KOBELCO helps celebrate Finke and Sons opening

Robert H. Finke & Sons Inc. recently celebrated the ribbon cutting of its new 66,000-sq-ft, $9 million headquarters and executives from KOBELCO Construction Machinery USA were on-hand to help celebrate.

The family-owned business started in 1977 in the family’s basement as a repair shop and grew to be one of New York’s largest heavy equipment dealers. Also on-hand for the celebration at the Route 9W facility in Selkirk, New York were representatives from the city council, mayor’s office, the Town of Bethlehem, the local economic development agency, banks, business partners, friends and family.

The new Finke & Sons facility sits across the street from the company’s first building and just behind the second building built in 1985. The new headquarters is more than 8 times the size of the building than their previous location. It includes 8 full-service drive-thru bays with overhead cranes and lifts, radiant flooring fueled by waste oils collected during service to keep mechanics comfortable throughout the work day and the largest installation of solar panels in the area which can generate 50 percent of the company’s required power. The facility features a dedicated welding/fabrication bay, a self-contained, environmentally-friendly wash bay, a drive-through paint booth that will cure paint within one hour and a learning center for formalized product training.

“Finke’s ribbon cutting event was very special,” says Pete Morita, president of KOBELCO Construction Machinery USA. “We saw years of hard work and dedication pay off for one of our loyal dealers. For 26 years, KOBELCO has been one of Finke’s leading brands. To be a part of this success made us extremely proud.”

Following the ribbon cutting Finke 7 Sons hosted a three-day open house featuring equipment demonstrations, facility tours, food and entertainment and culminated with a fireworks display.

“There were so many people, customers, business partners, friends, family, you name it, who made today possible, that it was very important to us that we share the significance of the new building with all those who have aided our success,” says John Finke, owner of Finke & Son’s.

In addition to celebrating their success and the opening of the new Finke & Sons building, the company wanted to give back to the local community.

“With the help of Abele Equipment, another KOBELCO dealer, we were able to have on display a limited edition KOBELCO SK350 excavator wrapped in graphics that tribute the 5 branches of our country’s Armed Forces,” says Don Fiacco, of Finke Equipment. “KOBELCO successfully used one of these machines at the recent ConExpo/ConAgg show in Las Vegas to raise nearly $120,000 for the Wounded Warrior Project. We used the limited edition machine owned by Abele at our open house to raise funds for our local chapter totaling $4,906. For every dollar donated by one of the attendees at our ribbon cutting and open house, Finke donated an additional dollar.”

The Wounded Warrior Project Donation is not the only way Finke’s new facility will be giving back to the community. It will be bringing new jobs to the area, more business to the area and its new training room will be made available to local organizations and charities to use for meetings and events when not being used by Finke & Sons.

“While we might be in a much larger building, our business philosophy remains the same,” says John Finke. “We come to work each day and provide the best service, equipment and assistance we can to each customer that walks through the door. This is the formula that has fueled our success and it will continue to be the driving principle behind the way we do business.”