Blue Mountain Equipment (BME), Stihl distributor for Texas and Oklahoma, celebrated the opening of its new distribution center on September 10, 2010, which included dealers from Texas, Oklahoma, employees, vendors, and Stihl Inc. personnel. Special guests included Stihl President Fred Whyte, Vice-President Peter Burton, and Jackson D’ Armond, Marketing Communications Manager. Company founder, Don Crader, and family were also in attendance.

BME is the sister company to Crader Distributing Company in Marble Hill, Mo. Crader Distributing Co., founded in 1944, began selling Stihl in the late 50s and became a distributor for Stihl in 1960. The Crader family is currently celebrating four generations in the business, and 2010 commemorates their 50th year distributing Stihl products. Crader Distributing Co. is the oldest independent Stihl distributor in the U.S.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary, Fred Whyte, on behalf of the Stihl family from Germany and Stihl Inc., presented to the Crader family a fully operational 50-year-old Stihl tractor. Stihl produced tractors, sold only in Europe, during the 1950s and early 60s.

The new BME facility, located adjacent to the Collin County Regional Airport in McKinney, Tex., doubles the size of its previous facility at 108,000 sq. ft. The project started in October 2009 and was completed in July of 2010. The first floor of the office is 8,000 sq. ft., and is dedicated primarily to dealer technician training and a service shop. The second floor provides offices for order entry, customer service, inventory control, merchandising, and sales and marketing.

32,000 sq. ft. of the 92,000 sq. ft. warehouse is climate controlled. The warehouse also features four 24’ BA ceiling fans, insulated roof, indoor motion sensor lighting, low EE rated windows, 12 truck docks, 11 picking/packing stations, 35′ tall ceilings, and will hold over 10,000 pallets of Stihl product.

Blue Mountain Equipment first opened in Dallas in 1988. When BME outgrew the original facility, it moved to McKinney, Tex. in 1996. A warehouse expansion was completed in 2000, but only a few years later, thanks to efforts of its independent dealers, there was a need for a larger building. The new facility on Airport Drive is located on 10 acres, is 108,000 sq. ft., and has room to add an additional 70,000 sq. ft. in the future.

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