Terry Yoder and the Family Business

Terry Yoder runs a second-generation family machinery sales business in the Heartland, and part of his mission is to prepare the third generation for success.
 
Yoder Machinery Sales operates under 300,000 square feet from three facilities in the greater Toledo, Ohio area.  The business dates to 1957, when Terry’s father, Lowell Yoder, established Yoder Machinery. It has grown to have a place today among the largest used machinery dealers in America, with more than 3,000 production items in stock.
 
“Our typical customer is a family-owned business employing 75 or fewer people." says Terry, the company’s president, who adds, “We’re mostly manual equipment. We work with metal — no plastics. And we don’t offer much CNC.”
 
Even when your stock-in-trade is offering “Old School" wares, you keep up with the market and prepare for tomorrow’s opportunities. Yoder is positioned to do that.  Terry is the father of three and since he bought out his brother Tim’s share of the business in 2019, has had an eye toward the company’s next chapter. His son, Cody, is Yoder’s vice-president and Terry’s first cousins, Jake and Shane Yoder, have joined Cody on the sales team. They help represent a business that buys, sales, repairs, cleans, paints, rigs, and ships machinery for delivery to a mostly American customer base.
 
Terry keeps his finger on the pulse of the used equipment business through his involvement with the Machinery Dealers National Association (MDNA), which he joined after driving a truck, working eight years in the warehouse, and serving as a bookkeeper for his father.  He has been involved with the MDNA at the leadership level for more than two decades.
 
“I hope (the company) keeps on growing and the family continues in the machinery business,” he summarizes. Listen carefully, and you can hear the smile in his voice.

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