JW Burress has filled the only missing piece in its arsenal of dirt-moving equipment.

The Virginia-based dealership has taken on the full Dressta line, which focuses on its crawler dozer.

“This is a great fit, because we’ve been able to have all types of earthmoving equipment, with this exception,” said Bill Daly, senior vice president.

JW Burress, as of March 1, is the authorized Dressta dealer in Maryland, southern Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

The dealership has already completed initial sales training at its branches and will continue to do so as the products start to roll in.

The same is true for Burress’ technicians, although Daly said Dressta machines have familiar hydraulics and undercarriages, “so there is not a huge learning curve.”

He said the company has “heavily invested” in parts for Dressta machines “so customers can rely on us for parts support.”

Daly said he has found Dressta to have a “cult following” among contractors and the machines are already familiar to the customer base.

The addition of the Dressta line comes as a result of Dressta North America’s separation from Komatsu America. In 2005, HSW-Trading Co. purchased Komatsu’s portion of Dressta and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Dressta North America. Since then, Dressta has been changing distributorships where required in North America.

Tom McGonigle, president of Dressta North America, said Burress customers will be seeing a series of new models at the branches in the coming months as it redesigns to allow for the installation of Tier II and Tier III compliant engines and makes other product improvements. In addition to the crawler dozer, it manufactures crawler loaders and wheel loaders. Most recently, it introduced its M series line of 74- to 10-hp (55 to 75.3 kW) crawler dozers.

Dressta machines are manufactured in Poland. CEG Staff