Brandeis Machinery & Supply Company of Louisville, Ky., and its sister company, Power Equipment Company of Knoxville, Tenn., have joined the growing number of distributors of Kleemann Inc. USA aggregate processing equipment.
As distributors of Kleemann equipment, Brandeis and Power Equipment join Columbia Crushing & Screening, Portland, Ore., handling California, Oregon and Washington State; McHale Inc., Windsor Locks, Conn., serving Connecticut, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and Pennsylvania; and D&L Equipment, Jackson, Mich., serving Michigan, Ohio, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico.
Now Brandeis, which operates in Kentucky and Indiana, and Power Equipment, which operates in Tennessee, eastern Arkansas and northern Mississippi, represent all Wirtgen Group lines of construction equipment. Brandeis celebrated the centennial of its founding this year, and Power Equipment was 62 years old in 2008. Both are subsidiaries of Bramco Inc. of Louisville.
“In September 2007 we began representing Wirtgen milling machines, Vögele pavers, and Hamm compactors,” said Charles Leis, president of Bramco, and CEO of both Brandeis and Power Equipment. “This year we added the Kleemann line. For a long time we have had a keen interest in the aggregates industry, having sold a lot of products to it. As an avenue of growth we wanted to not only sell product that will move the rock within the plant, but also that will crush and process it. That led our interest to the Kleemann line, which will give us an opportunity to expand our business among our existing customer base.”
Kleemann’s mobile crusher line is of great interest to Brandeis and Power Equipment, Leis said.
“Their innovative mobile crushers are exciting to us and will be to our customers,” Leis said. “With the high cost of fuel — our current break notwithstanding — it makes sense to be able to crush at the face, where you are blasting and fragmenting the rock, rather than hauling it to a stationary crusher. And with the mobiles, you can move the crusher as you mine your way through the quarry. It’s the wave of the future, and we wanted to be on board with a company that has a great reputation in mobile crushers.”
That Kleemann is part of the Wirtgen Group also played a part in Brandeis/Power Equipment’s taking on the Kleemann line.
“It was the dominant factor in our decision,” Leis said. “I trust the senior management of Wirtgen Group. We share their vision and their outlook for the future. All of their product lines are high-quality lines, and I have no reason to believe that Kleemann would not be also.”
