to a summer job in Connecticut with a used furnace dealer.

“Within a month or so, I fell in love with the business,” he said. That was the start of his association with Industronics, Inc., which is where he met Sherman. They worked together for 10 years before facing a career crossroads and deciding to go into business together, which, he said, “was the best thing I ever did.”

John and his wife Cathy live in Tolland and have three adult children and a couple of grandkids. His community involvement has included a lengthy stint as a Little League baseball coach. And for the past 25 years, John has been active through his local Roman Catholic church in relief work in the Caribbean nation of Haiti. He joined the board of the Outreach to Haiti organization and has made numerous trips to the nation’s capital, Port-au-Prince, where Outreach is involved in food distribution, a health clinic, and education. Though he has been unable to visit Haiti since 2019 because of the nation’s crippling social unrest, he remains devoted to the cause.

“It has been my life’s mission,” he reflected. “The people of Haiti are special —hard-working and willing to work. They just want an opportunity.”

John is not about to walk away from the chance to provide that opportunity.  “I believe God brought me back from Vietnam for a reason,” he reflects. “And this is it.”

Mr. Bouley was named MDNA Person of the year at the MDNA Annual Meeting that took place at the 2025 Convention in New Orleans.  Named in honor of Former MDNA President Craig L. Ward.  Mr. Ward was dedicated to his community and beyond.  He was MDNA’s president from 2021 to 2023.  This award is presented annually, honoring a member’s commitment to benevolence and community impact, as well as their excellence in the used machinery industry.

It’s not a journey every MDNA-member business takes, but Westbrook Engineering Company, Inc., has, literally, moved from the basement to the big time.

Westbrook is a used machinery dealership that observed its 60th anniversary in business in 2024.  For most of that time it has been a member of the MDNA, and for every one of its six-plus decades, has operated in Warren, Mich., a city on the north edge of Detroit.
 
Credit Alex Szarek for starting it all. After years selling new industrial equipment — mostly cold saws — for Last Word Sales, he was eager to be out on his own. In 1964 he began selling new machinery from the basement of his home, on Westbrook Street in Warren. Hence the name Westbrook Engineering.                                           
                                                                                                               
Westbrook quickly outgrew the Szarek family basement, so Alex moved everything into the first of a succession of ever-larger facilities in Warren.  His sons, Randy and Marty, helped him expand the business, then took over when Alex died in 1996. In 2017, Westbrook sold its sales division to a friendly competitor. Marty — now Westbrook’s president — and his son, Joe, now run Westbrook Engineering, a used machinery sales company. Approximately 15 years ago, Marty founded Westbrook’s auction division, known as Westbrook Asset Management.
 
Westbrook Engineering joined the MDNA in 1978, a move Marty says has been instrumental in his company's success.
 
“Relationships,” is his simple response to what the MDNA has brought to Westbrook. “It’s meeting great people and making great partnerships. I’ve found that in the MDNA we’ve learned it’s better to partner up and work together than to compete with fellow MDNA members. It’s a unique association.”
 
A business that started in a basement in 1964 now offers a complete line of used machinery, operates from facilities covering 35,000 square feet, conducts industrial auctions, and its customer base stretches across all of North America. Marty says its success has been built on a foundation of “honesty, integrity, and attention to detail. We’re now the largest used-saw dealer in the country. People know we go the extra mile when it comes to refurbishing.”

Let’s just say Dave Goose sees things a bit differently when it comes to financing equipment purchases.
 
Dave was the founder of Manufacturers Capital, LLC, which has been around since 2007, providing solutions to the unique needs of machinery sales concerns in the U.S. and Canada. And it’s among the latest businesses to be approved as a Premier Vendor for the MDNA.
 
Dave operates Manufacturers Capital from New Smyrna Beach, on Florida’s east coast. He co-founded the business with a partner and stayed on in his current capacity when Manufacturers was purchased in 2017 by Commercial Credit Corp. It’s now a division of Charlotte-based Commercial Credit.  
 
His career in finance began in 1980 in the commercial capital department at a south Florida bank. That’s when he discovered the world of machine tools and began concentrating his sales efforts there.  In 1989, he joined Maruka Machinery, the importer of Mori Seiki, and in 1997 moved into the emerging CNC market, where he opened his own used machine tool sales business, which expanded into new machine tools in 2001.
 
“Loved it, had a ball, but there's a lot more stress in selling machines than financing them,” he said in a recent conversation. “I jokingly tell people that nobody calls me on a Saturday, yelling that their money is not working. So, the finance business became much more attractive.”
 
In 2007 he put his own money to work with Manufacturers Capital, specializing in arranging loans and leases for equipment manufacturers and users that banks and other lenders might keep at arm’s length.
 
“We were mostly a brokerage then. but we took a lot of pride in coming up with products that other brokers didn’t have,” he recalls. “At Manufacturers Capital and with the founder and management of Commercial Credit Group we had the same philosophy, We were all disciples of the credit philosophy of a gentleman named Cal Palitz, who was the godfather of commercial capital equipment financing in the 1960s and ‘70s. He taught us to know your collateral and then know your credit. Before joining Commercial Credit, we put $5 to $6 million in private money toward what we call structured deals, which allow you to listen to the customer’s story and judge a credit or a customer's creditworthiness ‘from the shop floor up, not the balance sheet down.’ Now, as a division of Commercial Credit we funded 30 or 40 times more ‘structured’ transactions.
 
“We know the machines. We can tell if a shop is organized,” he explained. “There’s a ton of hidden equity not evident on the balance sheet that’s actually on the premises of a manufacturer. We can tell if a client is making quality parts by touring its facility. And that continues today with Commercial Credit.”

Family businesses are nothing new in the MDNA, but Carl Davis might have found a new way to get his generational enterprise started.
 
Carl is co-founder and president of The Equipment Hub, a used machinery sales operation in Stone Mountain, Ga., not far from his hometown of Atlanta. He cut his teeth “selling random stuff” as a 15-year-old with an eBay account. He also started a tennis racket stringing business when he was in the 8th-grade. Years later, Carl had the idea of making a living selling surplus equipment.
 
Out of college, Carl used his chemistry degree from the University of Georgia and went to work in chemical manufacturing. “There was a moment in time when the company I worked for had some surplus equipment, “ he recalled in a recent interview. “I said, ‘Hey, let me help you out. I'll put it up on my eBay account and see if it sells.’ So I did, and the light bulb went off in my head.”
Carl knew how chaotic the manufacturing process can be as jobs are completed and new assignments come in. “When you do contract work you’ve got to have the right machinery for that work,” he observed. “And sometimes you lose the job and, all of a sudden you have equipment you're not using anymore. Industries are very fluid in terms of equipment needs.”
Years later, having never forgotten that business idea, Carl decided to make cold-calls to some manufacturers in and around Atlanta before he arrived at work.  He was curious to see if he could find another company that would let him sell its equipment.  Out of sheer luck, the first morning he made calls, he found a company that needed to sell surplus equipment.  He ended up getting the deal and making some money quickly.
"I wasn't expecting things to play out this way, quite frankly,” he declared. “I was expecting to have no luck and give up on the idea. Instead, I took some pictures of the machinery a prospect had and put it up on eBay. Within a week, one of the machines sold for pretty good money. And after that I thought, ‘Hey, I think I can make this work. I can pursue this.’”
After some deep thought, he told his soon-to-be wife he thought he could start a business selling equipment.  He told her it was a long shot but if she was good with temporarily supporting both of them financially, he would give it a try.  She agreed.
That was in 2011, a time of both economic uncertainty and opportunity. Carl founded The Equipment Hub working from his house.  His brother Mark joined him a few months later as the company’s co-founder and partner. Seizing whatever opportunities arose, they’ve built a thriving business with a predominantly domestic customer base. The Equipment Hub is selling as many as 1,000 used machines every year through the efforts of a staff of 16 that includes inside and outside sales teams, a CNC service manager, a trio of mechanics to prep equipment for resale, and an auction manager — all working with a 40,000-square-foot showroom.
Carl learned about the MDNA from early contacts in the used machinery trade. “Some of them spoke really highly of it and got me interested,” he recalled. The Equipment Hub has been a member of the organization for the past decade, and Carl currently serves as the treasurer of MDNA’s Southern Chapter.
The Equipment Hub story is not your standard account of organic growth and incremental expansion, but it’s now a business that sells used equipment to create, shape, or finish nearly any item. It’s a story of entrepreneurial boldness and the good fortune it can yield. And it’s largely Carl Davis’s story, which he’s happy to share with his MDNA colleagues as an example of good things that can happen in the business they all love.

Whenever you need to transport something — whatever the quantity and wherever the destination — Northwest Shippers can get it there for you.
 
Versatility and load economy are the bywords at Northwest, which — not surprisingly — is located in the Pacific Northwest and does business in every mainland state as well as Canada.  Owner and CEO Phil Dalrymple launched the brokerage in 1990 and it has recently attained Premier Vendor status with the MDNA.
 
Think of Northwest as the go-between for machinery manufacturers and contract haulers, primarily using both Conestoga-style curtained trailers and regular flatbed transport.  After securing a delivery schedule and safety requirements from the client, Phil finds an available shipper, negotiates a price for the job, and makes the pickup/delivery arrangements.
 
“We are strictly a broker and a broker can do deals with specialty pieces,” he said in a recent interview. “In the machinery world, things can get damaged very quickly if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
 
Phil hails from Hollywood — yes, that Hollywood. He moved to Washington at age 16 when his father, a Baptist pastor, was called to serve there. Growing up in the metro Seattle city of Puyallup, Phil went to college and wasted little time finding work. “I was offered a job as a freight broker so I dropped out of school,” he recalled. “It took me two years to become the top salesman for the company and, at that point, I didn't have a need to go back to school.”
 
But he did go back, picked up an associate’s degree in business and quickly expanded his trucking contacts.  Northwest Shippers, Inc., was the result. Now, Phil and an experienced and closely knit staff of six — all living and working in the state of Washington — take care of business coast-to-coast. Regardless of the complexity of the job, Phil knows what keeps Northwest rolling.
 
“We take care of our people, because they're professional and we need professionals,” he explained. “Customers understand they have people who know what they’re doing, who’ll talk to you daily when we’re moving freight for you. The importance of relationships can’t be stressed enough.”
 
Northwest will arrange most machinery and high-end metal shipments that are not both overweight and over-dimensional. Phil says customers are usually relieved to find a less-than-truckload load option, which can save them both time and money.
 
Northwest Shippers became acquainted with some MDNA member businesses about a dozen years ago, and those contacts resulted in referrals for Premier Vendor status.  Phil sees the achievement as validation of his approach to his work.
 
“There’s a niche in our market for professional people who do a good job, who do the best work possible,” Phil declared. “That’s our goal and we're pretty good at that. People are more important than money. I tell my customers: ‘You need me — and I need you!’ That’s my philosophy and we do business that way.”

As used machinery becomes an increasingly international business, the need grows for
associates who can confidently navigate unfamiliar waters. New Jersey’s AMS Container Line,
Inc., is one of those businesses, and one of the MDNA’s newest premier vendors.
 
Inder Khokhar is founder and owner of AMS Container, headquartered in East Windsor, just off
the New Jersey Turnpike about midway between New York City and Philadelphia. From his
office, he oversees freight forwarding in and out of major American seaports and airports, as
well as surface transport. He specializes in moving used machinery — most of it by ship — to
customers both foreign and domestic.
 
“Our core business is international shipping,” Inder explained in a recent interview. “We do
export a lot of used machinery— especially to Japan, India, and Bangladesh, and also a few
shipments to Europe. We can also provide short-term warehousing at multiple locations in the
U.S. if it is some machinery we need to pick up inland and get it to New York, we can bring it to the yard and load the containers there. We are a general domestic company for international
shipping, and we also do domestic trucking. We outsource the trucking and have a brokerage
license.”
 
Customs is a key consideration for customers, and Inder’s team knows those ropes well. AMS is licensed by the Federal Maritime Commission as a Non-Vessel Operating Common Carrier,
which Inder calls “a premier certification to handle sea freight into and exports out of the
U.S., where we can issue our own bill of lading.
 
“Customs are very regulated as those regulations are very, very straightforward,” he continued.
“Nobody can expedite Customs. If they say they can it’s probably just a sales pitch. With
customs, it is right or wrong — no gray areas. There are terrorism concerns, for instance, I’ve
had somebody stuck with some machines that are very old, but which could be modified to
make something dangerous. Customs held it to make sure that it is not going to some country
where they can start producing barrels for guns and things like that.”
 
Inder has been in the shipping business since he was a 19-year-old college student in his
hometown of Delhi, India.
 
“I joined a company that wanted to have a U.S. office and that’s how I migrated to New Jersey
in 2002,” he recalled. “At that time, we were primarily looking at Indian subcontinent business,
and New Jersey/New York was one of the biggest gateways. So I made my base here and in
2008, I started this company on my own.”
 
AMS operates from the East Windsor offices and a warehouse in nearby Linden. N.J., near
New York City.
 
As Inder began attending sale events in the New York area seeking export prospects, he
became acquainted with MDNA-affiliated machinery dealers. Those associations led to eventual sponsorships for AMS as an MDNA premier vendor.
 
“We’re blessed to have established a business in the U.S.A” Inder said of his business as he
enters his third decade on the U.S. scene. “It’s the American dream.”

“Hit the ground runnin’,” singer David Lee Roth’s lyrical shout from the Van Halen ‘80s rock hit “Unchained,” inspired the name for HGR Industrial Surplus. The MDNA member business took Roth’s advice from the day it opened in 1998 in the Cleveland suburb of Euclid, Ohio — and it’s not about to slow down.
 
Alex McNealey is a few months into his job as HGR’s chief operating officer, and is excited about the prospect of continuing the strong growth and diversification the company has achieved in recent years.
 
“We’re looking to expand and looking toward the international market,” he said in a recent interview. “We’re there whenever a manufacturer needs to facilitate and find buyers in a surplus equipment space.”
 
Alex came to HGR recently, bringing with him a long background in “the operational side of business … when companies need to scale up and achieve efficient growth. I like change.
 
“The only business constant is change,” he opines. “We facilitate that change.”
 
Recent changes have included HGR opening new spaces in Wisconsin and Texas to complement warehouses across the U.S. and Mexico. The range of services the company offers make it an option for almost any machinery business considering expansion, moving, retooling, or liquidation.
 
“One value we provide that is very desirable is that we have the ability to clear their four walls, quickly,” Alex said, adding that other HGR services provide cash up front to sellers; consignment sales; brokerage services, primarily for sales of large equipment; the potential to engage in joint ventures; and facilitating auctions.
 
HGR’s equipment acquisition services have both end users and resellers as its primary customers. “We’ll buy almost anything that is quality equipment,” Alex adds. “and we’re known for having a wide selection.”
 
The company hosted the annual MDNA Cleveland Chapter meeting this spring. Its new leader sees MDNA as “a forum to bring people together, share experiences, and help problem-solve among each other.”

Hydraulic Parts Source is among the newest businesses in the select circle of MDNA Premier Vendors, with an experienced executive team that is becoming well-known in the used machinery business.
 
Andrew Pringle is Director of Business Development and Surplus for Hydraulic Parts Source, which is headquartered in Harrison Township, Mich., in north suburban Detroit. He’s relatively new to Hydraulic Parts Source but is a veteran of the surplus machinery trade and sees great potential benefit for both his new employer and the MDNA member businesses the company will serve as a Premier Vendor.
 
“It’s not just that we can help you with your hydraulic components,” he explains of the connection with MDNA members. “We can acquire good surplus stock from anyone who wants to pass it along. We can do repairs. We do drop shipments to protect your customer base and not involve our organization at all. We're really willing to do whatever we need to do to facilitate and keep sales relationships together for your customer base and, obviously, to grow ours in return.”
 
Pringle and his family reside in his hometown of Twinsburg, Ohio, several miles south of Cleveland and his previous employer, HGR Industrial Surplus. He began at HGR in sales and worked his way up through the supervisory ranks to director of sales. At Hydraulic Parts Source, he’s involved in strengthening and expanding the company’s brand as well as procurement, which takes him to customers for on-site assessments and relationship-building.
 
HGR was one of the MDNA members that stepped up on behalf of Hydraulic Parts Source when the Michigan company applied for Premier Vendor status. The MDNA Premier Vendor networking and marketing program designed to broaden relationships between MDNA members and key industry-supporting partners.
 
“I knew HGR was a major player with the MDNA,” Pringle recalls. “I was familiar with the organization and appreciated the benefit of getting involved with the (used machinery) community. So, basically, we found sponsors to vouch for the quality and character of our business, and one of them was HGR.”
 
“I joined Hydraulic Parts Source in the first place because I know that (CEO) Corey Gilbert is a man of character, that the organization operates with Integrity, and that they really value customer service.”

Like many other machine sales businesses, family ties and professional friendships have helped secure the foundation of Walker Machinery LTD. And there’s every reason to believe that, through the Machinery Dealers National Association (MDNA), those same factors will play an important role in the Canadian company’s future.
 
‘Taking part in (MDNA) events and the networking through the years has really helped us do our job better,” says Chris Walker, CEA, president of Walker Machinery. The company specializes sales of new and used metal-cutting and shaping equipment, primarily lathes, saws, drills and horizontal and vertical  boring mills.  Walker also offers appraisal services for used equipment and is a member of the Association of Machinery and Equipment Appraisers (AMEA). The company was founded in 1996 by Chris Walker’s father, Lee, who officially retired just last year. Vice President Ryan Walker now heads the five-person operation with his brother Chris, doing business from a facility in Milton, just 25 miles from Toronto International Airport and not far from the western shore of Lake Ontario.
 
The company is marking its 25th year of MDNA membership in 2024, and Chris Walker says that relationship has been instrumental in making the business what it is today. Most of Walker Machinery’s customer base is in Canada, but it also does considerable business in the U.S., as well as in Eastern Europe and Taiwan. Joining he MDNA, Walker says, “defined a way for us the stretch our legs to the U.S. market,” and was the right move for the company.  Membership not only provided Walker with the kind of professional credibility others value, but Walker came to rely on fellow MDNA members for advice and direction as the company grew. “It has made it easier for us to do business internationally,” he notes.
 
Though Walker Machinery’s initial sales emphasis was on used equipment, the strong relationships that developed with new-equipment suppliers like Heidenhain and several other European-based concerns, shifted the company’s emphasis, and Walker says, “We’re now involved with more new machinery than with used.”
 
As time has seen significant changes at Walker Machinery, one constant in their business focus will be the stability and other advantages that has come with MDNA membership. Walker doesn’t see that changing.
 
“Frankly, as you get a little older you look for ways to make life more convenient,” he reflects. “Through the MDNA and the AMEA, we have found ways to do what we can to make our demanding jobs a little easier.”